The Guest House

Gramma

To get dressed or not to get dressed.  That is the question of the day.  I'm not going anywhere so I don't see the point of it.  The heating guy is coming this morning to give an estimate on the replacement of a heat storage unit in the "guest house."  The apartment is inside the pole shed.   It is beautiful and spacious with a cathedral ceiling, stained glass fixtures, and wheelchair accessibility.  I could live there when I am old and need one level. 

The current renter has been there ten years.  She makes me batshit crazy.  Dumber than a box of rocks, couldn't figure out recycling, easily flustered, and liked to take my stuff for her own use.  The apartment is full of things that were  stored in the pole shed.  I would find disappeared yard furniture or decorations I was looking for on her porch or in her fenced yard.  This is all without permission. 
 
Jodi brought her extended family along when she first came to look at the place.  She was divorced and had two grown children.  Her family vouched for her excessive cleanliness, keen decorating expertise and dependability.  She asked if there was any way I could lower the rent so she wouldn't be "Pour."  I was put off by this, but after careful consideration of the rash of very bad tenants we had endured, she seemed like a less troublesome sort.  She had worked at the local hospital for years and would be living alone with her cat.  Peace and quiet was worth something. 

With the understanding that she would help with the animals and yard work, I gave her a monthly discount of a hundred dollars.  She was very quiet and kept to herself.  She also made no effort to help with anything.  This is because she is a pothead.  When she wasn't working, she was mostly laying on the couch deadheading with the cat.  This was okay.  I like the smell of pot and the sound of quiet.  Sometimes she played jazz music loudly, but that was alright too. 

There was low traffic and she drove really slow, everywhere, so another dog or chicken not being killed by a fast moving tenant or their friends and family was a good thing.  But, she "borrowed" things. 

Wearing my bathrobe, I would take my coffee outside to check on animals and look for new blooms in the gardens.  Sometimes I dropped in on Jodi.  I left my handmade cup out there one day.  She would not give it back.  It was the mate to one Dave had brought when he moved in.

"There's where I left my cup," I said one morning. 

"No, my brother gave that to me as a gift," she claimed.  I went so far as to ask if I could buy it from her.  She said no, her mother had given it to her.

The estimate for the new heater was nearly $3000.00.  I'm sure the candle wax melted in the vent contributed to it's demise.  There was also candle wax melted into the carpet, which she tried to remove unsuccessfully.  Good thing the weather was warming up.  The other heater could keep up for now.  Jodi liked to keep the apartment at nursing home temperature.  The best thing I ever did out there was to make the electric separate.  I knew I would have to raise the rent.