T. Kid the Landlord

Camac Street in Philadelphia, where T. Kid was a landlord. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

My family never cared much for homeownership until my mom saw an opportunity to buy a cheap house on Camac Street in North Philadelphia. We made a deal that she would handle the down payment and I would live in the house and rent out the other rooms. For me, it meant living for free as long as there were housemates covering the mortgage. I had never been a landlord before, but I knew I’d always be able to find college students to fill the rooms and keep the rent money flowing.

For starters, I would avoid having homies living with me. I wanted the house to be a professional operation, and I knew having my buddies there would inevitably turn the apartment into a party pad. My first set of craigslist housemates was a flight attendant, who was away most of the time, and an incredibly annoying kid named Jack, who played jazz guitar so beautifully that he could make you cry. Jack’s musical talent didn’t outweigh his personality defects, and my buddy Marv soon replaced him. Being a couple of 20-something dudes, Marv and I couldn’t maintain a level of cleanliness acceptable to the flight attendant. Upon returning home from one of her long trips and finding the aftermath of our homemade falafel in the kitchen, she announced that she was moving out—she made the announcement via a scented note left on the coffee table. My friend Paulito replaced her. In less than a year, I had failed to maintain the house as a professional operation. Thanks to the presence of my friends, the house became a palace of blunts and value brand soda.

Two years of raucous behavior ensued. The house took a bit of a beating, but with a couple weeks of mild rehab, it was back to its original splendor. Of course, once it was habitable again, I moved out. Before I left Philly to bounce around for a while, I signed a lease with three Vietnamese girls who were finishing college. They were responsible, clean, and had parents to cosign, so I assumed I had landed good tenants, but they didn’t seem to have the most glowing impression of me. It’s doubtful they had ever had a landlord so young, or one who wore patterned sweatpants and beanies as frequently as I did. They also balked when I told them I didn’t mind if they smoked weed in the house. Their doubts about my abilities as a landlord didn’t matter because I would soon be miles away. They would only have to deal with my handyman, Angelo, who looked the part far more than I did.

While I traveled up and down the east coast, I didn’t hear a peep from my new tenants. They paid the rent on time every month, and I didn’t hear any issues from Angelo. It was the only time that being a landlord wasn't stressful—this lasted until my mom called to tell me that one of the Vietnamese girls had skipped out on the others. I called them for details, and they sounded panicked. They were worried that they wouldn’t be able to make the rent and that we’d kick them out of the house. My mom came up with an altruistic solution: The rent on the house was $1,500 a month, and she said they could pay an even grand in rent for two months. That gave them plenty of time to find a replacement and start paying us full rent again. A $1,000 payment was barely enough to cover the mortgage—we would have to break even and lose a little on maintenance until they found someone.

By the time the girls’ two months were up, I was through with my travels and wound up back in Philly. I visited the house and found that the girls were loving having the house to themselves and didn’t seem to be in a rush to find another housemate. I was perplexed. “You guys have been paying a fraction of the rent for a little while now. Any luck getting a third person in here?” I asked them. They brushed me off, saying that one friend or another might take it. I didn’t want to threaten to kick them out because they had been such great tenants so far and getting two thirds of the rent was better than getting none at all. Finding new tenants would be a pain in the ass, and nobody knew if the new tenant would be destructive and slovenly. These were nice kids. I just had to come up with a smooth way to make them pay the entire rent.

My recent journeys had taken a toll on my cash situation, so I was counting on the last third of rental income to cover me for a place to live. I was walking back out to my car when the solution struck me. I turned around, walked back up the stoop, and knocked on the door. One of the Vietnamese girls answered. “Forget something?” she asked, sweet as ever. “Nope,” I replied. “I just figured it out. I’m going to be your third housemate.” Her mouth dropped. The other girl popped out from behind the door with the same look.

It was perfect. They were being slow because they knew my mom and me liked them as tenants and wouldn’t want to give them up. By living there, I had a free spot to move into immediately. Eventually, they would get sick of me and find a new housemate who matched their lifestyle, and then I’d use the extra rent money to get another place.

On the day I moved in, they cleared out the master bedroom, which was my room when I lived there. I threw the only belongings I had brought with me (a single duffel bag and a thin foam mattress) into the unfurnished room. For the first few days, I was out quite a bit, returning home only to blaze in my room and go to sleep. I didn’t see much of my housemates. On the first weekend, I slept in as usual, blazed as soon as I woke up, and went downstairs at around noon to make tea. Still in a daze, I yawned as I walked down the steps. When my eyes focused, I saw that the girls had some friends over. Three Asian dudes with lots of gel in their hair sat in the living room staring at my bedhead. I introduced myself simply by saying, “I’m the landlord,” and then I entered the kitchen. They all stayed quiet for several minutes. Finally, one of them curiously asked, “Is that your… weed smell?” I chuckled and responded, “Yeah, that’s my weed smell. You want to blaze?” He immediately said, “Nope. Thanks, but no. I mean, no thanks.” I said, “Suit yourself,” and headed back upstairs.

I spent a lot of my time that weekend hanging out in my room, blazing, and fooling around. Having nothing in there besides the mattress, my computer, and one bag made it feel a bit like camping. I was delighted that I needed so little to entertain myself. I emerged from my room in the evening and paused before going downstairs. I knew this was an awkward situation for everyone involved, but there was a purpose to the exercise. If I lived there like a ghost, they might not ever have a reason to find another roommate. I would have to make enough of a presence for them to find a third roommate, so I invited my buddy Sour Joe over to hang out that night.

At one time, Sour Joe and I were capable of a ruckus that could annoy anyone, but that was many years earlier. Sitting in the living room of our old party pad led to some reminiscing and a few laughs, but nothing that would irk my tenants. When we left the house to grab a bite, I told him, “I was sure if I brought your creepy ass over they would run out of the house screaming.” He said, “You’re trying so hard to scare them off, I don’t think you realize you’ve already done it.” I asked him to explain, and he did: “You are a bearded brown man with crazy hair who constantly smokes weed and listens to offensive 90s rap songs. You swear a lot, and you spit quite a bit too. They are horrified that you live there. I could see it in their faces.” I grew tense. “I hope to god you’re right, Sour Joe.”

Amazingly, Sour Joe was right. Less than two weeks after I moved in, my housemates confronted me. “We can cover the full rent, so you can move out whenever. Seriously, anytime—like today even,” one of them said. I was victorious. “So you found a new housemate?” I asked. “No. Our parents are going to split the cost of the whole house. They thought it was really weird that you were living here.” I took no offense. I said, “Not as weird as paying two thirds of the rent!” I went upstairs to grab my duffel bag and mattress.

A week later, I moved in with Bill and a whole new adventure began.

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