That went well.

So the arbitration hearing was today. It was basically a cake-walk. I had photos, sections of the building code, a cheat sheet with counter-points to all the arguments I was expecting. The owner wasn't there, I was just up against the super, who I like and who is sympathetic to our side. The arbitrator didn't make a decision on the spot. The official decision will be mailed to us sometime in the next month or so, but it was such an obvious victory that the super called this evening because the landlord suddenly wants to meet and see what we would prefer done, which is how it should have been done in the first place.

My criteria is simple, one window in each bedroom that can be opened wide enough to get the cat carrier through, should we have to exit via a window and lower the carrier by the rope I keep handy for that purpose. The rest of the windows they can put restricters on, just so long as they still open to some extent.

I don't know exactly what the super told the landlord, but it must have been something to the effect that he lost, and badly, because he is coming to meet me here tomorrow at lunch. Sorry kitsune_13, but I have to bail on lunch again.

In a related humorous note, the whole experience before and after the arbitration was pretty funny in a bizarre kind of way. The office and waiting room was like the office in Beetlejuice. The women behind the counter were were remarkably like Patti and Thelma from the Simpsons. There was an amusing "floor-show" by a couple of first rate Whalley crackers - he in cargo pants, Birkenstocks, a t-shirt with the logo of the longshoreman's union, and a baseball cap, she with giant white runners, slightly greyed formerly white nylon/plastic/whatever-the-hell-that-stuff-is track pants, a faded pink t-shirt, and a walker and back-brace (the back brace bizarrely adorned with two bits of dirty, formerly white fun-fur). In general their look was some kind of mutant synthesis of trailer-park metal meets budget raver. These two arrived at the same time as us, riding up in the same elevator. Thing is, our appointment was for 11:30, theirs, it turned out was for 11. When the burlier and surlier of the joyless clerks, who Elaine decided was a kindred spirit with Cerberus ("You need three barking heads to do that job"), informed the metal-ravers that they were too late and the arbitrator had decided against them then Birkenshoreman chose to use what passes for reason against the Cerbera.

"How long does an arbitration usually last?" he asked.

"About an hour," replied Cerbera.

Birkenshoreman the Metalloraver saw his chance to use cunning logic to save the day, "Well then, I have 40 minutes left to my hearing."

Cerbera was not to be duped, "No. Your hearing is over. The arbitrator decides when late is too late."

Birkenshoreman the Metalloraver and Fade-to-Grey I-Can't-Do-Laundry Woman and her fluffy back-brace of doom then left and returned several times, subsequently playing the, "but I phoned to say I would be late" card. To that Cerbera replied, "Yes, the arbitrator decides how late is too late. He waited for ten minutes and decided. You are too late. Your hearing is over." This was followed by Fade-to-Grey vowing to "chat up" Cerbera (apparently her trailer-park charms must be her secret super-power), at which point she played the sympathy card, "It's all my fault, he had to pick me up from the doctor's." Cerbera was not sympathetic. Fade-to-Grey came away with a number, 115. The counter was at 91. Someone informed them that it had taken more than an hour for the number to get from 80 to 90. Sometime later the mental math filtered through whatever living brain-cells Birkenshorman and Fade-to-Grey had left and they realised they would not make their 1:00 appointment (with whom I'm not sure, perhaps their crack dealer), Birkenshoreman made another attempt swaying Cerbera with his infallible logic, "But there is still half an hour left to our appointment." "No there isn't. It's over. The arbitrator decided."

I don't know how it ended, we got called in for the appointment we were on time for at that point. The were gone when we emerged about an hour later.

On the way out, presumably because I was wearing a tie and carrying photocopies of the Vancouver building code some woman in the elevated presumed I was a lawyer and started asking me for legal advice. She didn't speak English well at all. It took three attempts for me to get, "Excuse me. Are you a lawyer?" from "cyusmayuloya?"

Apparently she couldn't understand me very well either. "No, sorry. I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a tenant," didn't dissuade her in the least.

"Ihaetennanopay.Wahido? Henosainotingnopaywahido?"

Elaine rescued me, "You need to talk to the people on the fourth floor."

This amused me to no end. Law-school be damned. All you need is a tie and some photocopied by-laws.