Out Of Sight

The handyman Alfonso finished the job at property Alpha. He did excellent work and now it’s my turn. Today, I want to "cut" all the corners and edges of the walls that I’ll be painting. I have to do it quickly because I have only 30 minutes between jobs today. That leaves Wednesday and Thursday to get the rooms painted and polyurethane the floors.

While I was checking up on Alfonso, the downstairs Indians of Alpha started bothering me. At first, they wanted to be reassured that I was moving in good people to the upstairs apartment. It was an understandable concern and I reassured them that it’s in my best interests to move in good tenants. Then they invited me in and complained that their apartment is cold when the heat is off and wanted to know why. Let me write that complaint again: “Their apartment is cold when the heat is off.” I went inside and the apartment was fine, temperature-wise. They then suggested that I get them a carpet to keep them warmer. Notice how their complaints get dumber and dumber?

I wrote about this issue in a March post called Letters Are Better. Whenever a tenant sees a landlord their brains instinctively remind them to complain about something, even when there is nothing wrong. Take the downstairs Indians for example. They have a perfect apartment in a great neighborhood with no problems. They see me, and all of a sudden they start complaining about there being no heat when the heat isn’t on??!! The truth is that I know what they are talking about. Because there is little insulation in the walls, the apartment doesn’t keep in as much heat. Well, if they think I’m going to spend almost $4000 to rip out the walls and put insulation into every room so that their National Grid bill can be $50 less, they’re out of their minds. If I didn’t need them in that particular apartment I would start to consider throwing them out and renting it to people who wouldn’t annoy me, but I’m still living in the basement so I have to play nice.

One of the problems with immigrants is that they are very needy. Tenants, in general, don’t seem to understand that when they have a perfect apartment in a great neighborhood, they should probably shut the fuck up. I told them that I’d “look into it”, but I really have to finish painting the upstairs apartment and get it rented out as soon as possible before they start asking me to replace their bathroom tiles because it clashes with their clothes—or something just as stupid. The sooner the upstairs apartment is rented out, the sooner I can get away from their sights. And when I’m out of sight, I’ll be out of their minds.