The Hose

Evil

The cleaning lady set my apartment on fire, leaving me with a dusting of ash and a moral dilemma.





These pictures are just a re-creation of the scene... notice the cleaned up stovetop and the wipe marks on the cabinet.

Here's how things went down:

I get this cleaning lady from craigslist because I was moving into a new apartment and I had a feeling that the crackwhore who used to live there wasn't so clean. So the cleaning lady comes, I let her in, and I tell here I'll be back in 3 hours. Off I went to finish packing my old apartment for the move.

I come back 3 hours later, open the door, and the cleaning lady stands there startled. Black smudges are all over her face. She tells me there was a fire. I go, What? She explains. Her story seems implausible. I have never in my life seen fire appear out of nowhere, with no warning.

Here is my dilemma: the cleaning lady said she would take responsibility... pay for the replacement parts to the fridge, the stove burner, clean up the walls. That sounded good, but now I feel bad about it. The replacement parts come out to about $150. Is that a lot of money to a cleaning lady? Was it really her fault to begin with, or just dumb luck? Should I offer to pay half?

I have her address. She lives in the East Village. There's a good chance she pays more rent than me, considering that I live in a crackden in Harlem. Every other building up here is boarded up.

What should I do? Weigh in!