Day 7: LA at Last!

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Thrifty Travel Tip #10: Call your friends ahead of time for a place to stay. Don't hesitate. Just do it.

My dearest friends and family -

We have finally reached our destination and do I have a hell of a story to share about our first night here.

We packed up our camp early in order to avoid paying the unnecessary fee for the KOA. We skipped breakfast in Needles knowing that it was too early to eat and we could get to the next town before hotel breakfast was over. We cruised through the desert, easily moving through traffic, and thankfully without any flat tires, crashes, or tickets. We did our usual routine in Barstow - making a quick stop for breakfast and then hoping back on the freeway. In less than an hour, we were entering Los Angeles County.

We were excited to finally have reached our new home; however, we hadn't quite worked out all the kinks. It was a Sunday and we were in town before noon. I didn't quite feel comfortable calling anyone. If you know my friends like I know my friends, you know it's not a good idea to call before noon.
We cruised around for awhile and I texted a few people. The first one to text back was my good friend from Miami, who I met at Stadium's Open Mic Nights. I was so glad to hear his voice.

Our first stop was Dave's. He graciously invited us into his home and showed us around th place. He set us up with internet and helped us try to find jobs and apartments. If it wasn't for Dave, we'd really be in the shit (thank you, thank you, thank you, Dave!) We called on a room in a house and decided it should be our second stop.

We left Dave's to find the house around 4, time ever so constantly slipping away from us as it has been throughout the trip. It looked nice from the outside, and it was in a fairly good location in Sherman Oaks, the city I wanted to live in. We approached it and a woman with a southern accent greeted us briefly, finishing up with a woman she was talking with before. We thought she may have been a customer from the garage sale they were having and stood patiently. 10 minutes later, she was finally ready to show us the house.

We walked into the house, our expectations high. Were we ever let down. Every room got messier and messier, dirtier and dirtier. The living room was the first one we saw - their were papers and random things scattered about but nothing we couldn't deal with. The bedroom was kept neat and actually very nice for 700, or 350 a piece. We moved into the kitchen and it was a f*cking tragedy; my worst kitchen nightmare. Gordon Ramsey would've has lost his sanity in the room I was standing in. There was a stack of literally about 30 plates in the sink, crusty, and filthy. Old salad and to go containers; I could hardly stand it. The "bar" in the next room was a barely standing hand made structure surrounded by trash ad empty bottles. And it doesn't stop there.

As we moved to the patio, we met a dog that appeared to have a mild case of mange, missing fur on it's lower back and tail. I felt bad for it but could see why it was sick. There were at least three piles of dried, stinking, dog sh*t from it and the landlords chihauhau roasting in the sun, covered with flies. There was also a broken hookah and a ratty old couch that smelled like horses. She showed us a cottage that she offered to rent for 1000; it was also unsurprisingly filled with crap.

Although the house was undeniably filthy and somewhere we wouldn't dream of living in, the people seemed okay. They seemed as though they wanted to help and asked if we needed a place to stay for the night. She showed us an empty room with a bare mattress that was actually kind of clean and we had nowhere else to stay since Dave was going to Pasadena for the night. We agreed to come back and stay after dinner, just for one night. Biggest mistake of the trip.

After dinner we returned to see one of the housemates standing outside. He chatted with us and we found out, as Dustin suspected, the "house sale" had been going on for three weeks. He continued to tell us about his work in the entertainment business and followed us into the house. I picked up on a few strange interactions between our hostess, who was originally sleeping on the couch when we came in. The first was that the tenant offered us some beer and we in return opened a bottle of wine in the car. There isn't anything weird about that, I know; the weird thing was that he said he didn't like to drink in the house and that he'd rather drink outside. We declined but went to his room. The second was that baout ten minutes later our hostess hollered to him that if he shut the door he wouldn't have to whisper. He didn't respond in any way; in fact, Dustin shut the door himself.

Our new friend invited us to the bars and who were we to turn him down? We wanted to see the city and we planned on entering our room directly from the back door as though not to disturb out hosts. We were all set for our first night in the city... then right before we left, our hostess said sh needed to speak with us in private. We knew we were in the shit then.

What ensued after is hardly worth typing out. I'd hate to waste the time describing a most painful and drawn out blow up of drama building up between tenants. Basically the host told us her tenant was a liar, pervert, alcoholic, and fraud, while he tried to interrupt and get us to go out with him. We were seperated at one point: I was trying to plead my case to the hostess (we didn't know her tenant and I still can't believe she didn't warn us!) and Dustin was trying to tell the tenant we needed a place to stay and didn't want to go to the bar. In the end, I had to call Dustin to meet me in the backyard, shove him into the room, and go to bed, locking the door behind us. This was a most depressing and mortifying start to our lives in L.A.

However, I can promise the next entry will be much cheerier and far more upbeat. It was a case of really, really bad luck... on the bright side, things really only could get better from here.

We're safe, and I promise, in the future we're very happy!

Miss you all and love you so much,
L+D

PLEASE join us for the next installment, "Epilogue: The Week that Followed."

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