Intro to your next tenant

Finding an apartment in this economy is quite a challenge, seemingly anywhere in the world today. I've spent a lot of my life searching for a place to live. I've moved 10 times in my life: Barnaul, Novosibirsk student dorm, Berlin Kreuzberg, Berlin Wedding, Berlin Charlottenburg, Berlin Friedrichshain, Berlin Prenzlauer Berg, Amsterdam Lelylaan, Amsterdam Plantage Kerklaan, Amsterdam Plantage Middenlaan and the last place we landed with my Huzzy is Amsterdam de Pijp. 11 places in general. Feels quite unreal when I write this, but I've really moved so many times. Anywhere, it was quite a pain in the ass to find a place to live.

When we moved to Amsterdam, Huzzy has done such a great job searching for a place to live for us, but we stuck in Amsterdam Plantage Kerklaan apartment we didn't like. Funnily enough, when we moved out, the landlord refused to return the deposit, and we had to sue him, it was quite a test for our new home country and it's legal system. We were helped by the local tenant support organizations and the city even paid for our lawyer, which was a great relief.

Months and months of painful waiting, and we finally got to a court with that motherfucker. We arrived in a nice and modern building in the south of the city and met our lawyer for the first time in person. She reminded us of Elsbeth Tascioni from "the Good Fight" and "the Good Wife" series: weird, obviously ADHD and a little bit messy, but smart and charismatic. We fell in love immediately. We found our room in the building and spotted the landlord sitting there alone on the bench in front of the entry into the room the court was about to happen in. Our translator, who arrived quickly after, asked us if we wanted to greet him, but I was so fed up with his bullshit that I had neither patience nor the good will to even look at him.

Even more disgusting was the fact that he was actually gay and lives with his husband in the city, and we stayed in their property for some time while they were travelling in Brazil, where the landlord's husband comes from. They told us they didn't want to rent the apartment to anyone straight because the apartment was filled with various artifacts of gay culture, naked men were literally on every surface. It was not tasteless, it was tastelessly put together. They told us it was good luck, but although we cleared up that we would be able to leave earlier if wanted, that didn't stop them from pretending none of that ever happened. People can be pathetic when money is involved.

We got into the courtroom and I figured immediately that the judge didn't like us. She measures the entire gang with her condescending look and asked the lawyer something in quite aggressive Dutch. In the very opposite, her looks of solidarity towards the landlord were filling the room. She identified with him: boomer, sits there alone exploited by the dirty, shameless expats taking away the thing the Dutch hold dearest to their hearts - money.

So sitting started and I immediately knew we were in trouble. She bullied our lawyer and I saw it was nothing less but a generation fight. Boomers vs Millennials. Old vs new. Past vs future. Wrong vs right. She pushed and pushed, and at a certain point, she started asking me and the Huzzy questions about the case. She was unsatisfied with everything, our defense, the translator who was also in our age and us. At some point, she made a very rigorous face and told our lawyer to take us out and explain the problem. We went on out, and she explained that the judge was convinced that the landlord was right because it was a limited contract, which is absolute bullshit because the term didn't match the corresponding condition in the law. We prepared the statement and went in. The judge asked me what we had to say.

The camera rolls on, I like Alicia Florrick collected myself and in my best English slowly and distinctively was the old cunt in the eye and said everything we had to deliver. We went on then:

"Do you insist on that?" she said.

"Yes" I answered coldly.

"But you can lose." she answered in English.

"But we can win" I replied.

Her face expressed a mixture of disdain and annoyance, and I figured that we might lose this one. The sitting finished, she said the decision might take longer than usual because of the high load, and we left out of the courtroom. Our lawyer had the same impression, and we then told her that we would be ready to appeal. We were devastated.

I was crushed that this newly found solidarity between the landlord and the judge might jeopardize our entire case, and that reminded me so much of Russia. We started out in the country only to find out that there was no justice for us here. No justice because we were gay in Russia, no justice because we were Russians in Germany, and here is no justice because we are too young. Fuck that! I said I won't give up so easily. And had to wait again.

Days were passing by until one day I was masturbating the keyboard again and Dima slipped into my working room and started screaming: "We won! We won! We won!". I couldn't believe it. I was too quick to judge, I've made conclusions too quickly. The Bookkeeper, who is a recognized lawyer in Russia told right away, that you would be never be able to read a professional judge and what she probably wanted was a settlement, so she won't have to write the court decision.

I was so relieved and elevated, and I tell you: never give up as early, let the axe fall first.

As a bonus material: check out our application for our apartment in Plantage Middenlaan. Ady is quite a marketing genius, isn't she?