Went back to my apartment a few nights ago to get some of my stuff. No lights, no people—they’d shut off the power and heat and kicked everyone out. I felt a little like I was sneaking into Chernobyl: geared up with a mask and gloves, unsure of what I’d find.
The apartment was a mess, worse than I’d left it—tarps and materials everywhere, furniture moved around. It is a damned eerie thing to walk into what would normally be “home”, wearing protective gear and navigating by the flashlight on your phone, hearing nothing and no one. No signs of life, and an oddness about the air. Hard to place…sort of a dry, chemical odor, but more, I’d say, the absence of anything else. Maybe this is what buildings smell like when nobody else is around.
I wandered through the place, feeling like a ghost. There won’t be any life in here for the foreseeable future. I’m staying with a friend; everyone else was resettled by the Red Cross, or their renters’ insurance, or whoever was willing to take them. I don’t how many people have been in here since I moved out. Builders and maintenance people, certainly; maybe the fire department, or building inspectors. Who knows.