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Tales of a Building Manager
Who knows how life brings you to where you are.
This is the story of the loneliest man in the world.
I never wanted to become a building manager. I remember living in the Fenway on the corner of Middlesex and Garnett Street of our fair city of Lowell, and the building manager that ran the place, Lester. As you entered the building and came up the stairs, Like I was saying, I never wanted to be a building manager. The first owner I knew of the first building I managed was named Bob. He used to drink a lot and beat his wife. He worked for the city. He wife used to come up and change the sheets and clean your room once a week, so he always knew what was going on. His particularness toward the atmosphere of his building (where he lived himself) was extreme. Once Bob's wife found a pair of woman's underwear in a person's room. Bob yelled at him, then took all his clothes and possessions and threw them on the front steps. The next guy that bought the building came in and fixed it up real good. His name was Vinny. We had only had one bathroom in the hallway, for nine people. Vinny created another bathroom on the first floor, widened the hallways, panelled the rooms, put down carpet. Now most of the rooms had not only a sink, but a stove too. This guy really cared about the building. It was at 231 Appleton Street. After that, a guy named George bought the place. Vinny had given out sheets and pillow cases to the tenants. That luxury stopped when George took over the building. After a while the quality changed and the atmosphere changed, and of course by now, myself and other tenants had developed an inner circle. First of all, this was a rooming house just for men. There were at least two or three other people who had a brain in their head, or rather, some sensibility -- I don't know what you call it -- manners? courtesy? George used to call it "the brotherhood" because we all kept an eye on the building. As you know, landlords rarely go to their property, unless it's necessary. The quality of the tenants being accepted was not as high as it could have been. In other words, if they had the money, and it looked like maybe they would pay, they would be allowed to stay. As time went on, things got worse, and a rambunctious young man -- or should I say crude? I don't want to say uncultured, but let's say, some one who had limited opportunities and limited possibilities. He drank, and played his music so loud that noone could ever get to sleep. He messed up the bathroom in the hallway so bad -- I forgot to tell you, the hallway bathrooms were not always so clean, and I offered George that I would clean the two hallway bathrooms and the carpet. He said, okay, he'd take five dollars off my rent. This was probably around '82. After five months, I asked if we would take ten dollars off, because I was always meticulous, and I had that warrior quality, I was impeccable, because I was the one who was living there. George said no, I'll pay you seven. Back to Kenny. As I was saying, this guy Kenny was living in the building, and he was roguey and crude and filthy. Finally one day when he had actually shit in the hallway bathtub, I told George that I was calling it quits for cleaning the building. He said he'd make me building manager and let me interview prospective tenants and pay less rent -- in other words, have a little more control of the content of the building. Now, at first I didn't know a lot about the selection process, and how to fine tune my scrutinizing of the people who applied to live in the building. But I learned to adjust. I learned from George and his wife Barbara, who I would call when crises happened at the building. One of my new responsibilities was collecting the rent. Have you ever considered collecting rent from people living in a rooming house? A lot of them are on the edge. Welfare checks, social security, jobs like driving cabs -- we never had construction workers or people with regular jobs. We never liked having drinkers in the building, in the brotherhood, but some would get through. When people got behind on their rent, I had to chase them down. That was the worst part. Things were going okay in the building, and I felt secure. I was still working days at St Joseph's Hospital, as I had been since 1977, and as I still do today. As I remember, I didn't pay any rent, or little rent. In 1987, everything shook up in the building. I came home from work, and the gas was turned off. I called George; he said he sold the building, and the new owners would be switching it back on, and that they would be coming to see me. And they did. They were three police officers, and as most people don't know, a common process in building management is: buy a building, don't do any repairs, get money on the side, have a nice tax write-off. But that's another chapter that we can't get into right now, but we will. For now let's just say they bought that building, and the one I live in now, for over $800,000. After they went bankrupt in 1992, the bank could hardly get a $100,000 for both properties. The highest bid at the auction for my building, in the Christian Hill part of Lowell, was $130,000, and the bank said no. I know they settled for less than that. Now George had owned this building I live in now, and when he knew it was for sale, he approached me and asked me about it. I almost forgot: before George bought it, the bank took it over for three or four years. Their property managers were even worse than the cops. Two people were interested in buying the building where I live now. You have to remember, my building had a lot of problems: the roof leaked, the rooms hadn't been fixed up. It would take a lot of money to get this building looking even halfway decent. A Greek guy named Chris who owned other property in that part of Lowell was interested, but he wasn't talking about any overhaul, and that's what this place needed. He was going to come in and patch it up here and there. When I first took over the building for the cops, I believe, out of thirty-one units, six people worked, four or five had just got out of prison, and the rest were either unemployed or on welfare or social security. It took me years of struggling with the cops until I finally got it halfway normal. I had started to perfect that scrutinizing process. By now I had rented to hundreds of people, because most people didn't stay more than a couple of months. I'd clean up the rooms, paint them. I put used carpet that looked better in the hallway. But after the bank had had the building, by the time George took it over, it was in hell. George had the inside track over Chris, and got the building. Now his son Geoff was primarily the person in charge of the building. I don't even think George owned it; Geoff had bought some of George's property when George retired. But it was nice working for George again. When I knew the deal was pretty sure to go through, I got rid of the unsavory tenants as soon as I could. One guy was a cab dispatcher and driver named Bill. He had never cleaned his room in years, and when he vacated, or just left his room, besides a pile of filth and trash were four adult cats, no cat box. Digging through the trash, I found five kittens underneath the trash. There were thousands of roaches, like black spot. To some wierdo cult in Lowell, that's a mystical thing, that black roach spot. I knew my good friend Mike of Mike and the Spikes would be kicked out, and as he was behind, it was good that I got him to leave early, before the changeover. The changeover takes place and they start the renovations. They fix the roofs. They clean the cellar. They made the hallways shorter in some wings to make the rooms bigger. Not all rooms had a bathroom -- four didn't. When they remodeled those rooms, they installed bathrooms and stoves in them too. Most of the building is single room or two room studios. I live on the third floor. When Vinny owned the building, and argued with his wife, he would go to my apartment. It was a refuge for him -- I found that out years later. Now the atmosphere was changing in the building. You have to remember: this building had been like a dog laying on the ground that's been kicked. When I first took over this building, there was a guy in here who used to spit on his rug. That's what someone had told me, and when I moved out I saw the spot. In any case, eventually the building would have a new boiler, or rather, no more boiler, and central air. No more leaky roofs. The hallways looked good. They got a carpet on the floor. The rooms were fixed up like efficiency studios. Some had already been efficiency studios, but they didn't look that good. My responsibilities with the takeover would be these: Interviewing the new tenants; not only my gut feeling on how they are (part of my approach has always been, if I rent to this person, and he doesn't work out, will I be able to kick him out, or, does this person have the ability to pay). My two requirements are: ability to pay, and courteous behavior. I had done a pretty good job. But now we had a credit check. Nobody with no credit or bad credit was accepted. If they had no credit, and looked like a good choice, they could be accepted with a cosigner who had good credit and looked like they weren't going to go bananas. Now with the credit check, it weeded people out. Because I can tell a person with limited possibilities, or someone who wouldn't fit the temperature, the atmosphere, the ambience, that wave of serenity flowing through the building. No more people being drunk in the hallway. No more people on the edge of life. The building was going swell, and was finally completely remodelled. The rooms were remodelled after people vacated them. A few memorable people of the new era were (and these people all had good credit) A guy who moved in his wife and a child. Because there aren't any bedrooms, only two room studios, children aren't allowed. Several years of acting training gave me an added ability in casting for the building. Which brings us finally to the story of the loneliest man I've ever met. I show the studios during the week for a half hour a day. Sometimes six, eight, ten people show up. I've perfected the interviewing and salemanship as an art form. My main thinking is to rent to people that I wouldn't mind having living with me in my own home. Like George and Geoff, easygoing people. One day the loneliest man in the world came by looking for a studio. I process so many people and so many applications that it could be mind-boggling, but ever one sticks in my brain. Sometimes I feel bad when people come by and I know they have no credit, and they say they don't. And this was the case with the loneliest man in the world. He looked very sad, and beaten by life, and most of all he reminded me of my father. Somewhat in appearance, and in his apparent life situation. I gave him the application, after showing him and others the studios. He filled it out, and because he didn't have any credit, was rejected. And I really felt saddened that this man didn't get the studio, because he looked like a guy that could really use a nice quiet place to live and be alone. He came back a couple of days later. That's when I told him he had not been approved because of his credit, but if he got a consigner, he would be able to rent the room. The studio he wanted was very small. It was on the first floor. It was $109 a week. I gave him an application for his sister to rent the studio under her name, and he said that he would return it. He came back on the weekend when George was working -- that's when he showed the vacancies. His sister's application had been approved, and the man got the apartment. George had charged him $119 a week, instead of $109. Why? Maybe because he would pay it. Not that he could pay it, but that he would pay it. I was happy that this man got this one-room studio. He reminded me of my father, and he just had this vibe. Outwardly he appeared alone in life, stranded and cut off from humanity. As we all know, one of the worst feelings in this world, is feeling that you're left out of humanity, whether because of a handicap, your economic situation, who knows? As it turned out, this man was a teacher in Lowell. His rent was paid semi-regularly by him; sometimes his sister would help him out and there would be a check from her in the rent slot. He kept to himself and rarely if ever had any visitors. He didn't have an automobile, and he walked everywhere that he went, or took the bus. I'm sure he never had money to take a cab. He never really chatted with anyone in the building, and preferred to be invisible (which always makes for a good tenant, as long as they pay!). He started to get behind on his rent. It didn't appear that he drank or had any vices that siphoned off his money. But obviously, who knows how much a teacher makes these days -- it ain't much. He started to get behind on his rent to a degree that I had to speak with him or leave him a note reminding him to get caught up. I never saw him. He would leave me notes in the office. His handwriting could be terrible. Eventually, he got an eviction notice, and I was asked to call his sister who had rented the apartment, to make her aware of the situation. I left her a message, and she left me a message back saying that she would get caught up on the rent, and she did. I was glad. I liked this man. He kept to himself, and he had this quality of solitude, that he seemed to adapt to. Eventually he started to get behind in his rent a little bit again, and although I was only several months away from bankruptcy, and still paying all my bills on time, borrow here, pay there, I decided to pay $300 of his rent without him knowing it. This would give him a cushion so that even if he got behind, he wouldn't get behind to the degree that he would get evicted. He had started to work a part time job as a census taker. I spoke to him a couple of times in the hallway, and a couple of times got him to grin. My approach at the building is of a very personal nature. Although I must be detached, I am concerned about every tenant as a director or a production manager or a general manager is with his cast and crew. A few days ago, one of his sisters called me at work, concerned because she had not heard from her brother in several days. This was unusual, since she lived just down the street. She asked if I could open his studio. I said I would meet her at the building in ten minutes. I met her at the front door. George's son Geoff was in the office, and he asked me about something. I told him what he wanted to know, and the sister and I went to check the room. As I was walking down the hallway, I was telling her of my fondness for her brother, how he had reminded me of my father, and appeared very alone in life. I turned the key to open the door, and it wouldn't open all the way. She and I looked in, and he was collapsed on the floor. The two of us rushed to the office, and I called 911. She was very shaken up and was not able to talk on the phone. They asked me if he was dead, and I said "I don't know." They asked if the sister would go check his pulse, and she said no she couldn't. They asked me to go in the room and see if he was breathing. I entered the room and it appeared that he had been sitting on a chair and had fallen over with his head fallen over in a frozen position. I couldn't see any breathing, but I could tell that the blood had pooled in his legs and his arms, and that he had passed away. I told the man at 911 that I couldn't see any breathing, and blood had pooled in different parts of his body, and he appeared dead. The sister went to her house down the street and called another sister and family members. You could tell that these two women and this man were good people and came from a good family. I gave them my condolences, and told them that I had to go back to work. The fire department came and the ambulance and the door was left open to his room where he was, and the hallway stank from his death. One of the workers for the owners seemed disgusted with the smell, but not that a man had died. I had a mini-shock of my own. This was the first dead person I had ever seen. Being a person that I had such a strong consideration for, made the situation even more personal for me. I found out that although I thought he appeared similar to my father, he was forty-eight, only three years older than me. Now he felt like a brother. He came up a couple of times to ask me about the census information for people he couldn't reach in the building, and I'll always wonder if maybe it might have been a moment when he was looking for a friend. He was such a loner, I don't know. So I came home from work, mowed someone's lawn down the street, mowed my own lawn, the rest I had to do at the building, and five hours after I first discovered the man, the police and everyone else were finished, and the morticians came to take him away. I had met his brother a couple of minutes before they took him away. He was there with one of the sisters and a person from the funeral directory. I told the brother that I had become fond of the man who had passed away, and that I would miss him. The mortician left, and everyone else left. It was quarter of five, still fifteen minutes before Judge Jerry. I decided to look in the man's room, to see the appearance, as I would be the man who would most likely be cleaning it, or even organizing the man's belongings for his sisters -- just to see this room where he had existed as a teacher, as a member of humanity, someone people considered valuable in society. This person who apparently contributed so much to society -- before I tell you what I saw, let me tell you a little of his obituary. (For privacy sake, I'll only mention a few details.) He was an active volunteer with church and youth groups. He died unexpectedly. His father was a police lieutenant. He graduated Keith Academy in 1970. He also attended Lowell State College. He was dedicated to Saint Patrick's Parish, and along with other activities, served as a former president of Irish Cultural Week. ? He was an active participant with the Acre Youth organization and enjoyed performing in local variety shows. ? He formerly worked for the Lowell Veteran's Office, and more recently, the Lowell School Department. To me it appeared that he died of a heart attack. I never got to know the man, who may not have really been the loneliest man that I ever met, at least certainly not all of his life. But when I opened that door and saw where life had brought him and what he had endured, it struck me so profoundly that I had to take a photograph of this man's bed for you to see. This man was someone most valuable in society because of his teaching ability, and his contribution to humanity -- in all my years as a manager of a rooming house, and now this building of studio apartments, all renovated -- even some of the bleakest buildings I've seen in Lowell -- destitute people that have been on the edge of society from drugs, alcohol, forces beyond their control, and limited possibilities -- even if they lived there for years and vacated and never cared about themselves or their living conditions -- none of this shocked me as much as what I saw when I entered this man's room. This story will never be over as long as there are people who are abandoned by humanity. One picture is worth a thousand words.
Lester's apartment was right there, and his door was usually open. He could, and sometimes would, scrutinize everyone that came in. Now this was just a rooming house: bathrooms in the hallway, maybe a sink in your room. In 1977 I think I was paying sixteen dollars a week rent. You couldn't have guests at night or to stay over -- Lester saw everyone who came in. Although most of the tenants were low on the economic scale, there usually wasn't anyone dangerous living in the building. For those conditions, Lester was very strict. Even getting caught with a hot plate.
All material Copyright Laughing Dervish 2001 ©