Mystery solved

The mystery of the urine smell on the third floor of my building was finally solved on Monday, and the smell was not due, as I had decided, to the broker that I loathe peeing in the stairwell on his way out as yet another way of being the most terrible person on earth. I should explain further.

A month or so prior to the end of a lease in a Manhattan apartment, brokers (who have keys to the apartment) have the right to start stopping by unannounced and at random any time they have clients to whom they want to show the apartment. So because the lease is up in my current apartment as of September 1, and I moved in on August 1 and didn't start working until August 10, I’ve seen A LOT of brokers and their clients. This was obviously extremely annoying and deterred me from ever sleeping in, as I knew I would just have my bedroom door opened by strangers at odd hours of the morning, which is (shocking, I know) not really my preferred method of being awakened. So I resented these brokers for obvious reasons, but there was one in particular whom I absolutely could not stand, and I will describe him now. He's probably 24, 5'3", consistently dressed like a homeless person (his uniform was basically a white wifebeater and black basketball shorts that fit him like gaucho pants. Ridiculous.), was always wearing headphones, and was the rudest and most inconsiderate little man EVER. And all of this while he was WORKING. So anyway, right, so I decided to blame the horrible smell on him, and to be honest, I'm a little disappointed he's been exonerated.

So, returning to the real culprit behind the smell, a hoarder was living on the 3rd floor of my building, and he had cats. Enough said. I came home after work on Monday to find that the usual smell had spread, and there was a trail of garbage and other odds and ends (books, VHS tapes, etc) littering the stairwell and leading down to a HUGE, already-full dumpster on the street outside my building. The man hadn't left the apartment in more than two years and had to be forcibly removed on Sunday by the CDC.

Anyway, things are good otherwise! Job is great, I'm moving out of this place next week, I’m excited about my new apartment and roommates, New York is fantastic, and I don't have a debilitating need to hoard things! Life is good.