My Gaslight Theory.

What if this horrible situation with my hot water was all a hoax? What if, you know, my landlord couldn't come up with any proper grounds or didn't want to have to go through all the legal trouble inherent in trying to evict me but wanted me out? How do you get rid of a tenant that you, for whatever reason, just don't like?

I'm a messy tenant in Buford because I'm never home. There are dishes always left in the sink. Clothes everywhere. I don't really make my little train-track crackhouse into a showplace of an apartment, at least I haven't since Kacoon stopped doing her monthly cleanings of the place for low, low prices. My rent's been late. I pay the rental rate, by the way, set by the old owners of the building, and I'm not under lease so there's no real way to adjust the amount I pay. Additionally, I seem vocal about all sorts of things, like the ever-changing address of my landlord or the complete lack of a drop box for my rent check anywhere, let alone anywhere within reason.

Yesterday, while talking to Lupo, I told him about my theory behind all the recent "breaks" to my on-again/off-again hot water heater.

Brace yourselves, though, because it's a sure sign that I've seen too many old movies.

One day, right before the weekend, my landlord finds out that my neighbors, who just had a baby, are vacating the premises. (The pregnancy didn't stop my neighbor from indulging her two-pack-a-day habit on the patio, and I think the stretchmarks she got over time may have severely distorted her plethora of body art. Hey, the rent's cheap.) The girl upstairs, the one of us three tenants "grandfathered" in from when Mrs. Fricks owned the building, left the building a couple months ago.

So I was the only one left. And I'm never home. Though I was looking for an apartment, it didn't seem, I guess, like I was in any hurry.

Because I'm never home, what if my landlord decided it was time for something majorly wrong in the apartment to force my hand and force me out? Though it could look like a routine error, what if my landlord or someone were able to go in and shut down something like, oh, my hot water heater while I was gone during the day?

The first time, if it was before a weekend, I would probably not be able to get help for a couple days, right? What if, beyond that, the landlord went in, turned the hot water back on ... and then turned it off within the next couple days? How many times could I cope with continually breaking hot water before I was forced out?

I'm saying, "What if this is all a ruse?" What if he's turning my hot water on and off when I"m not there so that I wouldn't know it's not really broken?

When I'm there, I check the switches and the fuses, but how am I supposed to know the key to turning the mechanism back on?

I think my landlord might be "gaslighting" me about my hot water in order to drive me crazy and drive me out. I think he's doing it so that he can get rid of all the old grandfathered tenants not under a lease.

This all could be happening under my very nose, and I wouldn't know it.

My landlord called me yesterday after hearing from the apartment complex I applied to move into. He said I shouldn't have any trouble from him regarding the move and that he would consider our conversation my notice. I told him that I wouldn't give an official notice until I found out whether I get the new apartment. Later, while I was at the store, he called to tell me that my hot water has been fixed again and that he hoped everything would be working during my last month in the apartment.