CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: Cozy Cousins

Days rolled by, and no one called about renting the #apartment.  I checked in with Giselle again to see if she'd come up with any potential renters.

"Well, she pondered.  "I gotta friend who might be interested."

"Does she have kids?" I asked.

"Yeah, four."  She pondered some more then shook her head.  "On second thought, I don't think she's the kind of tenant you want.  If you saw her place . . ."  Giselle shook her head again.

I sighed.  "The search goes on."

A week later, Wim came home from doing some repairs at Manson Street to report that Giselle’s boyfriend wanted to move in upstairs.

I perked up at this news.  Marvin was a nice guy, as far as I could tell.

I called Giselle after supper.  My enthusiasm was short-lived, however, because the first words out of her mouth were, "He's changed his mind."

"Why?"

"He says the space-heater in the dining room is too dangerous.  It's too close to the floor, an' he's scared one of his kids could burn 'isself on the open flame."

To do this, one would actually have to kneel down, stick a finger into the heater and weave it around various internal obstructions to get at the flame but I didn’t say this to Giselle. I was determined not to lose Marvin.

"I’ll see if Wim can make the heater safe," I suggested.  "Don't let your boyfriend change his mind yet, okay?

Giiselle assented.  "I'll speak to him,” she promised.

She called the next day.  "Marvin says he'll take the apartment if you fix the heater."

"Can he move in in April?" I asked hopefully. "That's just over two weeks away."

"He wants to," Giselle said,"but he’s havin'  trouble with his kids' mom. It should be sorted out soon, though.  He's got custody, you see, and she don' like that."

"Hm.  How about the four-seventy-five rent?"

"That's one thing you don' 'ave to worry about.  Marvin's startin' a job at the post office next week. He's on disability from hurting his back at his other job but he don't like being out of work."

Good for Marvin. Maybe things were looking up.

A week later, Giselle called again.

"Marvin can't move in for a few months, after all,” she said.  “Things have got complicated.  I know you need the #rent, so my cousin Diane's gonna move in instead.”

“I guess that would be all right,” I said.  “Do you two get along okay?”

“Yeah, we get along,” Giselle assured me. “She’s desperate to get out of the place she's in. It's infested with rats, and her landlord won't do nothing about it.  Diane’s scared it’s just a matter of time  til one of her kids gets bit."

I wondered how people could get away with having rat-infested apartments, while decent landlords like me kept getting cited for this, that and the other thing by the Code Enforcement Bureau.

“Diane still wants you to put something round the space-heater," Giselle continued. "Like you was gonna do for Marvin.”

I agreed that I would.

I got to meet Diane Tanner that weekend when I went over to Manson Street to do a spot of painting.  She was a plump, dark-skinned woman with a perpetual smile on her face and a loud laugh. In fact, I could hear her and Giselle laughing downstairs all day.  The cousins did seem to get along.

The only drawback was the four children: four potential damage-makers.  I suspected Diane to be the so-called “friend” Giselle had mentioned before but had then had second thoughts about due to the number of children.  However, being faced with yet another month with no rent was an incentive for me to dismiss this fact as not overly important.

Although it was now the third week of March, Diane assured me she could move in on April 1st.  She would give in her notice right away and take a landlord statement down to Social Services first thing Monday morning.  Marvin just happened to have a spare form in his car, so I was able to fill it out there and then.

We were still chatting on the front porch when along came a cousin of Marvin's.

"Do you have any other apartments available for my fiancé and me?" he asked, politely, cap in hand.

"I'm afraid not," I told him.  "I just rented the upstairs to Giselle’s cousin, Diane."

"Oh, I thought you might own some other houses," he said.  I wished he'd come by earlier.  A newly married couple without kids was infinitely preferable to a single mother of four, plus the added potential of boyfriend hassles.

When I arrived home that day, I chivvied Wim into agreeing to fix up the space heater before Diane moved in on April 1st.  He grumbled a bit but went to work a couple days later with some rolls of wire mesh, tiles, and tubing.  The resulting bill was $165.00 for what was, in Wim’s and my opinion, unnecessary modifications to the space heater.  To add insult to injury, Giselle called to complain that the intake in the side wall of her Jacuzzi was blocked.  A washcloth had been sucked into the pump, damaging the impeller.  Although the lease stated that Giselle was responsible for fixing damage caused by the tenants, she indignantly insisted it was my responsibility to fix the problem because there must have been something wrong with the intake if a washcloth could so easily have been sucked into it.  To the gentle suggestion that maybe one of her children had stuffed the washcloth into the intake, Giselle adamantly refused to believe such a thing was possible.  Not her kids.

Upon investigation, Wim and I learned that this brand of Jacuzzi was the discontinued product of a now-defunct company.  After numerous calls to various bath-fitters and spa dealers, we learned that there was only one place in the entire United States – somewhere out west – that stocked parts. Much to Giselle’s annoyance it took a week for the part to arrive and then another week until Wim had time to install it.  More time and expense -- $142.61, to be exact.

During this time, I called Mr. Catcher to come and inspect the apartment for Diane’s security agreement.  Unfortunately, his first available appointment was around the middle of April. 

I worked like a mad thing to get the place ship-shape.  Wim bustled about, fixing the towel rail, putting batteries into two smoke alarms, etc.  Allen, of course, tackled the oven.  I even pressed Giselle and the visiting Diane into service.  Giselle worked off a hundred dollars of her $475.00 debt from the previous August by cleaning the refrigerator and doing some painting.  

Charmayne had left behind a couch and mattress, which we lowered over the front balcony to the street below. She'd also left a huge television set.  I wanted to try it out first to see if it worked but Giselle insisted it must be broken, or Charmayne wouldn’t have left it. She then proceeded to heave it over the balcony railing.  I screamed and clutched my ears, waiting for the explosion when the television hit the sidewalk. Fortunately, it landed on the mattress, and the screen imploded relatively quietly.

 * * * * * * * *

Mummy flew home from South Africa at the end of March, happy in the knowledge that Frederica was receiving the best of care at Cape Town's Grooteschuur hospital.  In fact, my sister was doing so well, she would soon be fit enough to be placed on the priority transplant list.  She was looking forward to getting a beeper and moving into the hostel adjacent to the hospital to await a new liver . . . or so we thought.