The Elusive Joys of Home Ownership

First of all, let’s get one thing straight: I was perfectly happy in my old apartment.

I lived right behind Cantor’s delicatessen, which I patronized so frequently over the years that when I changed my normal breakfast order one day, no fewer than four waitresses came over and said, “Boy, you’re really going to hell with yourself, aren’t you?”

I was perfectly happy in my old apartment.

I knew all my neighbors as friends, and whenever I was away on the road, they took turns collecting my mail and watching my place.

I rented month-to-month, and my building manager always allowed me a few days leeway when travel time bled over into rent time.

I could walk to the Improv, walk to the Farmers Market, walk to Molly Malone’s, walk to Ralphs.

I was perfectly happy in my old apartment.

My neighborhood actually was a neighborhood, where Orthodox Jewish men tipped their hats and smiled a greeting, and where you hoped there was a wait at Henry’s barbershop so you could flip through True Detective and listen to the old men argue.

I had furniture I could put my feet and beer on, and carpeting that wore stains like battle scars. The walls were cool in summer, warm in winter and seemed to hold a woman’s smell a long time after she’d left.

I was perfectly happy in my old apartment.

And then, one fateful day last February, an army of accountants, publicists and personal managers descended upon me with the same cheery advice: “It’s time for you to buy a place of your own.”

Now I could have said, “But you see, I’m perfectly happy, etc. . . .” I could have said many things. But I didn’t. Relying on the now clearly incorrect assumption that these people liked me, I said, “Fine. I’ll buy.”

Of course, I didn’t know at the time that their proddings were on the same order as those of married friends who always tell single friends, “It’s really time for you to settle down.”

So, on a Sunday, couched in a phony invitation to brunch, the “friends” pulled their car over and said, “Gee, it’s so pretty here in Los Feliz, I wonder if this lovely. yet-most likely-very affordable home we just randomly stopped in front of is for sale?”

So I bought. Oh, I bought. And took out loans. And title searches. And met loan officers and loan brokers and real estate barons and interviewed with neighborhood “committees.”

And I paid. And paid some more. And hired contractors. And begged contractors. And fired contractors. And hired new contractors. And begged them. And picked colors. And told decorators as gently as possible that, no, I didn’t think the theme of my bedroom should be antique lace.

And the kicker is that after 10 astonishingly Kafka-esque months, I have still not moved in.

For the last two of those months, workers have been sanding, pounding, whistling or whatever they do with their time when not being hectored by unreasonably anxious employers (us).

And while it’s true that this plastering and tiling and wiring seems to be winding to an end, the entire home-buying process has left me with a bad morning aftertaste.

Herewith, a brief outline of the most egregious outrages of the past year:

Money. First and last, money. Here’s a curious happenstance: It turns out that the actual cost of the remodeling was, in fact, greater than the original estimate! Can you imagine! How much greater? Would you believe by a factor of five ? It’s true.

And to show you how hip my contractors are to show business, the price went up each time I appeared on television or film. It took me months to spot the pattern, but here’s an example:

Over the course of the remodeling, I have appeared on Johnny Carson three times and on David Letterman twice. After each appearance, and I mean the day after, my contractor called me and said, “Hey, saw you on TV last night. Funny. Real funny. By the way, it turns out we need more tile for the bathroom, so when you get a chance. . . .”

(Followers of Hollywood hierarchies may appreciate that the price hike for a Carson shot was $2,000, but that for a Letterman appearance a paltry $1,500.)

Furniture? My soon-to-be ex-publicist weighed in by saying, “You know you like Art Deco,” (I knew she liked Art-Deco.) “Why don’t you let me show you a place where I get a kickback for every sucker I corral to be fleeced?” (Some editorial license has been taken with the last quote, though I feel my words to be closer to the truth.)

Five out-of-the-way shops and enough dough to engineer a hostile takeover later, I was the proud owner of six rooms full of the kind of ratty, wormed and threadbare pieces one can see too much of on “Masterpiece Theatre.”

Neighbors? On one of my hat-in-hand visits with a contractor, I made the mistake of offering to help an older lady with her packages. I might as well have asked her to accompany me to a crack house. She screamed and staggered off. And now when I pass, I can feel people peeking through their shut curtains and bars at me.

Location? My new abode is a handy 40 minutes of traffic away from any place I will ever really need to get to as soon as possible.

Eateries? I have gone from bars and restaurants where the publicans know your name and the waitresses bring your food correctly the first time, to trendy, nouvelle-cuisine pomposities guaranteed to leave the patron impoverished and still hungry.

Neighborhood ambience? My old area combined turn-of-the-century Prague with “Television City” and really pulled it off. One night spot has poetry readings and the nearby movie house serves up revivals of “Streetcar” and “The Wild Bunch.”

My new area is sure to be known soon as the capital of the mini-mall. The nearest movie theater (remember, everything is 40 minutes away) is in the “Guinness Book Of World Records” for the most screens and fewest seats anywhere in the country.

Keep in mind that I am still living in my old place (though not perfectly happy; the monthly nut of the mortgage has taken care of that), and with any luck at all, I will lose my mind completely and hurl mortar shells at the still-unfinished “Xanadu.”

But you know, folks, a curious thing is happening to me. I once read of a syndrome with prisoners who are tortured long enough to begin to love their tormentors. It makes perfect sense to me now, it really does.

The builders have been accruing “squatters rights” at my place for so long I want them to keep it. Free. It actually pleased me to see them trade in their ’66 Nova for that Ferrari Testarossa. Isn’t that what this country is all about?

Let them have the effete furniture, the granite tiles, the antique lamps that shed about as much light as a congressional hearing. Enjoy it in good health. Just let me get back, even for one day, the serenity I once felt in my old neighborhood. Like “Gatsby,” let me just stretch out my arms in an attempt to recapture the past.

And on that fine day, my dear reader . . . a crisp, clear, cloudless day, I’m sure . . . I’ll wake up wearing a sweet, slightly detached smile and a glazed look in my eyes. . . . I’ll hum spritely in the shower and put on my favorite pair of sneakers. . . . And then . . . oh, then, my friends. . . .

Miller, a comedian and actor, can be seen on HBO in his own stand-up special Saturday.

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