For Three Years, My Landlord Never Cashed a Single One of My Rent Checks – When I Finally Demanded to Know Why, He Handed Me a Shoebox
She glanced at the notice.
“You’ll have to ask him.”
“Do you know him?”
“Everybody around here knows Mr. Alvarez.”
The way she said it made me nervous, but I wrote down the address anyway.
The apartment was a converted garage behind an old blue house on Palmer Street.
It had one bedroom and a kitchen the size of a closet.
A window over the sink looked out at somebody else’s tomato plants.
The paint on the walls was faded, and the floor tilted slightly near the bathroom.
The refrigerator made a low buzzing sound.
There was no dishwasher, no laundry room, and no space for a dining table.
To me, it looked like safety.
Trixie ran from one end of the bedroom to the other.
“Can I put stars on the ceiling?”
“We’ll see.”
“That means no.”
“It means we’ll see.”
She gave me a serious look, then opened the closet.
“It’s small.”
“So are your clothes.”👉 Read the Full Story
That made her laugh.
The landlord, Mr. Alvarez, met me in the driveway.
He was somewhere in his 70s, wore the same gray work shirt every single day, and had a face that did not give away a single thing he was thinking.
His hair was white and cut close to his head.
His hands looked rough, and there was a thin scar near his left thumb.
He looked at me, then at Trixie, then at my car.
The car had stalled twice on the way there.
He asked me three questions: “Did I smoke?” “Did I have a dog?” “Was the little girl mine?”
“No, no, and yes,” I replied.
Mr. Alvarez looked at Trixie again.
She stepped closer to me and held my hand.
Then he said, “$800 a month. First of the month. No lease, because I don’t like paperwork.”
I nearly cried right there in the driveway.
Eight hundred dollars was less than half of what anything else in that city cost.
“Is there a deposit?” I asked.
“No.”
“Application fee?”
“No.”
“Do you need proof of income?”
He stared at me.
