The Napkin In Between

From Moving Boxes to Tenant Rights: A 24 Hour Recap Of My New Apartment

• Daijné Jones • Season 1 • Episode 38

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The boxes aren’t even unpacked and the story already has plot twists: a shower that won’t shower, a bedroom lock that locks you in, a front door that barely holds on, and a management team dodging the only question that matters—who checked this place before handing over the keys? We walked in expecting a soft reset and got a hard lesson in habitability and accountability.

We open with the fun stuff—new setup, decor ideas, and the “peak of the week” that kept spirits up: a Renee Rapp show where the mic was on and the honesty was louder. That thread of authenticity runs straight through everything that follows. Media training can sand down edges, but it can’t fix a broken deadbolt; PR phrases don’t stop leaks. When safety is at stake, loud truth beats quiet excuses every time. So we got loud in the right way: we made a 17‑item list within 24 hours, time‑stamped photos and videos, and switched from calls to written messages so the record sticks. We reported issues to the city, looked up local codes on locks, alarms, and plumbing, and mapped the difference between “quirks” and habitability violations.

If you’ve ever moved and felt gaslit by “we’ll take care of it,” this conversation gives you language, steps, and momentum. We break down how to build a paper trail, what to include in repair requests, why a thorough walkthrough matters, and how to hold landlords to the implied warranty of habitability. We talk about boundaries that protect your peace: fix it fast or free the lease. And beneath the frustration sits a simple goal—reclaim the soft life without apologizing for demanding safety, dignity, and respect at home.

If this resonates, tap follow, share with a friend dealing with rental chaos, and leave a review telling us the one tenant tip you wish you knew sooner. Your stories and feedback help more listeners protect their rights—and their peace.

Daijné:

Is this thing on? Hello, hello. Uh-oh. Another yuffer with a mic. Hello everyone and welcome back to the N apkin In Between Podcast. I am your host, Daijne Jones. I hope everyone's been having a good week except for that orange chick lady. Of course. Guys, welcome to my new casa. Um, yeah, we moved. We moved, and it's been it's been a week. It actually hasn't even been a week, but it feels like it's been 14,000 weeks because shit's just going a little crazy with this move right now. We're gonna get into it, but how are we liking the new setup? I say in close because I'm still unpacking. I have boxes literally in the corner that I just had to rip open to find my podcast equipment so that I could film an episode for this week. So we're not complete with this setup. I feel like I want to do like I actually want to decorate this apartment. Like in my last apartment, I was like, oh, I'm gonna decorate. I had such cute ideas, and then I never did it. I'm doing it this time. We're we're decorating, so we're not set up completely yet. You guys will see some stuff on this wall because I feel like we have to do something. The brick wall was low-key iconic. We cannot just have this white wall. A white wall! No! Like we have to put something on it, you know what I mean? So, set up, I say in quotes because we're gonna do some decorations or do something else in the background. But for the time being, as I'm still unpacking and everything, this is what we're working with. So give me some ideas. Like, what are some ideas that you guys have for decorations? And I have some myself, but I'm always open to more. So drop some ideas in the comments. I don't know what the vibe should be, or should it be like, should it change with the season? Should it I don't know. I don't know that the world is my fucking oyster, and there's so many different things that I could do, so we'll figure it out. But give me some ideas too, because I'm always open to those. And also drop in the comments the peak of your week. I feel like I always tell y'all, well, not always, sometimes I do forget, and that's on me, I'll own that. But when I do remember to tell y'all to tell me the peak of your week, y'all don't tell me the peak of your week. So tell me the peak of your week, bitch. What made you smile? What kept you grounded, what kept you sane in the chaos of the world. And I'll go first. I uh saw Renee rap this week, and I I love her. I love her, and first and foremost, the mic is on, okay? Vocals are crazy, some can't relate. You feel me? But also, more than that, I just love how she is so real. She's so real, and she's so like she just rejects media training, and she's like, and I've watched a couple of her interviews. She said that she's people have tried, they've tried to media train her, they've tried to honestly make her a robot. I feel like that's what media training does, it makes them very robotic and like not their real selves. And I just love that she rejects that because that is what we need. I'm so tired of the media training of the PR answers of it all. Just like tell me, genuinely, just tell me what the fuck you're feeling and and what's actually on your mind. Like, I don't need this like curated answer because it's so stupid, and like I said, it's kind of like robotic, and it's like I feel like you can always tell when someone is media trained, you can tell by the way they answer their questions when they're not giving their honest opinion or answer or like whatever it is. The first giveaway to me is always the person's face or like their body language. Like, as someone who studied um psychology and I worked as a therapist, I feel like I can pick up very well on people's body language when they're telling me something that they don't actually feel or believe, and their body, like your face, at least for me, I'm very expressive. But even for the people who aren't as expressive, I feel like your face in your body gives it away. It's like your body is physically rejecting whatever thing you're trying to put out there, whatever emotions or statement that you're trying to say. Like, I can tell that you don't believe that shit. So if you don't believe that shit, why the fuck would I believe that shit? And I also just feel like that's no way to live. Like, why are we why are we faking it? Why are we why are we trying to put on a front and not just being our authentic selves? That's why I kind of like not that to say that I respect Trump supporters or MAGA because obviously it's always will be and always has been. Fuck y'all. But like, if you're racist or whatever, maybe this is controversial to say, I don't know. But I would rather you be loud with that so that I know to stay away from you. Like, I know what type of person you are. The scariest people are the people who engage in like microaggressions or like subtle racism. Because it's like, say that shit with your chest. You know what I mean? Like, if you're gonna hate me or like be homophobic, racist, transphobic, whatever, obviously, the the correct answer is to not give a fuck about what other people are doing and how they're living their lives. Obviously, that's not the world that we live in, though. Like, let's be real. So if you are going to be that way, be loud about it so that I know to stay away from you. The the scariest part of having to deal with a world that has like racism and homophobia and transphobia are the people who are who try to be quiet about it. Because it's like I'm around you and I don't know that you like want to hurt me or like you don't feel like I'm a real person or like my life matters. So if we're put in a situation where it's like I need you to help me, that puts my life even more in danger because it's like you're not gonna care enough to help me in the way that I need help. Does that make sense? I don't know if that even made sense, but hopefully y'all understand what I'm saying. The point that I'm trying to make is that if you're going to be racist or hateful or whatever, I would prefer you do that shit out loud so that I know what type of person you are, so that I can stay away from you rather than you keeping that in quietly, and then I just don't know that low-key, you fucking hate me and don't value my life. And I feel like that kind of happens with these PR answers and PR training. Not to say that, like, that's an extreme example, right? Like putting my life in danger, things like that. But people will, you know, behave a certain way behind closed doors, but then when they get online or whatever, they know that like the things that they do behind closed doors they can't do online or else they would, you know, be canceled, lose their following, whatever, whatever. Or even some people will try to appeal to a certain demographic for followers or clout, whatever, but they they don't actually feel that way behind closed doors, and that's why like I hate PR training, I hate all of it. Like, whoever you are, show me that so that I know if I should, you know, be following you or if I should trust you or not. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if any of this is making sense. I feel like I was talking about going to a concert, and I somehow got to this conversation. I don't know. Brands all over the place a little bit. There's a lot going on. We're gonna get to that a little bit later in the episode. But moral of the story, I went to a renewate rap concert, which was amazing. First and foremost, her mic was on, and she's just such a great performer. She did a cover of um Ego by Beyonce, which was fucking amazing. She's just so good, but also I just like the type of person she is because you can just tell. At least, I'm I mean, I don't know her in real life, but it feels like to me that you can tell that she's just real and just always herself, and there's no PR about her, which I really, really love. I wish that we had more celebrities like that so that people would stop being so fucking like robotic and just like trained. Fuck the training. Show me who you are so that I know if I want to fuck with you or not. That was the pick of my week going to see Renee Rap. Amazing concert. I got this hoodie for the um audio or I'm sorry, for the visual listeners. This is one of the most comfortable hoodies I've ever had. I've been wearing it since I got it on Monday. So, anyway, that was the pick of my week. Please tell me the pick of your week. Something that made you smile, kept you growing, it kept you sane in the chaos of the world. Speaking of chaos and just like nothing going the way that I thought that it would go. As y'all know, I moved over the past weekend. And in my last episode, I was talking about how excited I was to move. It was very bittersweet because you know, I had started a lot of my content creation journey in that apartment, but at the same time, management was fucking ass, and I was ready to be rid of them and hopefully move on to a better management company. Wishful fucking thinking on my part. I was talking with Talia, my roommate, the other day, and we were talking about how as terrible as the other management was, we miss it. We've mind you, it has not even been a week that we have lived here, and we are already like, what the fuck did we get ourselves into? We moved on Saturday by Sunday morning. We had a 17 bullet point list of things in this apartment that needed to be fixed, ranging from minuscule small fixes up to like safety concern fixes. So I don't even know where to start. Like, I feel like uh I'm all over the place, so I'm so sorry if this episode is like jumbled and scrambled, but I just I don't understand how we could go from the apartment we were in to even worse conditions. But bitch, we went from bad to J-Lo. It is fucking like I'm so I just don't even know how this is even possible. So Saturday we moved from my old apartment to my new apartment this past Saturday. And after a long day of moving, of course, moving is like the least enjoyable activity of adulthood. And so after we had spent like 13 hours moving and unpacking and trying to get this new apartment together, all we wanted to do was shower. All we wanted to do was take a hot shower and crawl into bed and just relax a little bit. Now, let me go back a little bit because when we first toured the apartment, we noticed that there was no shower shower rod in the bathroom to hold a shower curtain. So we had asked, you know, before we move in, can there be a shower rod installed so that we can put up a shower curtain? They said yes, of course, it'll be installed before you guys move in, blah blah blah blah blah. We get her Saturday and there's no shower rod. So we text the management and we're like, hey, we had asked if you guys could put up a shower rod. There's not one in here. Can someone come and put one up? And they're like, okay, well, nobody works on the weekends. And we were like, okay, well, what's that have to do with us? Like, we asked y'all before if you could put up a shower rod. So, like, someone I'm gonna y'all have to figure it out. Someone's gonna have to come in and put up a shower rod. We we can't shower right now, and otherwise, water's gonna get all over the floor. So they did send someone in, they put up a shower rod, whatever, whatever. So we put up our shower curtain, and I go to take a shower, and the diverter in the tub that um like you flip it up, and then it it goes from the tub running to the shower broken. Didn't work, didn't work. So we were like we can't fucking shower. We can't shower, and I'm not about to take a fucking bath. First of all, I hate baths. I feel like I'm sitting in my own dirt, even like I know some people will like take backs baths to relax. All I can think about is that I'm sitting in a pool of my own dirt. So we're like, what the fuck do we do? Like, do we go back to our old apartment? Because we still had like there was a little bit of overlap in our lease, like two, three days. So we're like, do we go back to our old apartment and shower? Like, what the fuck do we do? We ended up taking like bird baths or sponge baths in the in the tub, but I was just so fucking angry because I was like, who like how the fuck does the shower not fucking work? Like what the fuck, like I I still don't have words for it. I still I remember just being in that moment and I was shaking because I was so fucking angry. Like who how how did how was that something that was not noticed during their walkthrough to make sure that this apartment was habitable and safe? And we'll get to that in a moment. So anyway, we both take like sponge baths or whatever, and then my roommate Talia is like, oh, I noticed it on my door, my door doesn't lock. And I was like, like her bedroom door, and so I was like, okay, well, I was like, are you sure? And she's like, Yeah, I think it doesn't lock. So I was like, okay, go inside your room, lock your door, and I'll see if I can open it from the outside. So she goes inside her room, closes the door, locks it, and I pull down the thing, and surely enough, the door swings right wide the fuck open. So I'm like, okay, we're adding all these things to the list. This is all a part of the 17 number list that we had sent them. Sunday morning, we found all this shit Saturday. So we see that her door doesn't lock. So I'm like, okay, let me go to my room and test my door. So I come in my room, shut the door, lock it. Talia tries to open it from the outside, it doesn't open. So I'm like, okay, cool, great. Doesn't open. I then try to open my door from the inside of the room, and it also doesn't open. So here I am trying to get myself out of my room, and the door wouldn't open. The door was I was locked inside this very room that I am filming in right now. So we have to call the fire department for them to break down the door for them to bust the lock open to get me out of this room because I could not get out. And then, funny enough, when the firemen were here, one of them goes, Are you on Instagram? And I was like, Yeah, like I create content. He's like, Oh, I've seen your content, like you're I really like your content, and that like made me nervous. I always get nervous when people tell me that they recognize me. So I like laughed a little bit, and he was like, Oh, yep, that laugh. I know that laugh. And I was like, Oh my god, please leave. Like, this is so awkward. Like, I was just locked in the room, and now you're telling me you know me, which I love. I love that you guys are all here, but like I don't know. I'm just I'm just not used to people recognizing me, I guess. So I was just like, Okay, thanks. Like, I don't I never know what to say. I literally blackout, I never know what to say. So then they leave. Oh, and I forgot to mention before any of this, we had also noticed that our front door, the lock was like falling off of the front door, like it wasn't screwed in properly. So obviously that doesn't make us feel the safest, that our door knob is like falling off the hinges. So we add all this stuff to the list, and then there's other stuff too, like there was a leak under the bathroom sink and the bathroom or the the tub is dripping, the no the toilet is making like weird noises, like literally a 17 bullet point list of shit that needed fixed, ranging from things like the lock on our door to the cabinets in the kitchen were not stable. So we send them an email on Sunday, and we're like, who the fuck did a walkthrough of this apartment? Like, the we've been here less than 24 hours, and we already have 17 things that needed fixed. The fire alarms were beeping, like, so much shit was wrong with this apartment, and we're like, How was this apartment rented to us in this condition? So we reach out to Jeff DeAngeles. I'm gonna say his name because that's who we've been in contact with from the beginning. He's the one who was like when the apartment was listed on Zillow, Jeff DeAngelis is the person who showed it to us and blah blah blah blah. So we reach out to him, we text him, and we're asking him, we've asked him several times who walked through this apartment to make sure it was safe, who walked through this apartment to make sure it was safe, like asking him over and over, he refuses to answer the question. Which tells us that either he walked through the apartment and just missed all of this shit, or nobody walked through this apartment to make sure that it was safe. Also, we have a deadbolt on our door that does not work, and they're like, Oh, the previous tenants put that up, so if you want um a new deadbolt, like, or if you want it to be fixed, like you have to fix it or get a new one. Nope, not how that works, not how that works. We looked it up in the event that the last tenant did put that deadbolt, first and foremost, a chain lock is required in every apartment. You're supposed to have a peephole, an actual lock, and then like the uh chain door guard. But in the event that a previous tenant puts in a lock and then they leave and then they show the apartment to new tenants, they assume responsibility for that lock. So the fact that they didn't take that lock down, they're supposed to fix it for us, but they're trying to tell us, oh, the the old tenants did it, so if you want it to be fixed, you have to do it yourself. Not how that works. And I feel like this is my issue with landlords and management companies, is that they don't think that tenants know shit like this. But Talia and I both, like we have been doing a ton of research, learning things that I'll be honest, we didn't know before, but we know now. But it's like I feel like landlords and management they they prey on the ignorance of tenants, they hope that you don't know your shit, so that at the end of the day, you'll live in whatever conditions they give you as for an apartment, and then they can just make the money off of you because you're paying rent for whatever they give you, and I just feel like that is so fucked up. Like that is so fucked up. There's no reason that less than literally we've we found all of these issues less than 48 hours into the apartment, and there's absolutely no reason that there should be so many issues with this apartment 48 hours into at least. There's no reason that I should have been locked in my bedroom 13 hours into my lease. There's no reason that our door lock, our front door lock should have been falling off of the hinges five hours into our lease. Like, what what I like that's the only thing I can say. Like, what the fuck? And it's just like they come and they fix things, and then the second they leave, the thing that they supposedly fixed is breaking again. And I I just don't understand how people just have like no care or regard for other people. Like, I know damn well if the management of this building was experiencing any of the issues that we're experiencing right now, even from the the minuscule issues like the cabinets and the kitchen not being secure, if they were dealing with something as little as that, they would flip their shit. So the fact that they rented an apartment to two women where the door knob was falling off of the front door is fucking crazy to me. Like, I just don't understand how people have such little regard and care for other people genuinely, like what the fuck? Like, I I could never be that way. I could never just like be like, okay, you're as long as I'm getting paid, as long as you're paying the rent, here's here's whatever I give you, have fun with it. Like, why do people not care about other people's safety? Why do people not have regard for other people? And how the fuck do you sleep at night knowing that you've rented a shithole apartment to people, and it's like as long as you're getting paid, you just don't care. That's insane to me. I I I just can't wrap my head around that. But unfortunately for them, they do not know who the fuck they're dealing with because Talia and I are on their fucking ass. We have been reporting them not just to themselves but also to the city, like they are in for a treat. I don't know if they thought that they could get over on us or they were they could just give us whatever and we would just deal with it. No, absolutely not, absolutely not. Because, like I said, Talid and I have been doing a lot of research and we have found out things that tenants can do and rights that tenants have that we truthfully we did not even know before this. And again, I feel like management and landlords prey on people not knowing and people being ignorant, but if they thought that we were just gonna be comfortable in our ignorance and not look into this shit, they they've got another thing coming. So stay tuned for updates because I don't know who the fuck they thought they were dealing with, but they got the right one. They got the right one. I don't because I don't give a fuck. I never gave a fuck about my peace and about my safety. Oh baby, I'm on your fucking head. I will call your office every fucking day. I will send thousands of emails, I will report you to the city every time. What whatever I have to do to make sure that I'm living peacefully and safely, I will fucking do. I I never cared. I do not give a fuck. And you're prepare to be sick of me. They are about to hate to see me coming. I they probably already do, because I've already been emailing and calling and texting, and I I'm not trying to do too many calls because just in case anybody is dealing with something like this, send more messages than calls. Because in the event that you do have to go to court and you're like, Oh, we were on the phone and this is what was said, hearsay. He said she said it won't hold up in court. Messages though, those hold up in court. So we have been messaging, we have been emailing. Yeah, they're about to hate to see us coming, and I I will not rest until either one, they fix everything that's wrong in this apartment, or two, they give me my fucking money back and break this lease. Either way, I I don't care which one y'all want to do, but it's one or the other. Either y'all are fixing this shit, or y'all are gonna let me out of this fucking lease. So y'all stay tuned. This has been the craziest week of my life. I cannot believe that. What's the is there a a term for Slee and I were trying to figure out, you know how like when someone sells you a bad car, they're like, oh, they sold me a lemon? Is there a term for like a bad apartment? Like, oh, they rented me. I don't know what it is. If there is one, I don't know, but there should be one because I feel like this happens a lot. And unfortunately, I feel like some tenants will just like tough it out for the year or or they don't know like their rights and everything like that. Nah, they got the right one, they got the right fucking one. I'm not toughing shit out. I was made to have a soft life, and I will have that by any means necessary. So, y'all stay tuned because I feel like this is about to be a wild year. Actually, it's not gonna be a wild year because they're either gonna fix this shit immediately or they're gonna let us out this fucking lease. So scratch that. But it might be a wild couple weeks, so stay tuned. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope everyone's having a good week, except for that orange drink lady, and I will talk to you in the next episode. Peace and love. Talk to you later. The napkin in between, hosted by Daijne Jones, produced by Daijne Jones, post production by Daijne Jones, music by Sam Champagne, and graphics by Isma Vidal. Don't forget to like and subscribe. See you next episode.