More ridiculous avoidance

For the blissfully unaware, there's an ongoing story in my life about parking for my motorcycle. The latest installation is that the two garage buildings just came open. One might be tempted to think that all problems will now be solved but that is not the case. Apparently, my grumpy neighbor *formally* requested the front garage before my landlord (ll) knew it was going to open up.

This would mean nothing to me except for this: I spoke with ll *way* back in January and we discussed parking for my bike. Parking for my bike has come up at least twice because the aforementioned garage guy got upset over where I had it parked a couple of times. So ll knew that I was concerned about parking - since long before I moved out here and certainly before grumpy neighbor made his request.

In my mind, a fair thing to do would have been to offer the 'prime' building to each of the tenants, in descending order of time of residence. In case you didn't already figure it out, this did NOT happen. No - I'm not angry about not getting the building b/c I probably couldn't afford the rent anyway. I'm upset because my ll didn't have enough consideration to even ask me - even though he KNOWS parking is an ongoing concern for me.

My guess? My ll is so conflict-avoidant that he wasn't willing to tell grumpy neighbor he'd have to wait until everyone ahead of him turned it down before he could have it. Obviously, I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not but, given my ll's reluctance to actually step up and handle a couple of other potential conflicty situations, I think it's probably a reasonable assumption.

This is an extremely unpleasant situation for me because I feel like I'm being somewhat forced into the 'bitchy and/or unreasonable tenant' role. I'm not being bitchy OR unreasonable, but I am being clear on how I feel and I don't think ll likes hearing it. I'm not asking him for anything or accusing him of anything but I think he's feeling fairly defensive anyway. His email back to me about the situation said this: "...asked me about the garage long before I even had any idea that the guy renting it was going to be giving it up. No favoritism here, just circumstances."

Wrong - the garage opening up early was circumstance. Who actually GOT the garage was ll's choice. I don't think it was favoritism, I think it was a desire to avoid any sort of conflict with grumpy neighbor (i.e. telling him no or that he'd have to wait).

At any rate, I think I'm going to look around a bit - my lease is up in Feb/Mar 05 and although I really like my apartment & mdal, I don't like feeling like I have to specifically address issues that could be handled via clear and simple policies. I also am unwilling to keep feeling like the 'bad person' in these situations that arise simply because ll won't step up to the plate and handle the issue.