I had no intention of being a Landlord. It was an accident. Admittedly, I’m terrible at certain roles in rigid relationships. This role may be the one I am the least suited for.

Currently, my landlord – tenant relationship is complicated. There’s the simple part, the one that should be symbiotic; I pay the mortgage they pay rent and get to live there.

But, if they don’t pay me, I still have to pay the mortgage. Getting them out, formally called eviction, after failing to pay rent for two months in a row, was tough and rough. Things can get unpleasant. Unhappy people can do a lot of damage on their way out.

The slightly dilapidated duplex I bought after my boating accident, to convert into my SafeGraySpace quarters came with renters and a lease for 11 months after ‘closing.’

There’s an upstairs and a downstairs unit. Upstairs is Section 8; that’s both a thesis and an opera of it’s own. That payment is automatically deposited. Like clockwork.

The downstairs renters were difficult from the get-go. Their reasons for being late with the rent were endless. Their complaints were constant. My concerns were temporarily appeased with the fact that their lease would end in November. Things got ugly fast.

It wasn’t the broken windows, the filth, the holes in the walls that bothered me. It was something pink and sticky and everywhere; splattered on the baseboards, walls and doors and coating the inside of the fridge. Every room had evidence of this substance.

What was it? I suspect it was something illicit and probably addictive. These people were broken; probably by an addiction. This sad problem is what broke my soft heart.

Things can be repaired, cleaned and replaced. It’s much harder to fix people; to repair human beings. As I said in the beginning, it was by accident that I am in this role.

I’ve mostly recovered from my accident. I hope these poor people can recover from whatever it is that drives them to exist, covered in their sticky, pink mess. Good luck.