[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Putty does dry out and pull away like that. You might want to replace it with silicone instead.

hm, okay, i'll look into that tomorrow when i go to the hardware store, thanks.

Now I understand why you don't want to move, despite the SHUMS and the flooding. Is rent controlled like that all over France, or just in Paris, or what?

i wouldn't say "don't want to move" but rather "am in the material impossibility of moving for the foreseeable future."

rents : some appartements have very old leases which are called "loi 48" which means they are crazy cheap, but they are getting fewer and fewer and you have to basically inherit one (as soon as the lease is broken, the rent is "adjusted" to local market values). my rent is not "controlled" so to speak but i have a lease about 10 years old (it's renewed automatically every 3 years if nobody breaks it by registered letter), and it's illegal to increase the rent more than a certain percentage on an ongoing lease per year. i do tremble every renewal year for the 3 months until the deadline because i'm always afraid the owner will wake up and want to redo the lease completely, with a higher rent. all the appartments in the building that have been rented out since the new owner arrived are rented for about double what i pay. the fact that i don't leave (so he can rent my appartment for double...) drives him crazy. to get back at me, he refuses to fix up my place outside of the bare minimum what he is required to do, and every time it's a war when i call him (so i avoid that as much as possible). the problem is, along with my building, *all* the rents in paris doubled over the past 10 years ; it was the big real estate boom. it's insane. luckily the rents are starting to level off and hopefully go down soon because the bubble finally broke (it had too ; it was materially impossible to inflate it anymore, because NOBODY could afford to pay rents that high).

Originally Posted by Lady Blue

There is never a GOOD time for things like that to happen.

true.

If you weren't on the 4th floor, maybe you could tack, nail, tape or otherwise attach a tarp (heavy plastic sheeting) over the outside of the window covering all the possible openings so it doesn't happen again (until you can find and fix just what the problem is that caused the leak in the first place.

actually i was thinking of that, but i don't see any way to do it from inside.

Hope you can dry out quickly and nothing actually gets ruined beyond repair.

thanks. me too.

Originally Posted by tirsales

:hug zelda:
Bad housing is a major pain in the a**...

thanks tirsales. you are absolutely right, it is. hopefully someday i'll live in a better building than this one.