The day after I returned from South
Africa, I went over to Manson Street to take stock of things. Mr. Catcher was due to perform the #damage #assessment the following morning. The
place didn’t look bad at first, but on closer inspection . . .
Dammit,
Darrell!
Charmayne
might have confiscated his crayons at her old apartment when he was “bad” but
in my #apartment, she had apparently
given her son free reign to draw on every single wall. What’s more, he’d used the type of marker
that bleeds through several coats of paint.
Trying
to look on the bright side, I figured I’d need just two cans. It wasn’t long since I’d last painted the apartment
so I'd attack just the bottom half of the walls, up to as high as the
two-year-old Darrell could reach. They
might come out two-tone, but I was beyond caring. The walls would still be white, wouldn't
they?
With
Mr. Catcher's damage report in mind, I prowled around the apartment, making a
list of all the things that needed doing.
Apart
from repainting the walls, I had to first fill in several large holes. The list grew longer: (1) Handle missing from under-sink cabinet in bathroom; (2) Towel rack
ripped from wall (along with large quantity of plaster); (3) Mirrored-door of
over-sink bathroom cabinet torn off hinges; (4) Smoke alarm missing from above kitchen
back door; (5) Two missing light shades . . .
The
next morning, about an hour before he was due to inspect the upstairs apartment,
Mr. Catcher called me at work.
"I've been looking through Charmayne's file,” he began. “Apparently,
her security agreement with the Department of Social Services ended on December
thirty-first."
"What!"
I gasped. "I know they stopped
paying the rent but Charmayne assured me the security agreement was still in
effect 'cause #D.S.S. still paid the utilities."
"I’m sorry. I guess she lied to you,"
Mr. Catcher said, sounding apologetic.
"I
can't believe this!" I exclaimed.
"After Mamie Parker, I was so careful this time to get the #security #agreement, and now I don't get paid either?
What do I have to do to protect myself?
These people just walk all over me, don’t pay #rent, wreck my #property,
and then just break their lease and move out. And a decent #landlord like me has no protection. It's
just . . . oh!"
I
couldn't continue. It was so unfair, and it kept happening, and I couldn’t stop
it.
“I
hate people!" I garbled into the phone.
Mr.
Catcher agreed. "I know. It's tough.
Some people are just low-lifes.
I've said it before, but maybe you should sell the #house. You keep losing money on it, and you'd be
better off if you didn't have it. Let
someone else deal with it."
"Who’d
buy it?" I moaned. “Probably
no one.”
"You’d
have to price it low enough. Maybe sell it
for less than you bought it for. When
you think of all you’ve gone through, how much would it be
worth for you to not have the continued aggravation?"
"You might be right," I said. "I'll think about it, but can you still go and look at the
apartment? Just in case? Wim's probably on his way there."
Mr.
Catcher said he would. I hung up the phone with a dismal click and contemplated the papers on my desk. My day was thoroughly shot now. The frustration was going to eat away
at me for hours, making it difficult to concentrate on my job. From past experience, I
knew I just had to let this all-consuming anger and depression run its course.
And keep my mouth shut until it had passed.
When I’m in a foul mood, I’m apt to snap and
snarl at anyone and anything that dares to cross my path. Opening my big mouth just makes things worse because
then I bear the added burden of guilt from hurting someone else.
In
a funk, I sat at my desk and thought about what Mr. Catcher had said. I’d owned the house for three years now, and it had been nothing but trouble. How much more could
I take – especially the way I felt at this moment, still recovering from the
exhaustion of South Africa?
I picked up the Yellow Pages (Yes, I know, but this was before the Internet), called a nearby #realtor, and made an appointment for that afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment