This post is written in an extremely angry state of mind. There are a two reasons for my feeling this way, namely, my house and my brother's pet dog.
The former has been an underlying cause of resentment, anger and unhappiness for more than ten years of my life. In a nutshell, the house that I am currently living in underwent a major renovation in the mid 1990s. Since my mother proposed the notion, she was also the chief decision maker of this project.
After two years of construction works, the house is worst off than before the transformation. This can be attributed to the use of shoddy building materials, substandard workmanship and my mother's impractical ideas. Of emphasis is the ceiling of the extended area of the master bedroom. Whenever it rains, the ceiling in the said area will leak. Depending on how heavy the rain is, the severity of leaks could range from trivial and manageable ones to the flooding of the entire master bedroom. Case in point would be my experience last Saturday. As a result of such a flood, I spent nearly three hours mopping, drying and cleaning the room.
Countless repairs from various parties have been made over the years but to no avail! The earliest repairs were made by a friend of my mother's, hereafter 'the first party'. As the first party owes my mother a substantial amount of money, he was obliged to help in any way he could. With the benefit of hindsight, I wished the first party had not helped at all. The repairs proved to be ineffective as the leaks would recur when there were heavy rainfalls. After two miserable years of such purported repairs, the situation came to a head when the first major flood took place. Thereafter, repairs were taken over by a construction consultant who lives next door. Coincidentally, he witnessed the major flood as well and we shall refer to him as 'the second party'. The repairs seemed promising at first but was equally as ineffective as repairs from the first party.
At this point, if my calculation is accurate, all this lasted for ten years with no real changes for the better.
The latter issue took place in mid 2009. My brother came home one evening with a puppy given by a friend. Its was a German Spitz breed with clean white fur. To the layman, this breed carries physical resemblances of a fox. The puppy was kept at a balcony at the rear end of the house. The puppy exhibits traits akin to a fox: hyperactive, loud and rebellious. It would bark endlessly when it hears or sees anything foreign to it. Some examples include when my neighbour is doing the dishes, when someone opens the rear door or even when the neighbours are chatting during dinner time. The situation was bearable at first but quickly spiraled beyond control. It was noisy, mischievous and did not follow instructions. Despite countless suggestions and a warning from my Malay neighbour to file an official complain with the local council, my brother has done nothing to ameliorate the situation. At this point, it is worth noting that that the dog was adopted when my brother was still unattached. With his newfound girlfriend, the bulk of his time is now spent out of the house. This leaves my poor mother and myself to clean, feed and deal with the barking by the dog. My mother is not as physically able as she was before. The sight of her having to handle this 'mess' conveniently and irresponsibly left by my brother is infuriating and frustrating.
In any case, at this very moment, my anger is slowly receding. I spent close to thirty minutes typing this post when I should be revising for my finals. ARGH.
