The Importance of Due Diligence, or, Homeless in Berlin

I'm going to experiment with telling my story in reverse. Don't read this if you aren't prepared to have your faith in the unidirectionality of time shaken to its core. Okay?

I'm going to go buy sugar in a little while at the other grocery store. The grocery store near my new place doesn't seem to stock sugar. Since I was otherwise helpless, I decided to bake something for the party. I signed a cancellation of my rental contract for my new place.

Guys, it's way too hard, okay? Reverse-order may or may not be a perfectly legitimate way of telling a story, but I kind of have a headache and it's too much for me to handle.

Anyway, before I left for Moscow, I found a small room in a great location, and I signed a rental contract, whose terms called for me to pay a small amount of money each month. Then, I bought/obtained furniture items, and I schlepped them to the room. Then I left for Moscow. Then I came back, and schlepped the remainder of my belongings to the room. Then I started dreaming about how the room would look when I had assembled my furniture and painted. And then I started looking at the walls. And I noticed that the wallpaper didn't actually stick to the walls. So I started tearing the wallpaper off in enormous strips, and discovered water damage and mold.

Anyway, I really should have examined the walls before signing the contract. Because I didn't, I am now more or less homeless in Berlin. I have friends I can stay with, but all my belongings are basically inaccessible, because they are in an enormous pile outside of mold-room which I can't really sort through without blocking access to the bathroom.

I don't know how I'm going to find a new place. My was-going-to-be roommate, Maria, is trying to cancel her rental contract, but it's unclear if she is within her rights to do so, because only one room in the apartment is uninhabitable. If Maria manages to cancel the contract, we may try to find another place together. It is sometimes easier to find a whole apartment than just a room, and anyway it would be more convenient if we could rent a car together for the move. If she doesn't manage to cancel the contract, I will search the same way I searched last time. Which was awful.

But at least I took some aspirin for my headache. And now I'm going to buy some sugar.