Message

There's a message on my answering machine that I haven't erased yet. It's my landlady and she says, "your cheque bounced for March, you still haven't paid for April. I want you out of there by April thirtieth because they're going to unfortunately send the bailiff and he's going to take everything you've got in there."

It's now May.

After she left the message I spoke to her and I said that I understand the problem with having me as a tenant. My apartment is filthy making it difficult to rent out to new potential tenants. I have problems paying the rent. I tell her that I understand and that I'm willing to leave if she'll sign a Cancellation of Lease Agreement, two copies of which are on my dining room table, which would make it so that I am no longer financially responsible for the apartment after I leave.

She refused to sign. She said she'll sign that if she can find new tenants.

Every weekend she shows my apartment. Prospective tenants, they come in here, and when she's in the other room they ask me, why are so many people leaving this building? What is so wrong with it that almost half of the tenants are leaving or already gone?

And I tell them about my apartment. I tell them about the lack of electricity in the bathroom, the likely mould-filled cracks along the bathroom wall, the toilet that won't stop running. I tell them how the water comes out of the taps brown. I mention the silverfish that scurry out of and along the walls. The balcony with the rotted wood flooring and the rusty rails.

The landlady has yet to find new tenants for my apartment.