Chapter 2: The Landlord - A Deadly Dose of Disorder by Cindy Downes

     As I put the last of the groceries away, I hear heavy footsteps climbing the stairs. “Oh crap,” I say as I spot my landlord, Alec. Oreo barks, jumps up and down and runs around in circles, while I quickly pick up dog toys, newspapers, and coffee mugs before opening the door. 
    “Alec, what do you want,” I ask?“I need to discuss your lease,” he says, pushing his way through the door. I roll my eyes. Typical for him; he pushes his way through life.Alec picks up Oreo and tosses him off the lounge chair, thumps his butt down, and reclines his feet up.
    “How about some coffee,” he demands. 
    You might think I’m his housecleaner, I say to myself as I pop a Starbucks pod in the Kuerig. “Cream and sugar,” I ask?
    “Nope, black,” he says. “Got anything sweet to go with it?”
    After he’s comfortably settled with coffee and a chocolate chip cookie, he pulls out a lease and tosses it at me.
    I scan the five-page, size-8-font document and jerk my head back with a loud “What is this?”
    Alec swallows his cookie practically whole and drinks off the top of his coffee with a loud slurp. “What is what?” he asks, wiping his hand across his mouth.
    I notice a chocolate chip fall on his designer jeans, but I’m not concerned about that. I’m too distraught at what I see in the lease. My hands are shaking as I say, “You raised my rent $200 a month!”
    “Inflation,” he says. “Everybody is dealing with inflation these days and landlords are no different.
    “But you haven’t fixed the rotten door jamb or my dishwasher or the holes in the bathroom ceiling.”
    “I fixed your door jamb, just last week,” he says with a snarl.
    “You nailed the broken pieces back into place! That’s not fixed. All you did was prevent the rotten pieces from falling down.”
    “It worked, didn’t it? Besides, I’m going to remodel this place eventually.”
    “What about the dishwasher?” I ask.
    “Your dishwasher works. I ran it through two cycles and every cycle performed exactly as required.”
    “Sure, it works, but it doesn’t clean my dishes! I have to scrub them clean first or they come out as dirty as they go in. That’s not fixed.”
    Alec grabs his mug, lifts it towards me, and says, “I’ll have another cup.”
    I grab the cup and head back towards the kitchen as he yells after me, “And don’t forget the cookie. It was a bit stale, but it’s better than nothing.”
    By this time, I’m fuming, but I get his damn coffee and cookie and sit back down. I return my attention to the lease and notice he also increased the lease to two years. “What the hell is this,” I say, pointing to the lease. “Two years! You expect me to sign a two-year lease for this hell hole?”
    Alec takes a big slurp and sits back in his chair with a smug grin. “This is beach property, lady. I could be making thousands a month if this was an AirB&B. I’m doing you a favor.” 
    “AirB&B! That’s a joke, right? No one would rent this place as a vacation home. The walls have holes in them, the floor is warped, carpet is stained, stairs are breaking, the outside hasn’t been painted in God-knows when. You can’t be serious!”
    “I’m serious. Now are you going to sign the lease or what,” he finishes his coffee and begins to get up. Oreo sits back on her haunches and growls up at him. 
    I begin to analyze the options in my mind. Not many, I admit. I’m paying an enormous amount to keep Richard in Assisted Living. I couldn’t keep him home any longer. He was falling down and wandering. 
    At 250 pounds, there was no way I could lift him, so I was calling the ambulance on a regular basis to help me get him up. He began to wander out of the house and then forget where he was. Luckily, I say this tongue in cheek, he’s visually impaired so he doesn’t have a driver’s license, or he probably would have had silver alerts as well. 
    My children, Crystal and Cameron, insisted it was time to place him in a care home. The only one on the island I could afford was close by, but not the best place for him. It has no memory care. I really need to get him into a place with memory care but that costs even more money. All this is going through my mind as I ponder the lease in front of me.
    There is nothing on the island that is this cheap, even with a $200/month increase. I just can’t afford to move right now. I’ll have to cut back more on groceries and whatever else I can think of, but at least I can still be here on the island with Richard and the kids. I’ll have a roof over my head, even if it does leak now and then. Better than being on the street. I don’t want to have to compete with Ron on 61^st and Broadway! 
    “Fine,” I say, grabbing a pen from my desk. “I’ll sign your lease, but at least fix the hole in my bathroom ceiling.” I scribble my signature across the lease and hand it back to him.
    “Sure,” he says as he pushes off of the recliner and waddles his 300 lb frame out the door. “Next week. I’ll take care of it next week.”
    I shut the door after him and blow out a big breath. Exasperated is mild for what I’m really feeling. How am I going to pay for this and assisted living, too?