In honor of the Mad Max movies, which once upon a time used to be some of my favorites, I figured the title suits the purpose. Not completely, of course, since we're not living in the same kind of dystopian world just yet. But let me explain...

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Things are just not always perfect - Even in Paradise

So first of all, I am literally working around the clock. I just started a new job three weeks ago, three weeks of training.
It's a sales job on the phone, and at first I thought that there was only a 50% chance that I would actually be any good at it, since I hate talking people into buying things, it turns out not to be so bad. I started this job because my AI job is just not as reliable, and I needed a more reliable income. With this, I have a (small) basic income plus commission. With the commissions being unlimited, more or less. Either way, it helps.
But then, of course, when it rains it pours, and while I was in training, suddenly my AI job also gave me lots of work. Since I didn't want to miss out on that, I pretty much worked 12 to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's all for a good cause though and it's not forever.

What it does do though, is that now I hardly have any time for other things, so the household and the laundry, and not even to speak of the kids, are suffering. Last week I decided that 6 days of this craziness is enough, and that I will take one day off so we can spend some money and do fun things. I don't think I've cooked more than a few eggs in these past few weeks. It's easy food and take-outs mostly. Luckily, the taqueria around the corner will only cost me around 200 pesos ($12 US) to feed the family. It's well worth it in my opinion. Lots of tacos haha.

This work-around-the-clock has another side effect...
It's making me a little less patient, and a little more mad quicker. Don't worry. Nothing to do with the kids, but everything with my landlord...

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Patience is running thin

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I used to have quite a bit of patience with her. Truly. I mean, I waited patiently for more than a year until she finally found someone to replace two screen windows in my daughter's bedroom.
Until then, she could only open one of said windows, which makes life in tropical Playa del Carmen pretty unbearable...

There are many of those instances, but then again, she's been patient with me too in the past, so these are things that are forgivable.
However, what I am having a hard time with is with the fact that she believes that I'm stupid.
She lies and cheats, and there is really no telling when she's ever telling the truth.
She tells me stories and I wonder if I should feel sorry for her or despise her for it.
One of those stories, for instance, is that she failed to pay the insurance for her son's BMW.
The apple of her eye then went ahead and crashed his precious Beemer. Luckily the boy wasn't injured, but his car and the car of the other person were. Not an issue usually, but in Mexico, if you have an accident in a car, they automatically take you to jail. Not fun! And aside from that, they now had to pay a 100k pesos fine for not having insurance.
Like I said, it's a BMW, so no need to feel sorry for them. She has money, for sure. I know where she lives. But the issue with it is that whenever she faces money trouble like this, she'll do her very best to somehow get it from her tenants.

Directly or indirectly.

I'll give a few examples. I still owed 1800 pesos for an internet bill in her name because I changed to a different provider, and had failed to let her know to cancel it in time. That's on me. However, she then went to threaten me by telling me I had to pay it TODAY (this was the beginning of the week) or she'd charge me 30% extra, even though the internet company isn't charging extra.
Funny lady who thinks I'd fall for that. I took my time and paid it when I had it. Not a minute earlier.

Another one of those tricks: I have a new neighbor after the house next door was empty for 6 months.
Just before he moved in, she warned me not to discuss how much rent I'm paying because, and I quote: 'Otherwise I will have to charge you more.'

Uhmmm, nope. You can't do that.

I signed my contract in March and there's no way you can implement a rent raise until my year is over. You can always try, though, right? The thing is though, that before she mentioned it, I had no reason to discuss rent with the new neighbor, but now it got me curious. What is she hiding? 🙃

The next thing was the trick with the pool. We have a common pool between the both of us. Since our pool cleaner quit last year, my old neighbor and I were both getting 500 pesos off our rent because we were maintaining the pool instead of him.
All well and good. Until she moved out and I told land lady that now she should give me another 500 pesos discount, since I was now the only one taking care of the pool. Her answer was that my family are the only ones using the pool...
So I told her: 'Well, then I wish you luck getting a pool cleaner and only paying him half, because there's only one family using it...' So low and behold, she gave me another 500 discount.
It's not much really, because the pool needs maintenance every day and I'm now also paying for the chemicals. Those alone are around 500 a month.
But here comes the killer: She recently complained about the state of the pool.
She was right, it was in a bad state, simply because the pump broke and it's 34 degrees Celsius. Hard to keep up with the pool that way. Furthermore, the neighbors out back decided to build an extension, and all their dirt falls into the pool now. No fun!
So now she threatened to hire a new pool cleaner, but I'd have to pay the full rent, plus 500 extra, because now, all of a sudden, the pool cleaner charges twice as much...
Another dud though, because it's in my contract that there should be a pool cleaner, so she can't just decide to charge me more.
And then she told me: 'It's what the neighbor pays.'
So basically, they are paying her 1500 pesos for a pool cleaner, but I'm the one cleaning the pool.
Isn't that hilarious?
Now it started to dawn on me why she didn't want me to discuss rent with them...

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The Water Issue

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Above all, there is an issue with the water. We really didn't have proper water for more than two weeks since we moved into the house February last year. I didn't care then, because at least we had a roof. But after months and months of the same, it gets annoying.

First it was an issue with the provider. Not her fault. But she also wasn't going to help to solve it. My Spanglish is limited, so the water company people hung up on me several times.
It took months, and we were actually completely without water for 3 weeks until they finally came to fix it.

Then, because the pump had been sucking air instead of water, it broke. Or it didn't. I'll never know because a 'helpful' neighbor had a stranger come and take it, never to return...
I even paid him 600 pesos for taking my pump.
Luckily, the landlord replaced it after some arguing. She could have easily pinned that on me, but she didn't. So there's something to be grateful for. She's not a complete witch after all.

A few weeks ago, my pressure tank started leaking and spraying water from the top. She first tried to tell me that was on me. There's no way in hell I was going to pay 5000 pesos or more to renovate her house for her with a new pressure tank...
So sure, she sent her two idiots to fix it. These guys do little jobs for her, and they do them well, but they are not plumbers. They are the kind of guys to fix things with tape and leave things out to give it a cheap fix.

So they left out the pressure tank. Ensuring me that it wasn't needed and the little 600 peso pump from Home Depot which they installed on the roof would do the trick.

And it did - for 1 day.

No water again. They came back and gave it another fix.

This time, it lasted 2 days.

Then another fix, which lasted a whole 5 days until no water came through again.
When I told her about this, she answered that she'd done enough, and it was now up to me.
So I informed her that if she hires people who do a shitty job, that they will have to fix it, not me.
She enquired if I was a plumber...No, I'm not a plumber because if I was, I'd fix it myself.

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But you really don't have to be one to know they did a shitty job.
To the fact that they put cables outside and stuck them together with tape, she told me to add more tape 'just to be sure'. Uhm yeah, because that will definitely* hold during the rainy season.
By now, I'm almost hoping for a good storm to take down this house.
Without us in it, of course. It won't though, because it's hanging together with screws, tape and bad plumbing, so it will probably hold up in a storm...

This will definitely hold...😟

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Anyway, because I listened to another plumber I had before, I knew a short fix for the problem. There was an airlock and I can fix that.

However, if the airlock keeps happening, something is wrong.
So yesterday, we weren't home for a few hours, and when we came back, there was no water. The pump doesn't come on, so chances are that it was dry running and now we need a new pump.
The plumber can't come till tomorrow or Monday, so we're using water from bottles we fill at the neighbor's house. Lovely!

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The Solution

There is a serious issue here. Not everywhere in Mexico but here in Playa anyone who's not local is treated as a Gringo. Complete with gringo tax.
We pay more for housing than our Mexican neighbors would.
A lot more.
So moving is not always an option.
I was lucky with this place, and if you read the above, you'll probably laugh about that statement. Anyway, since I now have a job I can depend on, once I start making real money, we're moving.
I'm hoping to Baja California, but it's looking we'll have to go through one more move here first.

And guess what?

Since she decided that the new pump should be on me,

I will be taking it with me...

And if you thought this post has quite some twists and turns, just wait for the next one, because it will have you shaking your head in disbelief and jaws wide open.

Till then, enjoy the weather.