We have six cats and a dog who is a pitt-rotty mix. I can't imagine that we could find another house to live in. But over-all the place is benefitting from us living here. The cats are mousers. Living beside a railroad track, that's important. They are abundantly adept at keeping the rodent population of the entire neighborhood down. The dog is his own story. He only looks scary. He doesn't have to be scary because nobody bothers us here. The house from the outside looks like one you would break out of, not in to.
Many years ago my brother and sister were both poor and desperate when they moved in. From what my siblings tell me it was a filthy, horror house dump when SL was showing it. The deal they struck was that SL would leave siblings alone and siblings would pay SL somewhat on time every month. Writing it down that way makes it sound like SL got taken, but not so. Karen and Ken cleaned, painted and repaired the house to make it livable and comfortable. It is in much better shape than when SL was attempting to rent it on Craig's List.
We limped along, ignoring the elephant for the full two years that I have been here. The tarp did better than expected. It prolonged the inevitable by years. The laundry room ceiling has fallen again. We began discussing how we were going to bring it up to SL when SL informed us of a huge rent increase. He made and excuse, saying that it was due to increases in taxes and insurance. By the time Karen told Ken and I about the increase she had already answered SL. She told him the same thing that was the first to come out of our mouths too; fix the roof.
Rodgers came back earlier than we imagined he would. He was on the roof stripping away the old tiles by 8:00 am. He left shortly after noon to return the next day. He has been back every morning since. He is working rather slowly.
Karen had been panicked that SL would kick us out because of the new roof. But Rodgers says no. SL is only replacing the shingles, not the rotting wood beneath them. He's doing it on the cheap because he does not have enough sense to do it right the first time, and he's watching his pennies. Rodgers says that not many of SL's other tenants are paying due to the eviction moratorium. That will be ending soon, so he either needs us because we are paying or because soon he will have to decide on evicting the non-payers. Either way, we are the only tenants SL is benefitting from at the moment. When I write it, I kind of feel bad for SL. But he could have fixed the roof four years ago when it would have been cheaper, when it was the obvious better choice than he made. We have no choice but to see if it was worth worrying over. Nobody wants to move; the place fits us now that the roof is fixed. So if he leaves it as it is, and the roof holds out we will probably stay.
