Give or Take a Mile

If my tenant had seemed like a good person, maybe I would have only felt bad for him when he told me all that time ago that he had bedbugs.  Bad for him and scared for myself.

But this was someone who played his music loudly enough at three a.m. to literally shake me out of a deep sleep two stories down.  Someone who, in exchange for his very, very cheap rent, felt he could treat me like a concierge when, right off the bat,  he locked himself out twice his first week here -- once at 3 a.m. and another time first thing in the morning on a Sunday.

Once, after my ex-husband had moved out, leaving me here to fend for myself, I noticed a water stain that hadn't been there before, under the staircase leading down from that top floor where the tenant was living.  That was odd, I thought; there was a whole story of house between that water stain and the roof, and there was certainly no plumbing anywhere nearby.

Then I figured out that, not only had my tenant taken cardboard storage boxes out of his infested bedroom to store in my insulation-filled crawl space (crawl space, not attic!), but he'd also opened up, from there, the hatch to the roof -- where I would then find coffee cups and ashtrays -- and left it open.  For God knows how long.  In the rain.

No, really, help yourself.  Make yourself right at home.

So I put a lock on not only the hatch but the door that opened onto the ladder leading there, past the crawl-space.

I didn't want to have to live like that.  To bolt every single thing in sight down because I had surrounded myself with selfish, immature (even at 30+) people with the kind of sense of entitlement that says, "ask for forgiveness, not permission."  And then would never even get around to the forgiveness. "Worse comes to worst, it doesn't hurt to ask."

For things you're not paying for.  For things you know you have no right to.  For things it's insulting to ask for.  ("Oh, you don't even use air conditioning in the summer -- because it's expensive?  Well, still -- I think 'utilities included' should mean I can use all the AC I want for no extra money.  What's that? New York City says a couple of hundred bucks a year is a reasonable flat fee? Tell you what:  how about I just  give you 50?"

Interesting.  So you're saying Mommy and Daddy taught you that the worst that can happen is that someone might say no?

Hmm.  Funny because my mother taught me to have some humility.  And to treat others as you would like to be treated.  Maybe "it never hurts to ask" actually does work for you sometimes.  But I'm here to tell you that I can't be the only one out there with whom it does not work.  For whom it sends up a red flag that says, "This person tries to get something for nothing --  and then will try to manipulate you into feeling guilty about it if you don't go along.  In the future, deal with this person as little as humanly possible."

Am I wrong about this? Just being uptight and narrow-minded? Lacking that ambitious attitude it takes to succeed? Maybe you're right.  Don't knock anything until you've tried it first, right?

Hey, Hipsterboy, I have an idea.  I was thinking that in addition to your rent, you give me 50% of the returns you're earning on that trust fund your daddy set up for you.  No, no, no -- no hurry; just give it some thought. I don't need an answer right away.  Oh, and when I came upstairs to see where the leak was coming from, I saw your new Mac sitting on the desk, so just a heads-up:  I took it.  You don't mind, right?