Friday, June 1, 2012

From Blogging to Bad Renters

I started with blogging.

I'd actually tried blogging a couple of years earlier. Some halting posts, a little awkward poetry. It was on an interactive site, and the other bloggers said some nice things and made me feel accepted.

This during a tricky time in my first marriage where there was a lot of resentment, and very little trust both ways, earned or otherwise. My then-husband did not have the password into my private blogging site, and that irritated him quite a lot.

"What you are doing on that blogging site, you should be ashamed of!" he raged one day. I almost laughed out loud. I'd been doing some anonymous journal-ly type stuff and creating some bad poetry. How evil.

His anger, however, was enough to slow me down some. By the time I'd taken the kids and moved out, I wasn't blogging at all. Who had time, with an upcoming divorce and bills to pay?

After the NPR program's spotlight of author Nancy Peacock, I knew I needed to stop living the mute life. I think one of the things that bothered me the most about the housecleaning business was also the thing I loved the most about it. I was hidden. No one saw me, no one heard me. The summing up of my personality to a tee. I need to be introverted and solitary a full half of the time. The other half, I need to be out with the public, interacting, relating, observing.

I had many things to say about many subjects. Probably the same old list, but I could say them MY way. Growing up with child abuse. Living with a verbally cruel spouse. How to get by on fifty bucks a week with a family of four. Making the mental adjustment from well-off property and business owner to a housecleaning business-owning renter. Not everyone had been through these ordeals, but perhaps I could help the populace to understand them better, from my point of view.

One thing was certain; I was tired of having no voice.

When I thought about what it felt like to be virtually invisible, to have about no say, I quickly recalled the many nightmares I'd had where my bio-father was coming after me, with the intention of harm. In those dreams, he'd smile the same glaze-eyed, numb little smile every time. No matter what I did, I couldn't get him to back off. I'd open my mouth to alert whoever else was around that this bad man was up to no good, but nothing would come out, no matter how much air I took in to produce the loudest scream I could muster.

I was so done with being mute.


A couple of years after my divorce, as a remarried woman, I reassessed my priorities. I knew I didn't want to grow my cleaning business. I'd watched employee after employee get physically and mentally burnt out, and I was right there with them. Anyone that can do that kind of work for any length of time has the intellectual and emotional toughness of an Olympian. It wasn't for me.

I got some child support, thank Heavens, and that kept me going, but in order to not feel financially burdensome to this new fellow, I felt obligated to continue trying to make a living.

I started a property management business and got a few clients. One client owned four ancient properties downtown that I laughingly called 'the Gems', because they'd easily be any property management's worst bet. Dilapidated and tired, the Gems and their low rental fees were magnets for the interesting, chemically-dependent types. I cleaned and staged the cottages with both of the eyes behind my head as wide open as I could get them. I wasn't in the best part of town, and although no one had said it outright, I could sense that these 'Gems' had a colorful history.

That was confirmed when two men in uniform came pulling into the short driveway as I was out on one front porch with a broom, brushing off the cobwebs. They didn't even get out of their car, just signaled me. Trusting the official look, I approached, assuming they were lost and needed directions. They needed directions, all right. To a very fiery location. It became obvious to me that they were hoping for the same kind of experience they'd had previously at that residence. After the first few words and upon seeing the disdain in my look, they quickly backed out of the driveway, not making any further eye contact.

Break-ins, vandalism, and the scent of unwashed bodies long after they'd spent an unauthorized night inside the rentals followed. To find decent renters that stayed employed and stayed off the sauce proved to be close to impossible. If they weren't drinking or abusing drugs when they moved in, they'd be into it by the time they left. Their neighbors in the other three Gems would get them involved, like the good neighbors they were.

I was overwhelmed. Because of its low rent, and because I only took a percentage, the Gems brought me as little as $500 per month. When I'd have a sore back from picking up cigarette butts at the now-vacant (because they moved out unexpectedly under the cover of darkness) units, I'd ask myself if any of this was even worth it. By this time, I knew I wanted to write, but to sit in front of a computer for hours when I had an obligation to hold up my half of the financial bargain would, I thought, make me look like the biggest of slackers. When would I ever have that time to myself, and if I took it, would I even produce anything of value?

I didn't know.

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