The Dub-Yahs

I have, for the record, been formulating part of this post in my mind for awhile now.

The apartments in our building are mainly and usually occupied by American military members. The people who lived in our house before use were a married couple with a little girl. The husband was in the Air Force. I know this because I met them. When Josh and I got married, my parents bought me a plane ticket to come visit him in Germany as a wedding present. I was able to come and see Germany/the local area for about ten days. It was a fun experience, but it also helped me to feel more prepared and less nervous about moving over here. Josh was still in temporary housing when I came over, but he had been looking for a permanent place. There were two possible places Josh deemed to be the best, and I was able to look at both of them and add my two cents while I was here (I'm VERY thankful for that). When we looked at the place which is now where we live, I liked it the best of the two. Better lay out, more room, and a better "deal" with utilities included in the rent. The wife of the married couple showed me around and gave me some great advice on different aspects of the apartment and about the land lady (she did forget to mention that the land lady spies on you). I thought she seemed nice enough. Bitter, and ready to leave Germany, but nice enough. I have over the past few weeks changed my opinion. She is still nice enough, but there are certain things that lead me to believe that she is either lazy, or dumb. Or possibly both. We found out through casual conversation with the neighbors that the former tenants names were named Walter and Whitney, a true southern couple from Georgia. Josh and I have taken to referring to them as the Dub-Yahs.

One of the first things that struck me when I walked through the door of our house when I arrived was the smell. The house smelled horrible. Part of it was just that the house didn't smell familiar. The other part of it was mildew. Our main bathroom has no windows, is solid tile, and is at the end of the hallway. The door to the bathroom sits at a weird angle, so there is basically no ventilation. This makes a nice little breeding ground for mildew. Adding to the wet stuffiness of the bathroom was the nasty, awful shower curtain hanging around the shower. It was, at one point in time, clear... I think. But when I arrived the bottom half of it was pink, turning into shades of brown in some areas. Some of you may be asking why on earth Josh would shower with such a thing. Because he is a bachelor, a man, and a military man at that. I don't even know if he realized a shower curtain was there. Getting a new shower curtain was at the top of my list of things to do - directly under scrubbing the bathroom. The advantage of having an all tile bathroom is that you can take the mop directly to the walls. The color - and amount - of stuff that came off the walls when I mopped them... well... I don't need to describe it to you. As my mom helped me to clean the bathroom... I started to wonder. Surely, by no stretch of the imagination, is Josh a good house keeper. Again, he's a bachelor, a man, and a military man. What he considers to be clean and what I consider to be clean are two very different things. I have no doubt that he greatly contributed to the gross-ness of the bathroom. However. Josh hadn't been in the house for very long (less than a month) when we got there. There is no way that amount of mildew can build up in that amount of time. As I cleaned I really began to question how cleanly the female Dub-Yah had been. These questions continued as I was able to remove some stains off the toilet and shower with just a bit of time and effort. Beyond the bathroom I've wondered about the collection of underwear and socks that were left out in the open next to the washing machine (they were pink and had princesses on them... clearly not Josh's) in a pile of dryer lint. Or the thick layer of mildew I scrubbed off of the bottom of the kitchen cabinet. Really? REALLY? Do you not see it? Or not smell it? Or... just... don't clean it up? It's not that I'm really all that clean of a person... by no means am I trying to pretend to be. If anything, if I think there's a problem with something, then it must really be bad. All of these could just be the rush of leaving... or of not caring because they were leaving. Or... maybe it IS Josh after all. But I'm still leaning towards the thinking of laziness.

I spent the weekend painting the living room/dining room areas. It is yet another thing that has been on my "to do" list from day one. The dining room was a bright pastel green (yes, it is possible to have a bright pastel) while the living room was a coordinating bright blue pastel. It looked like poorly painted Easter eggs. I am usually all about color. I love color... especially bright colors. In high school my bedroom was sponge painted with multiple pastel colors. But these colors just... weren't my taste. They really, truly looked awful, especially with the brown tile floors and wood paneled ceilings. In addition to the irritating colors, there were an abundance of nail holes. Abundance doesn't seem to do it justice. I don't know if there were holes left over from the people before the Dub-Yahs, or if they had moved their pictures around... but there were an abnormal amount of holes in the walls... and this is coming from someone who hangs a lot of stuff on the walls. In some spots there weren't nail holes so much as there were just general holes in the wall. Quarter sized holes. I'm not even sure what would cause that, or why there would be so many of them. Prior to my painting, there was a fair amount of spackling that had to be done. As I was spackling I discovered in many places where nails and screws  had been painted over. Again... why? I know it's annoying to have to remove it when you're just to have to re-hang something back in that spot, but really? You couldn't remove the nail/screw? You just painted over it? And painted over it badly. As I proceeded from spackling to taping, I was forced to see all the areas where paint had carelessly been splashed onto the tile floor or the woodwork and never cleaned up (for the record, German paint is not like American paint and it is VERY easy to clean up with soap and water, even if it dries on something). Not just little dribbles here and there, big splots and splatters... areas where the entire side of a wood door jamb are painted green. Why? Did you not tape? Obviously... But is it really that hard? Especially when you add in the fact that the land lord buys the paint as well as rollers AND a roll of tape. Really? It is just hard to imagine someone being so lazy.

Whenever something around the house is broken, fixed/patched badly, or is filthy... we have the habit of saying "Damn Dub-Yahs." In reality... it probably IS their fault.


The living room/dining room has now been transformed from shabby Easter egg to a warm neutral color. Once my stuff gets here and we can hang things, I think it will look homey. There is something cathartic about painting a room... a way to start over, do over. A literal clean slate. But also, marking your territory. Making something your own, setting it how you want it. I felt as I was painting over the tacky pastels and leaving behind a warm cream color that I was erasing the Dub-Yahs. Their time here was over and done, they are gone. This house, this living room, is mine now. This is my time.