Landlords Without Boarders.

Wow. There are a lot of shitty apartments in Portland, Maine. And it feels like we've seen them all in the past few days. All were two or three bedroom places priced between $1,000 and $1,350 per month: not top dollar in Portland, but not bottom dollar by any means. All were advertised either in the local paper, craigslist or just by a sign in the window. Most were either on the peninsula, near downtown or out by the University.

So let's see... there were three apartments that looked out onto gas station parking lots, one that had been painted black and pink by this weird African dude named Lado (the bathroom ceiling was also collapsing), one with laundry machines in a basement accessible only from the outside of the house, one next door to a Midas muffler shop on a busy street and four with dropped styrofoam ceilings (one of these with florescent office lights built in).

Then there was the basement apartment or "sub-dwelling" that the happy-go-lucky landlord "sometimes" occupied a part of. I recognized this man from the night he almost backed over me with his SUV in front of that very apartment as I walked my dog. He had yelled "Why don't you try wearing some other color besides black, moron!"

There was the place where we'd have to mow the lawn ourselves, the place with a loud common stairway above the only place a bed could go, the place that we'd need to flush out the furnace water every 30 days and the apartment with the bedroom looking out onto a home for mentally retarded adults. That place had a sweet non-functional fireplace and a landlord with a dyed mustache who lived upstairs.

There was an apartment that, during the day, always had a stretch Hummer parked in front, as there was a neighbor who moonlighted as a chauffeur. It was the early evening when we saw the place and we were lucky enough to see her leaving for work. She was about 21, tall and emaciated with a tight black polyester suit on and a cocked top hat, made-up like a prostitute.

Another place smelled so awful I almost threw up. There was a poor Pug dog crated in the bedroom, large feathers strewn about and a cat with no tail running around peeing on things; there was also a large boat stranded in the front yard. The landlord drove his Vespa across the grass to greet us, wearing a bicycle helmet.

We knew of a house on our block where the occupants owned a giant lynx with a chain-link collar. That place came up for rent but unfortunately it looked as if the lynx had trashed the place.

One apartment had exclusive access to a storage attic: at least 2,000 square feet of hot, unfinished space. Outside the ground-floor rental unit was a group of sunburned wiggers smoking and drinking at ten in the morning, bobbing and weaving to the sounds from a boom box underneath what would have been our baby's room.

The pièce de résistance was a tiny, dilapidated house out in South Portland that butted up to a sea of mammoth Citgo oil tanks, each seemingly the size of a football stadium. The neighbors had cars up on cinderblocks and kids wove through the streets of the weird little neighborhood on their bicycles alongside big-rig oil trucks.

We did find one place that we love. But it's one of two places that overtly doesn't want to rent to us because we have a baby. And a dog. And two cats. Apparently the downstairs neighbors are very sensitive to noise, so the landlord wants us (including our dog and baby) to meet with them. If the neighbors give us the seal of approval, then we're in! Good thing I didn't mention our snow leopard!