The House That Assaulted All Five Senses

The house assaulted the senses like a tidal wave.

It was March 2023 and I needed a place to stay for three months as I ducked out of Canada to renew my visa. I’d met Skye (not her real name) while I’d been holed up in Cancún a couple of years prior during the global pandemic, and we’d established a friendship. On hearing of my desired return to the Riviera Maya, she offered a room in her four-bedroom home for a really good price.

Excellent! That would make saving money for my return to college so much easier.

The house was slightly chaotic when I arrived. Skye had two other housemates, one of whom had been living with her since she had signed the lease on the villa a year before, and the other a Hungarian woman trying to get residency in Mexico. The fourth bedroom was occupied by a Canadian woman who was due to leave a couple of days later so I was informed I would be sleeping on the pull-out couch in my friend’s bedroom until she was gone.

Okay, that was a tad unexpected but I rolled with it.

I soon settled into my work, teaching English as a Second Language online, as well as my established exercise routine, walking and yoga. I love walking, and with aging knees, it is the best exercise for my body and allows me to become familiar with the area I’m frequenting as well.

Two months into my three-month stay, however, the original housemate left to live on her own. As she tidied up a lot, the true extent of how she mitigated the sensory assault became extremely apparent only after she left.

The Five Senses

Visually the place was a tip. The couch was badly stained, (I didn’t ask how), and sunglasses, loose change, clothes, shoes, and food were strewn about everywhere. Whenever Skye came in from one of her jaunts, everything she was carrying was set down somewhere near one of the two entry points.

Pots and pans were cleaned after a day or two, counters were sticky and crumb-filled, and dirt covered the floors. My feet felt the constant presence of soil and dog hair, everything they touched offending the more than 200,000 nerve endings that reside in the average foot.

I walked around the house with socks on to protect the uncomfortable feeling but even walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night produced dirty feet.

Skye had a nineteen-year-old cat who had relieved itself on her furniture its entire life. I never understood why she hadn’t trained him not to until I lived there and realized that she didn’t train any of her animals —the errant behaviour didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.

The putrid smell that accompanied her cocker spaniel filled every space, and between it, the constant odour of the cat pee-infused couch and the litter box that was only changed once a week, my olfactory cells worked double overtime in being aggrieved.

Adding to the assault was the fact that Skye was a smoker. I smoked from the age of eighteen until thirty and understand the habit. Whilst I have no problem hanging out with smokers, I struggle with the smell in closed spaces. With doors wide open and her favourite spot to puff located directly under my bedroom window, Skye’s cigarette smoke pervaded the house like an unwanted visitor.

There was yet another unfortunate failing of the three-floor house, the noise distribution. Skye had removed all the furniture from the second-floor landing to furnish her bedroom on the third floor creating an apartment-like environment for herself and her dirty mutt. With a queen-sized bed, ensuite bathroom, walk-in closet, couch, coffee table, and small balcony, she only needed to come downstairs to cook or forage for food.

This wouldn’t have been an issue if the removed furniture hadn’t been a buffer for the sound bouncing off the walls from downstairs. You see, three bedrooms, including mine, led off the second-floor landing.

On the occasion when she sat on the couch to watch Netflix shows on her small TV, the sound bounced up the stairs, ricocheted off the wall and came screaming into my room. Even with headphones on as I taught, I could hear the scripted shows almost as well as if I were seated directly in front of the television.

It appeared that Skye was going slightly deaf.

To top off the auditory and olfactory assaults, after disappearing into her “apartment” each evening, music and cigarette smoke blasted down to my oasis on the second floor. I sighed as I climbed into bed each evening, too tired after a long workday to rouse any form of self-righteousness.

Visually, auditorily, olfactorily, tactilely, the assault continued. As I wandered out of my bedroom every morning in search of a cup o’ Joe to begin my day, I could almost taste the pungent air, thick with cat urine that had settled in overnight.

Skye only scheduled the cleaner when one of her friends was due for a visit, and despite keeping my room clean, I didn’t have the time or desire to take care of the rest of the house. Working forty-five hours a week tends to do that to a person.

The third housemate was meant to clean every fortnight, negotiating a lower rent to compensate, but she was kicked out of the villa a few weeks into my stay.

I dreamed of my little Canadian basement apartment with its clean floors and sweet smells produced by an array of candles, incense sticks, and oil diffusers.

Oh, how I longed for its sensory embrace.

Whilst I was immensely grateful for the cheap rent and much-needed opportunity to save money, I couldn’t get away from the House that Assaulted all Five Senses fast enough as I boarded the Westjet flight bound for Toronto at Cancún International Airport.

I smiled as the Boeing 737 lifted into the big blue yonder. I knew it was taking me back to sweet sensory satisfaction.

Please feel free to buy me a coffee if you like what you read.