The following story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and to keep me from being dragged through the courts.

It was the fall of “76. (1976, that is.) We were newlyweds. We moved into a very small apartment. How small was it? The rent was eleven dollars a month.

By the summer of “77, (1977, that is) we had outgrown our little apartment. Actually, I had bought a pair of socks and had no place to put them. That’s when we looked into getting a larger apartment.

I was going to miss our petite place of residence with its little shower stall, a.k.a. closet, a.k.a. pantry, a.k.a. family room.

We found a new place overlooking the river with breathtaking sunrises and ample room for lots of socks. My wife decorated our new garden apartment beautifully, with floor length drapes, flanking the window that overlooked the river with breathtaking sunrises. (I know I said that already. I’m just trying to get you into the mood for what happened next.) Our delightfully decorated dwelling turned into The Armageddon Apartment! (Lightning! Thunder!)

The first rain caused the interior walls to get soaked, which caused the molly bolts, holding the curtain rod that held the drapes which covered the window that overlooked the river with its breathtaking sunrises, to pull out of the wall, sending the drapes and the curtain rod crashing to the floor. (Actually, drapes don’t crash. They sort of went “whump”.)

The next rain soaked the interior walls some more which created water stains on the wall that, if I’m not mistaken, spelled the words “GET OUT!” This place made the home in Amityville look like Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

We notified the super who informed us that he would “get right on it.” That was the last we saw of him. (I understand he has been spotted several times at Graceland.)

Next, it was the attack of the fleas. We’re not sure how they got into our apartment. They very well could have been from the German shepherd upstairs, whose owner looked like she hadn’t bathed herself, or the dog, the entire time she lived there.

By the fall, sometime in November, the new super turned on the heat. However, one night, the temperature in the apartment was so hot, the little red needle on the thermostat had disappeared. It seems our apartment was over the heating pipes for the entire complex. They had burst, which caused the temperature and the humidity to rise to the point that we saw Vietcong skulking behind our potted plants. When we went to the super to complain, there was a note on his door, “Moved to Florida.” We spent the night in the car.

By 1978, the hardwood floors had warped because of the intense heat, a strange stain appeared on the bathroom wall, and one day, while taking a shower, I put my hand on the tile wall to brace myself while I washed my feet and my hand went through the wall. When I pulled my hand out, it was covered with crawling, black ants!

The straw that broke the camel’s back came on Labor Day weekend. We had noticed a loud hum all day Saturday and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

The question was answered late in the afternoon when, while seated in the living room, out through the holes in the ceiling light fixtures, the bathroom light fixture and the hole in the top of the window frame that overlooked the, oh, you know the rest, came a swarm of yellow jackets. (Bees, for those of you who might have thought a swarm of Century 21 real estate agents came into the apartment.)

We each grabbed a can of Raid and sprayed for our lives as they flew into the apartment by the dozens. We notified the new super, a Russian immigrant, who spoke no English. I brought him a paper cup filled with dead bees to which he smiled and said, “Da.”

The next day we found a new apartment and gave our thirty days notice at the House of Horrors. I understand, after we moved out, the apartment was rented to a Mr. S. King.