What do you mean, "Just close the window"?

My landlady is a nice woman.
She's friendly and best of all, she rarely comes by the house.

She stopped by on Sunday to drop off two new smoke detectors (hooray, no burning alive in bed) and look at our kitchen faucet, which has about as much water pressure as an ant pissing. We showed her all the screen damage from the squirrels during the summer, which ultimately prevented us from opening doors or windows for two or three months. (Those new to the blog can hit the summer archives for further details of The Great Squirrel Incidents. They're quite amusing, if I do say so myself.)

The landlady blamed the old guys next door (as they likely feed the little buggers) then said, "Well, I guess you guys are going to have to keep your doors and windows closed."

Excuse me?

We have no balcony. No back yard. And while air conditioning is nice in the middle of summer, I do like to treat myself (I'm so terribly demanding sometimes) to fresh air. So essentially, we're expected to stifle ourselves with stale air all year long.

This, of course, excuses her from replacing any screens. Which means if we want wire mesh on our windows, we have to pay for it out of our own pocket.

Balls.