My Love Affair with Berkeley and How to Survive Natural Selection in the Modern World

Hunter and I arrived back into Long Beach late last night after spending 2 full days exploring Berkeley.  We both fell in love with it instantly.  I have to admit, I was starting to get a little nervous in regards to my disdain for the Orange County/L.A. area.  I was beginning to wonder if it was more a symptom of my own inability to find contentment rather than an honest assessment of who I am in relation to the world around me.  I felt more at home up north, walking around the streets of Berkeley, than I ever did in Long Beach.  

It's kind of strange how different northern California is.  The dead palm trees that shed their skin along the streets are replaced with huge, sweeping trees, covered in rich shades of green.  I was amazed by how clean the city was and by how everything was in walking distance of one another, unlike the cities surrounding Long Beach, where everything takes at least 35 minutes.  The Bay area also has great public transportation, which I'm really excited about, since driving and parking in major cities is quite a liability.  On top of that, I was amazed at how kind everyone was.  It took me off guard after spending the past 3 years down here where the vainglorious sourness of its people have left me a little jaded and bitter.   Any how, I'm very excited.

We checked out an apartment near the campus that had been lived in for the past 6 years by a bachelor musician who very well had never washed a dish a day in his life.  There was literally food running down the inside of the kitchen cabinets.  I can't understand how people can let themselves get to that point.  There was a bowl of black pasta in the sink and I still am not sure if it was black on purpose or if it evolved into that color after sitting out for months on end.  The landlord told us that they were going to do a bunch of work on the place, including install hardwood floors and replace the kitchen and bathroom tile.  When he told us that, mine and Hunter's mood towards the apartment changed instantly.  We started to get a better image of what the place could be.  But when he told us he would need the deposit immediately I got a little nervous, seeing that there was no guarantee the work would be done and we would not be able to see it before we moved in.  So we went home and did some research on the properties management company that he worked for and it turns out the family that runs it (take note, in case anyone is thinking about moving up to Berkeley, the name of this company is Everest Properties) has gotten in various levels of trouble for Human Trafficking, Sexual Molestation of Minors, and there was also a death in one of their units due to carbon monoxide poisoning.  I then yelped the company and read about 30 of the most awful reviews I have ever read about them from past tenants.  Even after that, Hunter called the guy and asked about lease flexibility and the landlord hung up on him.  So that answers out question.  But we are remaining hopeful.  I'm just grateful we never put down any money.  Thank God for Yelp!  I don't know how people survived on instincts alone before the Internet came along.  I suppose prior to the web, lousy instincts were a form of population control.  Maybe Yelp alone is the reason this country is so overpopulated.  Too many people are avoiding shady situations that would normally be a threat to their safety and financial security.  Charles Darwin would have renounced the entire Yelp movement due to it's fortuitous nullification of his theory on natural selection.  Oh well, I would have been the first to go, not necessarily because I have no instincts, obviously this apartment situation proves that I do, but simply because I doubt myself too much to actual use them.  So Darwin can kiss my ass. . . .oh and so can Everest Properties, but I think that's what got them into trouble in the first place.