|
|
|
why we weren't getting our rent checks
Saturday, April 1 2017
During this morning's coffee (it was Saturday, so it was the real thing), Gretchen lined up another unpleasant task up for us. She wanted to go knock on the door of our tenant in apartment 2 at the brick mansion and find out why it is that she hasn't been paying her rent. She'd stopped responding to our emails and we needed answers.
[REDACTED]
But then Gretchen went out for the afternoon to meet up with Carrie, saying we'd deal with the tenant later. It was early afternoon, but I was in a mood to take a bath, and so I did. While I was doing that, I heard a commotion upstairs and a voice that wasn't Gretchen's. We'd been expecting the crazy cat people to show up at 6:30 tonight to deliver our new cat Charles, though it was only a little after 2:00. Had they come early? It seemed like the sort of thing they would do. When a voice called for me, I said, "I'm taking a bath!" with a tone that suggested irritation. The voice from above said, "We came unannounced! I"m just dropping off some hot sauce!" I then recognized the voice (which sounds like someone talking with several marbles in her mouth) as belonging to Eva. "Thanks!" I shouted.
Later, after Gretchen got back from her thing with Carrie, she read to me from an irate email she'd gotten from the tenant in 2. She was complaining about all sorts of things ranging from the cleaning power of the basement washing machine to the time when I was there to fix the fence and she appeared in a bathrobe asking to be let into the house. (I hadn't brought the keys that time, and she quickly vanished, so I'd assumed someone had let her in.) She then claimed to have stage IV cancer and that several tumours were recently removed from her neck. All of this was supposed to somehow provide the justification for why it was she hadn't been paying her rent. But if a diagnosis of cancer was the reason she hadn't been paying her rent, why hadn't she told us a long time ago? In any case, according to her rental agreement she can be late with the payments five times and then we can evict her. And don't think we wouldn't throw her out on street, tumors and all! If she'd ever been sympathetic in any way, things would be different. But she's been unpleasant and entitled from the start. On the plus side, this email meant we wouldn't have to confront her today. On the minus side, she wouldn't be paying her rent this month either.
Gretchen and I drove out to the brick mansion later this afternoon anyway, just to pick up the checks from the tenants who had paid their rent. Then we drove over to Brewster Street to have a look at the state of the house renovation. It had a brand new roof, and the exterior has been repainted which was impressive, although (as happened with the Wall Street house) Gretchen has decided she doesn't like the color now that it covers a whole house. Inside, the plumbing is mostly done but the work on the walls and floors is behind schedule. We were alarmed to discover that conventional drywall had been used in the bathroom. Aren't they supposed to use that green stuff in wet places. (Later I did some internet research and learned that many contractors have pretty much stopped using green drywall since the last time I checked.) We were also dismayed to see that the skylight had been taken out and boarded over as part of the roof installation. Nobody had said anything to us about it; they'd just gone ahead and done it. It's nice to be able to trust your general contractor, but they really should clear such monumental decisions with the property owner.
On the way home, we stopped at Hannaford mostly to get soy milk (for Gretchen's vegan yogurt projects) and black tea (for me). While there, we got four different vegan flavors of Ben & Jerry's icecream. Once we got home, it was about dinner time, and really all I wanted for dinner was a pint of icecream. I had the Coconut Seven Layer Bar and it was exactly what my body was craving. As I ate it, I watched the 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives as part of my cultural research related to the movie Get Out. Were Bette Midler and Nicole Kidman reall that young-looking as recently as 2004? The remake is supposed to be more of a comedy, whereas the 1975 version was more of a horror. I was more in the mood for the latter, but I knew I'd be watching both, so it made sense to end my "research" with the better movie.
We've burned our bridges with most of the obvious cat rescue organizations, so Gretchen was forced to turn to Craigslist when we needed a Julius replacement (for the title of "Stripey"). The one she found whom I liked, was a nine year old named Charlie who looks like a cuter version of Julius. It turned out he'd been placed on Craignslist by a unknown cat rescue organization located about an hour to the south. Cat people are never all that well-adjusted, but this group seemed like an especially neurotic and batty bunch. They'd insisted on references, and called them, but didn't try to make them crack. (One of the references was Sarah the Vegan whose technique, she'd told us last night, was to "come on strong," which made the batty cat lady interrogator fold like a sheet of cheap toilet paper.) The cat people showed up exactly when they'd said they would, at 6:30 pm. There were two of them: tiny, elderly Eileen and tall, plump frizzy-haired 40 something Jill. They probably deliver cats into a lot of marginal circumstances, and it seemed they were impressed by the size and overall tidyness of our house (at least the parts they could see). We took Charles immediately to the upstairs bathroom, where he soon disappeared behind the toilet, the makeshift safe space newbie cats always choose. Jill wanted Charlie to have a nightlight and more heat, so those things were arranged, Meanwhile Clarence the Cat and both our dogs were outside the bathroom, pawing at the door in frustration and occasionally even whimpering. By the end of the visit, Gretchen was bonding with Eileen over their common origin in the Brighton Beach, Brooklyn area. Gretchen thought Eileen's accent sounded exactly like her late great aunt Helen's. For her part, Eileen was for some reason surprised and delighted to discover that Gretchen was Jewish. There was little talk about keeping Charlie confined to the house, though that's generally the policy of this particular cat rescue. They generally do not allow their cats to become indoor/outdoor cats.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?170401 feedback
previous | next |
