A Little Respect

Marti Johnson
Washington DC--Dupont Circle
June-July 2000
1-bdrm apt that I sublet to two young newlyweds

Months later I would wonder, "What was I thinking?"

I was living in an adorable apartment in Washington DC's artsy Dupont Circle when I got a call to do some freelance work in Manhattan. My employers would pay all my expenses and provide a salary that was higher than I made currently in the Nation's Capitol. It sounded like fun, so I went along. Then they said, "Can we interest you in working for us for a month in California?" I said sure, but wondered what to do about my apartment.

I saw a listing for an emergency short-term housing need on a church listserv, and contacted the party. The guy and his young wife were newly married and from a small town in the West. I met them and they seemed okay, so we agreed on the terms for a one-month stay. They were paying less than the rent I paid and not covering phone or other utilities, but they seemed to be honest young newlyweds with very little money. I left my worries behind and headed West.

At the end of the month, I went to New York. Turned out, my subletters had not found a permanent place to stay. So I allowed that they could remain, though I would be going home to the (Washington) apartment on weekends.

Walking back into my apartment the first time, I immediately sensed things were different. The chubby young wife, wearing overalls with rivets, was sitting on top of the high footboard of my expensive sleighbed as she talked on the phone. There was a damp towel drying alongside her fanny. I then walked into the kitchen to discover that my formerly bursting pantry was now more than half empty. They had also put my custom-made "dry clean only" raw silk and metal duvet cover through the washer, and a change dish once full of quarters for laundry was now full of pennies.

I informed the young wife that "the footboard is not meant to support your weight that way, please don't sit on it like that," and that fine wood furniture is not the place to hang wet towels.

They left a month later and I discovered the rest: they had broken irreplaceable antiques, emptied my kitchen of anything edible, opened and used packaged items that were intended as gifts for others, and generally gone through everything in my apartment. It was as though they had never been taught to respect others' property. I vowed no more subletters ever again.

The Ooze

Tim Anderson
New York, NY--Nolita
May 1992
1-bdrm apt, occupied by me

I've never been much of a subletter. It takes so much energy, energy that I'd much rather devote to watching "cute baby tiger" videos on youtube. Yes, though nosing up in other people's business is a definite thrill, there's really nothing like being in one's own home, looking through one's own underwear drawers, delving deeply into one's own deeply buried secrets, uncovering one's own private porn stash.

But sometimes one must sublet. At least for a day or two. Like when one has to come to NYC for a job interview. Back in the early 90s, in the era before craigslist and downloadable booty taint, I found a place listed in the Village Voice by a cute aging Italian lady named Mrs. Gigante. She showed me all around her tiny one bedroom on Mott Street, pointing out the clean silverware, the flushable toilet, and the black and white television that got really good reception from channel 13. We agreed that I would be one of several people to stay at her place (me for one night and two days) for a really cheap price while she was away visiting family on Long Island. I would water her plants, clean anything I dirtied, and sleep on the couch. Easy peasy. I would pick up the key from the super and leave the key for the next person upon my departure.

When I arrived late on a Tuesday night, I dropped my bag on the floor and opened the curtains to reveal a stunning view of a concrete alley. As I stretched my neck out the window to see what other earthly delights awaited my eyeballs, I couldn't help but notice the blood-curdling shriek of a lonesome kitty-cat wafting through the air. But it wasn't echoing up from the alley three floors down or tumbling out from a neighboring flat. It was coming from inside the apartment!

Now I love cats. Truly. Any animal that is emotionally unavailable and oozes entitlement needs to sit next to me. But kindly old Mrs. Gigante didn't say anything about a cat. Surely she would have.

I followed the sound of the wailing feline, looking through cupboards and drawers, opening the closet, and checking under the bed, at no time feeling like I was getting any closer to the source of the screaming. I became convinced that the cat was trapped inside the wall and worried that I'd have to tear apart the apartment in order to save it.

Then I opened the French doors leading out to the truncated balcony and there, trapped between the doors and the storm door, was the oldest, crotchetiest, ugliest cat I'd ever seen in my life. It was orange and clearly had eye herpes. It sat hunched over and scowling, its two snaggleteeth standing like sentries at the gates of what appeared to be a mouth most rotten. It rubbed its nasty ears on my leg and emitted spittle onto my jeans as it purred. I melted.

I immediately named him (I decided he was a he) Oozy and, seemingly enamored with the moniker, he began following me around as I moved from the bathroom to the kitchenette to the settee, all the while screeching out a weathered and leathery meow that was utterly blissful in its ignorance of its own glass-shattering volume.

So had Mrs. Gigante simply forgotten to tell me about the cat? Or had I been her chump? On the floor of the tiny kitchen sat a full bowl of dry catfood and a twin bowl of water, neither of which--I swear to God--were there the day I'd come to look at the place. Oozy, in an adorably disgusting pantomime of what a cat should look like while eating, perched himself at the food bowl and started awkwardly gnawing on the nuggets, attempting to negotiate them down his dried-out throat and into his stomach, spitting and drooling all the while.

Oozy kept me up all night with his shrieking. But he wasn't shrieking out of pain or anger, at least as far as my dull eyes and ears could tell. He was shrieking because it was about all he could do to prove that he was still alive, snuggled on the couch next to me as I stroked his greasy, probably diseased tummy, rubbing his eye boogers and ear emissions onto my desperately sleepy body.

Finally giving up on the possibility of sleep around 4 a.m., I wandered the tiny apartment in search of a magazine or crossword puzzle to pass the time as I counted the seconds between the arias of Oozy's death opera. I went to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet to search through the wooden magazine rack next to it. Sighing at the lack of good prospects, I looked up to see a Post-It note on the shower curtain directly ahead of me with a message scrawled on it:

"Please put the cat back where you found her before you leave."


I fell asleep some time around six that morning and slept through my interview, my dreams assaulted periodically with the piercing mortal lamentations of Oozy as he attempted to claw his way into them. I woke at nine with Oozy on my face, shouting into it. Jumping from the couch, I quickly called the office to lie and say I'd had an insulin reaction and could I please reschedule for the afternoon.

I dressed myself and gathered up all of my things in preparation for the rescheduled interview. As I did this I realized it had been a few minutes since I'd heard from Oozy. I looked over at the door to the balcony and there he was, waiting patiently to be let out into the tiny sliver of space between the two doors, the place where I’d found him. I opened the door for him, he slid into the space, laid down, and immediately fell asleep, purring and gurgling and blowing tiny bubbles with his nostrils. Closing the door behind him, I slid on my blazer, visited the kitchenette sink one more time to clean the cat drool off my new pants and the yellow and green mucous off my shoes, and walked out, hoping that the Oozy was getting some well deserved rest. He'd had such a long night.

Initiation

[This is the format I have in mind for posts: open w/ sublet specs (and picture if included), followed by text. In the case of this particular post (and a couple to come), I was able to pull from previous writings/notes taken on my experiences...]

Kristen
New York, NY--Gramercy neighborhood
March-July 2005
1-bdrm apt, occupied by my then-boyfriend and I

March 23, 2005
I'M HERE. Here: sitting w/ laptop in the plushest chair my ass has ever, ever known, feet resting on an equally plush ottoman, a one Empire State Building at my back, glowing orange-red against a black NY sky...

So my plane touched down at approx 6:20 p.m. I fetched my gargantuan luggage and joined a forty person-long taxi line. I called the boyfriend (not here for another week), gushed appropriately, then jumped into my designated cab, which dropped me, twenty minutes later, in front of 324, where I arranged my bags in a heap and plopped down to wait for Jim, brother of the woman subletting us the place.

I ended up waiting about twenty minutes, during which time I met next-door neighbor Sharon, who was taking her collie on an evening stroll. I'd put S at around 55, maybe 60. As it was obvious I was moving in, she asked where I was from, why I had chosen New York, etc. I told her about my publishing aims, to which she replied, "Oh really? I was an editor at one point--for Better Homes and Gardens." She was perfectly nice, although right away I knew I wasn't in Seattle anymore. She had a way about her, just real unhesitating in her delivery. Like, at one point I sort of half-mumbled something, and I got a pointed "what?" in return. It was the tone more than the word, of course. Not rude, just like, "come on, let's have a conversation." It forced me to speak louder and to look right at her while speaking--a great practice for me to get into. What else... I also met Ada, met her before I met Sharon, actually. She stands not an inch taller than 4'10, sounds German. Very warm, I can tell already, and to hear Sharon speak of her, she's the resident cat lady/bird feeder. Fantastic.

So Rosalynn, film director and official #5C tenant, has good taste. Lots of deep browns and dark wood, Asian art prints and photography, overall calming aesthetic... Plus, not only do we have our very own bedroom, but a Futon as well, just waiting for you to take advantage of. (Visit us!)

Oh, so as nice as the digs are, I have one complaint: she's got too much. I mean, the place is by no means cluttered--on the contrary, her closets shelve the nicest, neatest sweater stacks. Cut from the same cloth, that Rosalynn and I. BUT, I have my own clothing--and like her, too much of it. It looks as if the boyfriend and I have one closet to share, and well, that ain't gonna cut it. Hmm. I am here first...

Same holds true for bathroom misc. While I'm all for Q-tips and shower poofs, I'd rather supply my own, you know? But as it stands now, hers run rampant. As I don't imagine she intended a 'what's mine is yours' type of arrangement, thus far I've taken the liberty of stowing some select items of hers beneath the sink...

April 3, 2005
Seven o'clock this morning. Doorbell chimes repeatedly. I bolt out of bed. Doorbell chimes repeatedly. I yell "hold on a sec!" Doorbell chimes repeatedly. I scramble to dress. Doorbell chimes repeatedly. I shriek something.

It's 90-year-old Ada who lives directly below us in 4C, and she’s in full-fledged morning garb: silk housecoat, pin curlers (she's this close to losing one), puffy eyes. She's just 'stopping by' to find out whether we've contacted the super in regard to the heavy stream of water--courtesy of the boyfriend's shower--that had doused her yesterday afternoon. I had, and the response: "Tell her to call me in the morning. She needs to call me." The whole exchange had hinted at prior history, that perhaps the super considers our downstairs neighbor one of those complainer types. But as the boyfriend and I will attest, leaky ceilings = no picnic.

So I relay his request, writing down his number for her, and off she shuffles, trailing thank you's and a loose curler.

More about Ada: She's kindof amazing. Ninety years old, still living in the apartment of her childhood, and climbs five flights of stairs at least once a day, insisting on doing this w/o an assisting arm. ("That's okay honey girl, I use this railing here.") It's a sight to behold. This is because Ada moves so slowly that it's almost stressful. You just never quite buy into the idea that she'll take that next step, even though she's proven you wrong a...g...a...i...n and a......g......a......i......n and a......... And even though she would've surely turned down an offer of assistance, you can't help but feel guilty, bounding up the stairs two at a time, throwing glances back, reaching your floor as you imagine Ada's right foot hovering--contemplating, considering, stopping for lunch--on the brink of that third step...

Anyhow, there's no ceiling to Ada's kindness. She brings us strange Italian pastries from her favorite neighborhood bakery, always stops for conversation, and most recently, gave the umbrella-less boyfriend an ancient, bamboo-handled number. ("Oh honey boy, you can't go out like that!") The top/cap part is completely mangled, w/ clumps of animal hair splaying in all directions, but gosh, nice! Of course, there's always a complaint, right? Ours: It's the cat-lady designation. Presumably she mothers several, or maybe one really dirty one, given the pissawful stench that greets the nostrils once the fourth floor comes into view. It really is bad, especially at the end of an endlessly hot day, and I can't imagine how her neighbors cope. I don't know, maybe they've resolved to consider the bags of pastries she twirls around their doorknobs consolation. So sweet. (The gesture, not the pastries, which, if they're the same ones we collect, are mysteriously lacking in sugar.)

Here's to hoping we're able to wash ourselves today.