|
Okay, I
have to give you some background to get things going. Let's see... I'm
a
musician. I sometimes work out of town, and sometimes for several months
on
end. And while my employers provide me housing wherever I may be, I
still have
an apartment back in New York City at which I live between jobs.
And even
though it's not really fair, I have to pay my rent even when I'm
out of town.
Now don't tell my landlord, but I sublet my apartment when
I'm not there. At
least, I did once. And I might never do it again.
I
had a job which took me to the glorious land of California for the
entirety
of February and March. On the first of January, I spoke to a
friend of mine. To
protect his true identity, let's call him John. John
expressed interest in
subletting my apartment from me. How convenient! He
offered to pay $1000/month
for the place. I thought this was a great idea,
and we agreed upon it.
Let me make this clear at the beginning. He was
a friend of mine. He is also a
musician. We had known one another for a
year. A certain rapport had developed,
and I trusted him as more than a
casual acquaintance. Oh, how silly I can be
sometimes.
At the end of
January, he arrives. He pays me one month's rent in advance, and
plans to
mail the next month along with other bills in the weeks to come.
At the
beginning of February, I leave.
Throughout the time I'm away, things do
not go as smoothly as planned. He
doesn't stay in touch with me via phone
or email. He isn't sending me the money
he owes me for the rent or the huge
phone bill he's racking up. And I'm losing
my mind out in California, 3000
miles away, unable to do much of anything.
After weeks of anguish, he
finally emails me!
|
Look, I'm doing you
a huge favor by staying here. My life has gotten much too
busy to be able
to handle YOUR mail and YOUR bills. If what you wanted was a
goddamn
secretary, you should have said so. When I get a chance, I'll send you
your
mail. When I get paid for my job, I'll send you a check. In the
meantime,
just stop harrassing me about it. I know you're only 25, but
you've got to
learn to have respect for other
people.
|
WHAT?!
I had five more weeks left at my
job in California. Every day, I hoped for some
mail. Every day, I hoped for
a phone call or an email message apologizing, or
explaining or something.
Anything. And every day, I was left hoping.
Finally, at the end of
March, I come home.
I was in some state of shock upon my initial
return. It took me some time to
register what I saw. For starters, he
wasn't there. And I could tell by the
complete absence of his personal
belongings that he wasn't coming back. So I
decided to write this young man
a letter.
|
Dear
John,
Thank you for taking care of my apartment while I was gone. I
appreciate all
your help. Did you happen to inadvertently take my
three-hole puncher? I can't
seem to locate it. Oh, and did you also hold on
to my score to ONCE ON THIS
ISLAND? It's not on the shelf. I also seem to
recall approximately 20 blank
cassette tapes in the second to last drawer
of the dresser in the living room.
The drawer seems to be empty, save for
about a dozen menus from various
Chinese restaurants. And I guess you must
really like CD jewelboxes! How else
could one explain several of my CDs
lying around the living room, out of their
cases, the liner notes and
backing cards also strewn under the bookshelves? I
can replace the
jewelboxes. You know, they're not that expensive -- you can
buy them at
most record stores for about a dollar a piece.
Am I wrong in thinking
that I used to have about twelve drinking glasses, in
varying sizes? I know
I broke one or two in my time, but I know I had more
than the one that
seems to still be in the kitchen. Should I look elsewhere
for them? Perhaps
I could look in the bathroom linen closet where you kindly
put a few of my
things. There, I found just about everything that I would
normally store in
my medicine cabinet, but it was as if you had dumped the
medicine cabinet
onto three of the shelves! I know you can't do this, because
the medicine
cabinet is affixed to the wall. So you must have put these items
there
rather carefully. The salt stain from spilled saline solution wasn't a
big
deal, but I'm a little miffed that my contact lenses were left to dry
up.
What did you need the lens-case lids for? 'Cause they weren't with the
lens-case...
Don't fret: it hasn't taken me too long to figure out
exactly how you managed
to unplug my entire phone/machine/modem setup. It's
back to normal now.
Although I haven't quite determined what you did to the
TV and VCR to make
the viewing portion of the screen smaller, and for it to
always turn blue when
I pop in a cassette. Seems the VCR instructions have
disappeared as well.
Thank you also for collecting my mail. There were
only thirty-one envelopes
crushed in the mailbox when I got in late Monday
evening. And only about eight
of those were bills, now overdue. Altogether,
I guess the forty-five dollars
and change I owe in late fees isn't too
bad.
You budgeted your use of supplies quite economically. I mean,
there wasn't a
shred of paper towel, toilet paper or Kleenex to be found
here. Also, I find
that with my dishrags, they work better when they're
clean and dry, as opposed
to in the sink, sopping up some unrecognizable
orange glop. Actually, I take
that back. I recognized the orange glop as
being from a family similar to that
of the orange and brown crust in the
refrigerator. It was kind of you to leave
behind a half-jar of mayonnaise,
too. However, it tends to go bad when stored
under the counter.
You
left a few things behind, I'm afraid. Perhaps you'll come back to get
them.
A score to ANNIE is really the only one that I might be interested
in
looking at. Maybe you took ONCE ON THE ISLAND in error, thinking it was
your
score to ANNIE? Maybe. You also left behind some medication. I don't
know
what. I threw it out. Oh, and I found seven small blotches of
something brown
on the floor. It appears to be dog shit. That's right, I
did hear you had a
dog. You didn't mention that to me. Cute dog, too,
right? Cute piles of shit
left behind. Seven of them. All over the
apartment. It only took me about an
hour to scrape it up.
You also left
behind a patch of something sticky. It covers about 80% of the
floor
throughout the apartment. I can't identify it, and I really don't want
to.
I don't think I can get that back to you, though. I had to spend a
whole
lot of money today on cleaning supplies to replace the ones of mine
that were
mysteriously gone (dish soap, oven cleaner, dish towels, a mop,
sponges,
etc.). I have since mopped the floor, and your patch of something
sticky is no
more. I apologize. If I can replicate the substance, I'll do
my best to give
some back to you.
Oh, there's that little thing about
money. I've tallied up your bill. It's
a
doozy!
FEBRUARY
$1000.00 Rent
$62.88 Local
phone bill
$162.57 Long distance phone
bill
$25.00 Premium movie
channels
MARCH
$1000.00 Rent for
August
$84.83 Local phone bill
$104.09 Long
distance phone bill
$25.00 Premium movie
channels
SUB-TOTAL:
$2464.37
PAID THUS
FAR:
$1000.00
TOTAL OWED TO ME:
$1464.37
So it
seems you owe me almost $1500. I'm not including the cost of all
the
cleaning supplies I had to buy to restock what you took. And I
haven't
bothered to include the cost of all the blank tapes you took. Or
the lumber
and tools I need to purchase torepair my heirloom couch you
broke during your
stay here. Or the vodka you drank. Or the dishes which
are missing. Or
the music you stole. Or the three-hole punch.
Now that
I reflect on things, John, I was clearly mistaken. I trusted you. I
left
you responsible for my things. You might think that because you gave
me
less than half of what you owe me that we're even, that you had every
right to
do with this apartment as you wished. Live here, move things, take
things,
leave dogshit on the floor when you packed up and disappeared
without a note
or a trace.
You said once that I couldn't really bother
you with things about my apartment
once I had gone, because I wasn't the
tenant paying rent to live there. This
was on March 11. Now I might want
to re-check all associated transactions,
but it seems that on January 20, I
mailed a check my landlord to cover rent for
February. As of this message
(April 1), you have not yet paid me for the
month of February. I may have
been in California, but the books would show that
I was, in fact, the
tenant paying rent to live there. Not to mention the fact
that it's my
apartment! It's my lease! It's my stuff in there, it's my
furniture you're
using, it's my dishes you're eating from, it's my television
you're
watching and it's my telephone you're making hundreds of dollars worth
of
calls on. Do you see what I'm saying? It's MINE. You were to pay me for
the
use of these things. They didn't become yours, you were RENTING them
from me.
Perhaps the most stupid thing I did in the whole picture was
not write up a
contract for you to sign. We had a verbal
agreement, and you
have a cancelled check to show that you actually did live
here at one
point. Also, I have phone bills to show that someone in my
apartment called
your home town several times a day, every day, from January
30 until March 17.
You say that because I'm only 25, I don't know how to treat
other people with
respect. Is this your way of teaching me? I guess I have
a lot to learn in the
next four years -- you are 29, right? See, at my
current immature age of 25, I
know well enough to take responsibility for
my actions. I pay my bills. I keep
true on my agreements. And whenever I
shit on someone else's floor, I clean it
up.
Maybe, when I'm 29, I'll
treat people with the same kind of respect you do.
But I really hope
not.
|
As of this writing, John has
not been found. Should he read this article, and
wish to reply, he is more
than
welcome.
|
