I feel like everyone here is trying to rip everyone off. I'm paying at least $5 to do my laundry as I write this. It's $9 for a six-pack of craft beer brewed a block away from me.
Worst of all, my landlords want $30 per night for visitors. Oh, hey, scratch that whole, "Come visit me in this beautiful place!" thing unless you're rich. Scratch the whole idea of having a smooth summer with my girlfriend despite being 6 hours apart and each of us having to spend more money than we can afford just to get to the other. How the hell does $30 per night stack up to "defray the costs of cleaning"? Delusional. Things are going to get real miserable real quick between my landlords and I if there's no room for compromise.
I've been trying to put together a post about my initial impression of the people who populate this island and I just can't get past this overwhelming sense of people trying to make a quick buck at the cost of decency and sense. It seems like a lot of folks here are trying to get away with the laid-back, cool islander image when they're really scheming as many ways as they can to gouge tourists and probably their own year-round kind.
Take my bike repair, for example. The shop was manned by a bleach-blond, surfer kind of dude and an all-smiles Brazilian guy. The place was empty on Sunday morning and they were all about fixing my bike and helping me out. New tape on the handlebars (which they conveniently omitted was $18 and I had to spy for myself), air in the tires, new dinky reflectors and not much else came up to $45. They charged $25 for labor to work on it for 20 minutes. Prime example of people here acting laid back until the check rolls around, when you find out you've been screwed. Landlords were the same way. No mention in the lease of $30 per night, no mention of it being a "rooming house, not an apartment," as I was bluntly told this morning. But, oh yeah, there were plenty of smiles when I first viewed the apartment -- oops, rooming house, sorry! -- plenty of faux, laid-back vibes emitted from the landlords, and the promise of a new patio on the roof which, shucks, turns out that on move-in day, that whole shebang didn't quite happen. Sorry if the roof thing was a big selling point for you, along with the allure of such a beautiful place for your family and friends to come visit! Oh well, enjoy your stay, thanks for the ludicrous chunk of change. We'll be laughing all the way to the bank while we devise other ways to rip you off and inflict misery on your otherwise lovely summer.
In a foul mood. Out on the bike with my eyes peeled for a better blog to write.
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I have to say I was kind of getting that vibe from some of the landlords I talked to on the phone in the past few months, that whole "if you don't take it, someone else will" attitude. Fine, someone else is welcome to it, my friend. I was also warned by a couple of natives to beware of some of the grocery stores that inflate prices to take advantage of their prime locations and/or hungry tourists. For people who are working full-time, $30 a night isn't bad at all, but when I was in college, that would have been the sun and the moon. Lord, I only made $100 a week at the school paper! Anyway, I hope things work out better for you. Maybe when I get there in two weeks we can cook up some innovative ways to gouge the locals for our services; turnabout is fair play, they say!
ReplyDeleteHey all,
ReplyDeleteSorry if this post brought you out of the Wonderland I've been painting till this point, but this is reality, and it's frustrating. I was in a clothing store buying black shoes for my restaurant job and had gotten pretty chatty with the salesperson, so I decided to explain my rotten mood to her by saying, "My landlords want $30 per night for me to have guests." She immediately clammed up, just said, "Oh," and terminated all conversation. Surprise surprise. They know how pervasive swindling is down here and probably turn a blind eye to it -- if they're not indulging in it themselves.
James -- Sounds about right. I'm glad you worked something out and you'll be here soon, and I'm glad you won't be coming in with a healthy dollop of naivety as I did. Although I expect to make good money here, I just graduated and need to SAVE money, not splurge it on outlandish prices to have a small piece of home here on the island for a weekend. Anyway, looking forward to your arrival and chatting movies with you!
That is such bullshit. How will your landlord know if people stay there?
ReplyDeleteJess