Nicotine Ned

So I met my next door neighbor last night. Turns out he used to be the occupant of this very studio apartment, but has moved to a bigger apartment. All I can say to that is if I had been the one to leave a place this dirty, I never would have admitted it to the new resident.

I hired one of my friends who cleans to come clean the bathroom for me. She did a great job, especially considering the 'Before' picture. It took her an hour to clean a space that is about twelve square feet (if even). Meanwhile, I worked at cleaning the window ac unit. The entire the was COATED in nicotine. Who would've guess that under all that yellow was gray plastic? While we're cleaning (with the front door open. The sole window has an ac/heater unit, and does not open), Mr. Next-Door-Neighbor saunters over and says, "I'm sorry you have to clean that motherf***r. They gave me a week to move out, and I work 53 hours a week, so I just couldn't clean it." Um, excuse me, but this is not an issue of 'I didn't do the last once over to make sure the place looks okay for the next person.' This is an issue of him never cleaning the place EVER in the three years he lived here. There is a thick layer of nicotine on EVERYTHING in this apartment. Hence the reason I secretly nicknamed the neighbor 'Nicotine Ned.'

Here's a 'Before' picture for the ac unit. Disgusting, isn't it? And probably a health hazard.

Anyway, at least the bathroom is now clean, and so is the ac unit, for the most part. I will have to go back and do some more work on that. And even better, after cleaning said ac unit, much of that awful cigarette smoke smell has disappated. Sweet! I can finally stop holding my breath all the time!



Here's an 'after' picture. It still needs some more work, and probably a good dose of bleach, too. My cleaning lady friend suggested putting the car vent air fresheners in, and that is helping with the smell, too.

 
Another small thing I did to make the place look better is to paint the shelf in the bathroom. It is a little built in shelf, and is actually quite cute. Like everything else it was covered in a thick layer of dirt, dust, and nicotine, so I wiped it down, then just painted over it. I used a sample size of Martha Stewart's Sea Glass green, which I already had. You can get these sample size paints for three or four dollars, and they work great for small projects. I originally used this for  painting a chair, and still had some left over. Now I know I'm a renter, and painting this green without permission is probably not allowed, but I figure it's a small shelf, and I can paint it back to white before I move someday. After all, I have my useful new hand sander from my parents for Christmas. This thing's going to get a lot of use! Having the shelf this pretty color makes me happy. It looks so much better and brighter!

The 'before' and 'after' pictures of the shelf. I think the green really makes the shelf look cute. Doesn't the little, vintage, pink swan look adorable with the green shelf? I love it!