Rent Increase

August 23, 2007

Everyone in my building — everyone I’ve spoken with, anyway — has been hit with a rent increase. While no one was looking, someone slid envelopes underneath our doors. "Your rent is being raised. As of September 1st, your new rent will be—"

Some were hit harder than others. My neighbor, for instance, is faced with a 200 dollar a month increase. She lives alone and has a hard time making rent as it is. I saw her in the hallway yesterday. She told me she's been trying to set up a meeting with a lawyer so that she knows her rights before making a call to the landlord to negotiate.

On Saturday, I awoke to someone yelling in the hallway in the middle of the night. It sounded vaguely like Deborah, and when I realized she wasn't in bed with me, I thought it must've been her. I'm generally able to sleep through most of the nonsense that goes on in this building, but Deborah isn't so lucky. Even with earplugs. The party down the hall had been raging all night long, and I was afraid that she tried to complain about the noise and got into a yelling match with drunken French Canadians (The voices in the hallway were speaking French, and in my dizzy dream-like state, I assumed they were Canadian, but I don't know.)

I got up to investigate, but as soon as I climbed down from the loft bed, I realized that Deborah was asleep on he couch. I took a piss and went back to bed.

In the morning, Deborah told me that she had gone down the hall to complain. She walked through the open door of the apartment and found the party's host. She asked him to keep it down — to at least keep his door closed —and although he was apologetic, he was too drunk and fucked up to make any reliable assurances.

"Are you with us?" he said to Deborah as she left.

"Excuse me?"

"Are you with us? The rent increase. The landlord is raising everyone's rent. We're going to fight it. Are you with us? You gotta get with us. Lemme have your phone number so I can call you and let you know what we decide to do about it."

"I'll give it to you tomorrow. I just want to go back to bed."

"No, no. Lemme have it now. It's important."

"Okay, fine," she said.

She recited her number and he punched it into his cell phone.

"Her boyfriend is gorgeous," he said to a couple of the party-goers.

Deborah laughed uncomfortably.

"I mean, I don't want to sound like that — I don't want to be that way — but her boyfriend is gorgeous."

"That's weird," I said when Deborah told me the story. I had been expecting her to say he'd hit on her, or someone else at the party had. That's the way the story usually goes. "What a weird, random, creepy compliment."

He called a day or two later.

"I don't know if you're my neighbor or some other Deborah, but I found your number in my phone. If you are who you think you are — or even if you aren't, but live in the building — I want to talk to you about the rent increase…"