a tale of houses

I was scrolling through my Facebook Notes when I realised  there was actually one--only one--subject I had written about repeatedly, some five times to be exact.

Houses. The houses I've been in--their quirks, their horrors, their particular agonies. I wasn't even aware of it until today. Each one was worlds apart from the other, and the stories span five years of kaleidoscopic joys and heartbreaks. In dreams, a house symbolises the self. And just for the heck of it, I have compiled my tales of houses in this one blog post--perhaps to see how far I've come... or stayed.

(October 2009)

Moving                                                                                                            

I never thought moving into a new house could turn into a teleserye of sorts. I could fit a whole year's worth of drama into the four days of our lives so far in our new quarters.

For one, it's a much bigger monstrosity. Some 5x bigger than the first house I moved in. Just the right shape and size for real old-school melodrama.

I was given the first floor bedroom with the glass doors overlooking what's supposed to evolve into an indoor garden. I share the bath with my sweet american housemate Megan. And since we both have very meager belongings, we settled in quite quickly and efficiently while our other housemates huffed and puffed with their 3 years' accumulation of furniture, mounds of clothing and other stuff whichshallnotbenamed.

First sign that all's not well: the house is new, everything has just been put in--but the toilet bowl had some sort of design in it which Megan and I couldn't figure out.

"Are those streaks or just some design?" 

Well, I never heard of a toilet bowl with a stripey design, but to think it could be otherwise was just unbelievable!

And then followed a shout from Megan. "Sondra!!! Worms! On the toilet walls!!"

Visions of slimy thick fat worms from Slither flashed across my mind as I ran to the bathroom. I grabbed a knife just in case the aliens have really come! Oh, they were there--thin, malnourished earthworms, the kind we used to dig up and torture and chop to pieces when we were still disgustingly grubby brats. They were creeping sluggishly and very miserably along the bathroom walls (I hadn't seen them before because, of course, I am myopic). The bath was tiled, sparkling white (except for the fascinating bowl) with all the modern fixtures of a power shower-- I shuddered to think where those worms could have crawled from!

We poured Indonesian shampoo on them and hosed them down the drain and that was the end of it. We were a practical pair and weren't much given to screaming and fainting at the idea of a few scraggly worms!

And then came another shriek. From the 2nd floor. 

Oh, come on! I snatched the shampoo and marched upstairs.

My stress-loving housemate was beside herself, shaking and pointing a finger at the general direction of the bathroom (again!). Oh, okay! Here we come, E.T., I thought. Aloud, I said comfortingly: "Don't worry, sweetie, they're just worms! Anna Glanz from Iowa eats worms every 3 weeks!"

"Not worms! A man! There's a MAN in there!!!" She screeched.

A man in the upstairs bathroom?! My jaws fell open in shock.

And that's just the beginning of it.

(November 2009)

A Series of Unfortunate Events                                                                          

The drama continued and fast forwarded from bad to worse for us inmates here in The House of Horrors.

It got to the point where Stress-Lover proclaimed herself as a Cassandra —you remember that accursed woman in Greek myth who could see the future but was never believed by anyone whenever she warned them? Apparently, Stress-Lover feels a strong kinship with her lately. She’s been telling all of us from the moment she stepped into this building that the end was neigh and this creature masquerading as a house was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or something (and also sometimes alternated as the Bringer of the 7 Plagues of Egypt). But everybody just ignored her and treated her as if she was nuts-o and on the way to following her grampa (who, she told us herself, lost his mind and started eating his pants!).

Well, it turned out Stress-Lover was right all along. I myself can’t wait to get out of here. It’s not just that this evil lair steals our eggs everyday, pinches from our rice, and drinks our water (thereby putting our budget in serious risk), but it’s all the other catastrophes that kept happening one after another.

Saturday

My phone rang while I was out with Dandan. It was Stress-Lover, distraught and almost screaming over the line. “It’s the 6th plague finally!! My room is flooded! All my stuff is soaked!”

“Wait a minute—“ I cut in while she was still panting in outrage. “You’re on the 2nd floor. How on earth could it get flooded up there?”

“Haha!” she intoned without mirth. “How did your 1st floor room leak ditch water from the roof? Things happen in this house that normally never happen anywhere!” She shouted. As usual, Stress-Lover was speaking in English. She speaks 5 languages and uses English with me because she said her Tagalog is worse than mine (even though she’s Tagalog!).

“The 3rd floor pipes burst, my ceiling cracked open from the pressure and water just poured into my room! I tell you I’m so mad I could kick these workers in their unwashed balls!”

Unfortunately for them, she has been keeping a grudge against her peeping-tom workmen who—she claimed—also broke her closet and stole from our pantry (all sadly true!).

Tuesday

Stress-Lover marched grimly from her room and confronted Unnamed Housemate and me. “Have you been in my room? Who was using my room? The AC and the lights were all on when I got in and my phone is nowhere to be found!”

I instantly plugged in my earpieces. I was tired and hungry from work and not in the mood to take crap from anyone. Let U. H. deal with her. I wasn’t going to listen to any of it. Who would go into her room for chrissakes?

But someone did. We already knew we weren’t the only ones with the keys to our rooms.

Stress-Lover didn’t stay in the house that night. She went off muttering about security and not wanting to be stabbed in her sleep!

Wednesday

We no longer bothered securing our front door at night after we found out the glass doors making up one whole side of the house weren’t locked… and none of us had the key! What would be the point of bolting up?

Thursday

I came home from work. My room was open. A strange key still stuck in the lock. I gnashed my teeth and longed for someone to kick!Thankfully, they didn’t find the dead body stashed in the bottom drawers of my closet. Haha!

Friday

3rd consecutive night of power failure in Jakarta. As my housemates and I groped for our dinner, it rained. Rained hard and incessantly. I only had the flashlight in my roaming phone and it was running out of bat. Candles are not easy to find hereabouts!

A scream. From U.H.

“Help! In the kitchen!”

Water from I-shudder-to-think-where was flooding from outside into our house through the kitchen door. It rose ankle-deep in a few seconds. Too late, I remembered my room. I rushed away leaving my housemates screeching in panic because, of course, I took my flashlight and left them waddling in the flood in the dark!

Sure enough, the offending roof was gushing the same stinky water again! Worse, I heard an ominous gurgling sound and saw to my horror that it was the overflow from the indoor garden seeping into my room from the floor this time!

“Looklooklook!” ! my housemates had followed me and were now pointing up my closet. Now the whole length of the ceiling on one side was dripping water! And my closet was against that wall!

Tell me, just where do you think could all these twisted jokes possibly end up in?

(November 2009)

The Picking Order

We're finally ditching The House of Horrors.

It wasn't easy. The fight was mean and bloody. Remember--the owner of This Lair also happens to be a Big Time VIP. And--by God!--is he the type who will push even Miranda Priestly over the edge! He twists truths into pretzels. Manipulates events to suit his perspectives. He's a man who had built a charity organisation first-- then put up schools so all his connections would go to them! Lately, he's been hopping from Amsterdam to the U.S. consolidating business ties with international charity foundations. You just know a man like that eats hapless teachers for breakfast. And you just know he can't tolerate some working-class biatches rising in mutiny and declaring his precious new building unfit to live in (not to mention the millions of rupiahs he'd lose in rent!).

But there are six of us and three are--all together now--white. Crackers.

So we won.

Never underestimate the power of white skin in a colonial country.

This afternoon, we checked out the new house we're moving to. It was beautiful. There are rooms with their own baths and humongous bath tubs! There's a room with its own balcony. There's a room overlooking a garden.

The two Englishwomen got to pick first the spaces they liked. A friend got to choose hers next (she's vice-principal of the school). Stress-Lover came in third (she's been in that school for years). And I--the newbie (like the British, just not white)--I got the corner room near the entrance kissing the garage... which would have been expedient if I were a teenager scheming to smuggle boyfriends every night... but rather inconvenient for rat-chasing, worm-killing, rain-loving self-dramatizers like me.

But who knows? Life is crazy most times... and one can always reinvent oneself. The secret entrance might still prove to be their undoing. Nya-ha!

(May 2011)

The House on Haunted Lane

Would you live in a house muted with secrets?

We're moving to a new city. To a new house. Near a different workplace.

But first we had to find that house--the perfect one that's good for three, that's within walking distance from the international school we'd be teaching in, that's preferably close to the the roads and grocery stores, and most importantly, that's within our budget.

They (yes, there's always that authoritative and nameless they when you're new at something!) assured us that such houses tend to fall down trees into our laps in this city--and at an almost embarrassingly low rent compared to the ones in central Jakarta, too! They said getting the house of our dreams will be a walk in the park!

They must have had a really humongous park in mind. Because the houses bearing our specifications couldn't have fallen into our laps if we waited a hundred years! With an apologetic cough, they amended that, er... well... maybe the walk-in-the-park-house-with-ridiculous-rent happened, like, some years ago when this city was still in its birthing stage? And that...ehm... it's a bit different now that schools and businesses and malls have cropped up all over the place? But--ahem... ehem... hope is not lost yet. Dream on, ye babe in the woods. Let's look at other possibilities, shall we?

There were possibilities. Lots of them--each one like a rock bearing down on our sinking hearts. Let me see, there was:

1.  the just-finished cute little house very near the school. Furnished. Low rent. But it's only good for two.

      No way. There are three of us together in this. We can't have one curling up in the stock room for godssakes!!!

2.  a neighboring pretty house. Even lower rent. Unfurnished.

     No. We can't be buying the air conditioning units and the beds and the stove and the chairs and the...aaarrgggh... NO!

3.  another neighboring cutesy house. Semi-furnished. But the homeowners don't allow mixed genders unless they're the "sanctified" kind.

 Out of the question. We can't have the guy cross-dressing just so we can have a home and a hearth. And Angela and I are certainly not marrying him!

4.  a big house with four rooms. Semi-furnished. Reasonable distance from the school. The catch: rent's three times higher than our meager budget.

     Unacceptable. Period.

The clock was ticking. We need to find a house to move in before we fly home. We cannot delay this another day, another week, another month! My anxious dreams can't stand it anymore... so can't my gnawed-with-worry lower lip!

And then came the good news. Our agent has found a house. Oh, yes she has! And wait until you see it!

It was in a respectable and huge housing subdivision--a tree-lined, guarded, well-kept subdivision.

 Two malls and a hospital were practically right across the street. The school is either a 20-minute walk or a 5-minute ride!

 It was not that big, but not narrow or small either. It was just the right size and shape for two OCD females and one sanguine male.

 There were three main bedrooms, plus a separate one for the house help with its own toilet; two bathrooms; a living room; and a dining area leading to--dyaraaaan-- a tiny veranda overlooking a--ta-daaa--refreshingly green garden.

 It comes fully furnished.

 And the price?

It was just the exact amount we wanted. No more, no less. And--it keeps getting better-- the owner agreed to provide everything for us that was not already there: from the fridge to the washing machine to the iron and ironing board! He also threw in the water heater and a couple of forks and spoons. Hell! He'd have pitched in a cat if we asked for one!

 Our crib-to-be was still under renovation because it hadn't been rented out for some time. But the repairs and repainting will be finished two weeks before my flight home. And--as an added goodwill--the owner would allow us to move and stash our stuff in the house even before the official rent period.

 That was it. If the house had been Hugh Grant, we'd have said, "You had me at hello!" We fell in love with the porch, the veranda, the garden... and the low rent. We were grinning from ear to ear as we clinched the deal and congratulated ourselves for this find. It was the perfect house!

Wasn't it?

 At the back of my horror-movie-suspense-thriller mind lurked a not-so-joke-only question: Why does this feel like it's too good to be true? What's the hitch? Why hasn't the place been rented out before this? And why did the owner bend over backwards to accommodate our demands and our price?

 Did something happen in this house? Did something terrible... horrible... no, gory... happen in this perfect find?

 I whacked myself in my offending head and brushed the massacre-movie-melodrama aside. If something had happened in that house, it was probably years ago and I wasn't going to find out what. I've had enough worries on my mind, as it is!

Until tonight.

 ... when I got a text message from my future housemates confirming that our perfect house is indeed not as innocent as it looks!

No. A Kris Aquino act-alike did not get chopped into pieces there. This was not about blood and gore in the past.

 This was about strange happenings that make my hair stand on end even now as I read the text message. About voices calling you. About... paranormal activities.

Oh, shoot! What the fook should I do now?

(August 2014)

How to Mend a Broken House

It was love at first step. It was everything my ex-pad was not--spacious, bright, quiet, and with an indoor "garden" where a hammock and some greens would fit in nicely. It had a porch canopy perfect for smoking and sipping coffee when it's raining. I imagined my lamps softening the glow of the walls and my collection of books from home filling the off-the-rack shelves. Cozy. The bed, air conditioning and shower fixture were new. And the acoustic was just perfect for my modest speakers! Like everything else in my life before June, this house rocked big time.

And then, it rained. Hard.

I came home to my rugs, shoes, candles, brooms and pans floating merrily on a lake that was my kitchen and living room. You'd never have thought there was a regular swimming pool growing inside by the completely dry porch and doorstep outside! And here again, my simple teacher's mind was stomped by Indonesian engineering. It seemed like the drainage pipe in the kitchen--yes, inside the kitchen!--was too small for the downpour, and so the water overflowed. Of course. 

The next day, I had to chase out (with a wet broom) a spotty frog hopping  gaily around my kitchen floor. He was no prince like 95.5% of the male species, and right then and there I knew my short-lived love affair with my house was over. 

My former love started to show other cracks besides, proving itself to be truly unworthy of my passion past. The faucets dripped; the kitchen sink plumbing leaked; two light bulbs exploded one after the other; the AC took all the patience of saints and martyrs to cool; two cats staked a nightly matrimonial claim on top of my beloved canopy; and vendors started sticking pamphlets on my gate. What's more, there were no neighbor-hunks washing their cars in tight cut-off jeans on Sundays!

Don't think I haven't tried mending my broken house. I have--with all the single-mindedness of the archetypal female dominatrix. But, the house--like this country, like my heart--is too stubborn and too laid back for any kind of full-fixing. 

The funny thing is, it soon developed a sort of a reluctant charm for me. I found myself looking forward to breathing in the jasmine scent of the oils I burn every time I open its door. In the middle of work, I'd miss the music I play nightly reverberating around the house. I had gotten quite used to the odd but delightful tweeting of birds drifting from beyond the indoor garden where my rag-tag potted plants blossomed and greened as well! Somehow, I feel comfortable wherever I sit or lie in this house. Somehow, I find myself surprisingly smiling sometimes... no, most times... because I like the way my familiar things fit in it--and cushion my hurts.

The house, like most people, has its hidden charms in spite of the cracks. The house, like most of us, keeps a secret strength and warmth in spite of its imperfections. It is there if one has but the patience and grace to see. 

This house and you? You might be soul sisters/blood brothers in a tale told at an angle to reality.

                                                      *****
(I also realised I had never written anything about three other houses I've moved in. I know why. But that is for another tale.)