First time living solo I was 21. This was also my first experience with that strange breed known as landlords. I find a common thread is woven through the tapestry of individuals owning rental properties. It’s the sallow color of ‘get away with what you can,’ as opposed to the deep, solid hue of ‘fix things the correct way from the start.’ I’m not one to knock DIY projects, but I don’t have the audacity to make others live with my creative [read ‘cheap’] notions regarding home repair. I wouldn’t go so far as to say landlords live to make others’ lives miserable, but at the very least discontent.

The building was called El Mondo. I wondered why. In Italian, it would be ‘il mondo,’ meaning ‘the world’. In Spanish, it would be ‘el mundo,’ same meaning. Somebody got their latin languages a bit jumbled. Though it would prove a fitting microcosm of rental life, if this lowish-rent place on Republican & Summit meant the world to anyone– that’s just sad. My hope for them is to see more of the world than a 1930s brick structure with faux turret, cheap parquet flooring & scant upkeep.

The landlord’s name [for this story] was EB, & El Mondo wasn’t his only building. I don’t know how many properties he owned, but he refused to hire anyone to be onsite managers. He tried to do it all himself. This was the recipe for much neglect, stirred in the shallow pockets of what he was willing to spend on any one property.

My apartment was on the top floor; a bay window under that famed turret faced downtown Seattle & Puget Sound. It did have a great view, which mitigated the less desirable features. I suspected original hardwood planks lay under the parquet tiles, covered because refinishing them was an expense too far. 2 Siamese cats, Skooter & Guy, kept me company as I painted & journaled. A job waiting tables at the Sunlight Cafe was the sole thing that took me away from them regularly. Though broke-ish, I was content… until EB decided to foist some of his duties upon me.

I think the reason he tapped me for this was because I had tools & was somewhat proficient using them. I replaced the faulty workings inside my toilet tank so it would flush. The fact that I bought the hardware & did the work myself impressed him. I didn’t tell him that was my solution to avoid people I barely knew coming into my home, & having to wait for a working toilet to make it to the top of his to-do list. I considered it more urgent than he did. Soon my motto would be ‘Beware skinflints bearing jobs.’

During the year I lived there my contentment shrank. I developed a severe allergy to my felines, in which hospitalizations occurred. My ‘smeezies’ had come to me as kittens, I knew their characters better than all of the people in my life combined. This stupid meatsack I wear betrayed me. I could have either functional lungs or a heart, not both. So I ripped that still-beating organ out of my chest & rehomed my boys. That’s not something you just bounce back from. Grief comes masked in a fur coat.

Further discontent sidled in by working for EB. His thought process included an inverse ratio: the more he had to pay me to do a job, the less supplies he needed to provide me with to accomplish it. First came the painting of a recently vacated studio, with a single gallon of paint (“Spread it thin, only cover up the marks”) & zero dropcloths (“Just be careful”). I said “No amount of careful takes into account paint rollers spit teensy flecks all over,” to which he replied “There’s a hardware store up the street,” (literally 8 blocks away). “You can pick one up if you need it.” I noted that he didn’t offer to pay for it, or my time to go buy one. EB didn’t know the first rule of employing others: Stiffing the help makes the help displeased.

He did learn the lesson about partial paint touch-ups (looks obvious & awful) & that rollers do indeed spatter. Which led to me being tasked with stripping & rewaxing the floor. He gave me a piece of steel wool, a can of paste wax, & a rag to do so. I remarked “Aren’t there machines that normally do this faster?” (Less hard on knees & backs was implied.) I went ahead & did it, & he liked the result so much he asked me to do all the hallways too. I informed him the single piece of steel wool (now but a nub), the sole can of wax & only 1 rag was not going to cut it. Reluctantly, he got me more of everything. 

The last job I did for him was a move-out clean. The tenant had lived in the unit only 6 months, yet it was the single-most filthiest apartment I had seen. Ever. The kitchen was a crime scene, with tomato sauce standing in for blood spatter in a chainsaw massacre. The clawfoot bathtub was black with grease like an entire engine was cleaned in it. Even the ceiling (as well as all the walls) had grimy smears everywhere. I didn’t want to peer into the toilet after seeing these features. I was glad the previous tenant was gone. Knowing someone in my building lived like this was disturbing.

Shortly after I gave notice that I was moving out of El Mondo the ceiling in my living room started leaking when it rained. This was not something I was equipped to fix myself, so I called EB. I was lucky he thought it urgent enough to address quickly, though I’m sure that had more to do with getting another tenant. My guess is he wisely thought a bucket of water in the middle of the room is not a selling point.

He brought a ladder, a saw, some tape, & what I can only describe as a large, shallow aluminum dish with a rubber tube coming out of the bottom. It was obviously a contraption he cobbled together himself. I watched as he cut a hole adjacent to the drip, balanced the dish on rafters & pushed the tube’s free end up & through a drain hole in the parapet (a common feature of flat roofs). There was a ‘but–’ about to escape my lips, cut short by suddenly wondering why there was no roof under that turret. Then he taped the piece of ceiling back into the hole & said “All it needs is some touch-up paint.”

Here I was thinking he would go up to the roof with a pail of tar & a brush. Movies & tv have misinformed me. Apparently ‘just reroute the water’ is the new fix. Good thing I don’t own property– I’d be maintaining it in all kinds of backwards, anachronistic methods.

I’m no expert in the way water moves, but I do know it takes the path of least resistance. I also know liquids don’t readily flow up a tube without something akin to a pump. I would love to live in his magical world where the laws of physics don’t apply. Unfortunately I live in the world that stubbornly clings to gravity. But I was moving soon. This would be a lesson EB would learn without the benefit of my smirk.