Hannah

Victoria, my sometimes ally in the apartment, is moving out at the end of the summer. She graduated in June and is starting the 9 – 5 phase of her life. I’m really bummed because she was so sweet–helping me clean, lending me random costumes for the themed parties, good roommate things.

She found a girl on Craigslist who was interested in the smaller single in our apartment. The new girl, Hannah, came to the apartment to take a look at the room, fell in love with it, and interviewed for us. She seemed really quiet and responsible when we spoke to her, so we agreed to add her to the contract as a subletter. I took care of the paperwork (surprised?), which was a fiasco having to mail it back and forth between us, Hannah, and our landlord several times.

Anyway. Hannah was to take over Victoria’s lease on August 15th. Sarah is vacationing with her family in Asia that week, Victoria and Jules are moving out, and I’m doing overtime at work to launch a new application, so it would be a very hectic week for us to help Hannah move in. I explained the situation to Hannah, hoping we could work a different arrangement out.

“Hey, Hannah. Since none of us are going to be around for sure to give you keys and help you get settled in, would it be okay if you waited a couple days before moving in? Say, the 20th when Sarah will be back for sure?”

“If you guys don’t let me move in until the 20th, I’d like my rent prorated for the days I’m not living the apartment,” Hannah said flat out.

“Hannah,” I started out sweetly, “the landlord is not going to prorate your rent for five days when there are three of us already living in the apartment. It’s just a matter of timing!”

“Well, then I’d like you guys to reimburse my rent for the days before I’m allowed to move in.”

Ugh. I don’t want to deal with this tightwad right now. “All right, all right. We’ll figure out a way for you to move in on August 15. Please get the entire rent amount to me ahead of time.”

This does not bode well for new roommate relations.