The Tenant

I finally rented out my mother's basement apartment. It's a cozy apartment for the right person. It's bright for a basement apartment, though it's still a basement.

The young woman who took it is in her mid-twenties, maybe early thirties. In conversation, she revealed she had moved to Toronto from Montreal last year with her boyfriend. They lived in a basement apartment where the ceiling almost touched her head. Our basement ceiling, compared to her current arrangement, is tall, she said.

She recently split with her boyfriend and that's why she was looking for her own place. She's currently in hair-styling school. Something about her gave me a good feeling. Maybe it was the modest and gentle, yet enthusiastic way she conducted herself. She seemed like a considerate person, concerned about safety and having a long stay in the apartment. But most of all, she loved the apartment, even when she came back two days later to put a deposit on it, and was so appreciative of the perks, like parking in the drive if she rented a car, use of the backyard, storage in the garage, her own door bell, a mail box. I told her this house was a very safe place for a single woman. I hoped my good feeling about her proves right.

Then this weekend, I visited mom on an errand. The new tenant had already moved in, two weeks before her time! We gave her keys so she could start moving her things in slowly. Not that we mind giving her half a month's rent free. Mom's done that before with other tenants. It's just that we hadn't expected her to move in so soon. She was sitting in the backyard smoking. Her arms were covered in tattoos. She had several piercings in her nostril and ears. I noticed she had dyed metallic red hair. Hmmn.

But at least she was still pleasant and said she was happy to be settling in. She had already called Bell to arrange for phone installation and gave me her new phone number. And she was smoking outside instead of inside the apartment.