Moving Out - The Final Chapter, Really

I’ve been moving out of my old apartment for 4 months now.

I’d love to say that this was by design, but unfortunately, I don’t have nearly that much foresight. I can hardly plan what I’m going to have for lunch today. Soup sounds good.

I had sublet my old bedroom when I moved to Brooklyn with Jaimi. My roommate at the time – a good friend from back in the hood; a true Philly-smooth ladies’ man, Dr. Dan – would stay behind, guard the fort, and make sure our place wasn’t trashed by the college co-ed subletter.

As it turned out, she was very well behaved. So that’s the end of that story, unfortunately.

The real story is the two-fisted shit storm we were expecting upon final preparation for move-out day. This included removing a heavily constructed “temporary” wall that brought our bedroom count up to two during our time in this apartment.

As we began to plan the demolition, it crossed our minds that it would have been better for Dr. Dan and The Mill to have slept in bunk beds rather than go the arguably illicit route of installing a semi-permanent temporary wall. If that had been the case, it would have been smooth sailing right about now. And it would have been kinda like sleepover camp every night.

Apparently, there are a few companies that will install (at a premium price) an easily removable partition called a “pressure wall” - using no hot glue, plaster, chicken wire, nails, screws, or peanut butter. We were pretty sure that our Craigslist-sourced handymen used at least 4 out of the 6 when they put up our wall.

Thankfully, we had some help tearing the thing down.

A friend from college and his wife (Rich and Liz) are both architects now. And not only do they love erecting buildings, but they also love ripping shit down. They recently bought and renovated an 1880’s-era house full of asbestos and shag carpeting – so they’re still in tear-down mode.

I had imagined taking a sledgehammer to the wall for a few hours and calling it a day. Of course, that was only a dream – as of this writing, I have yet to use a sledgehammer to destroy anything during my lifetime.

But we did get to use a power saw and a crowbar. So that was pretty cool.

And in the end, with the help of two destructive architects, we were able to get the wall out of there in less than 2 hours - with barely a trace. Sure, there was a bit of damage to the apartment walls where the “temporary” wall had been attached with foot-long nails. But nothing a little spackle couldn’t fix. Or a lot of spackle. A whole lot of spackle. After 60 years of tenants repairing various holes before moving out, I bet the entire apartment building is about 75% spackle.

We still needed to repaint the place, which Jaimi and I took care of yesterday – not much of a story there.

And finally, there’s cleanup and removal of a bunch of old shit. Not sure exactly what we’re going to do with all the unwanted – and half-broken – furniture, kitchenware, and electronics.

I wish the police allowed for bonfires in the middle of New York City.

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