"Wait, I won't have a lease?"
She looked at me like I had three heads with her bright blue eyes, only a moment ago smiling and sparkling, but I wasn't kidding.
Shaking my head, I leaned back in my chair, "no, it's a room, not an apartment," I explained to a lopsided frown of thick, sculpted blonde eyebrows. "There's a rental agreement that I give tenants where you have legal rights that I have to uphold, way better than most rooming houses will do, but no actual lease. That's not required for a room in Ontario."
"Oh, huh, I see..." the pert pink lips pursed, twisting slightly to the side. I'd been trying to figure out if she was a natural blonde, the undercut shaved showing the darker roots, but the sandy blonde of her long, punky haircut still dark enough that it might be real.
"Listen, I don't want you to agree to this and then end up feeling like I'm being unfair later. I'd rather you check it out for yourself and let me know if you're interested after." I wasn't kidding. I'd been doing this for five years, and not once had it been better in any way to rent to someone that wasn't clear on how I ran my house.
She twisted in the easy chair in front of me, looking around the room. She was twenty-three, beautiful with a petite body that had some dangerous curves, still in school, working full time, but looking to be out on her own while she finished up her degree. "But the place might rent in that time," she asked in her lightly accented northern-Ontario drawl.
I nodded, "it's definitely a possibility. I haven't had a room go unfilled for more than a couple of months since my first year renting, but I think you'll be okay to take a day." It was as much the neighbourhood as the price. I usually had two people renting along with my buddy Pete, who'd been renting a room since day one. Right now, it was just me and Pete after the last two guys who'd been in the rooms decided to get married and get their own place, and I was slow-playing the second room to make sure the first tenant was a good fit before I added a fourth person to the house again.
She smiled, taking the rental contract and looking at it. "You're happy to have me get this looked at too? Most landlords are pressuring me to sign illegal shit the second I come in the door."
I shrugged. "It's my house, and it runs better if everyone knows their rules, y'know?"
I'd inherited the place at twenty-six after my folks passed in a car crash. They'd left my younger brother a bit of money since he'd moved out west, and me the house and just enough to get by a little while. Almost six years later, it had seen me through by renting the three spare rooms.
Pete and I were on the second floor, and the two upstairs rooms with their shared bathroom had last been rented by Sam and Henry. It had sort of worked out accidentally that way with them coming in as previous female tenants left. They'd decided to move in together recently, and the wedding invite was on the fridge.
Most folks stayed a year, maybe two, so I put a lot of value on the interview and making sure they understood the house rules. This girl seemed to be pretty straight up and down. She seemed nice and I had a good feeling about her.
I leaned forward a bit, smiling congenially, and held my hands out, elbows on my spread knees.
"Listen... it's Violet, right?" She nodded and confirmed that I'd gotten her name right, "okay, Violet," I smiled again as I said her name. "You're my last interview of the day, and tomorrow's Sunday. One interview was a hard no, the other a maybe, and I have two rooms to rent on the third floor that share a bathroom that you liked."
She nodded, "okay?"
I went on. "I'm gonna relax and have a couple beers with friends tonight and sleep in. You take your time, cross the I's, dot the T's as they say, and let me know if you want to apply by tomorrow night. Monday, I have four people scheduled, and if you want it and your references and stuff are good, I'll prioritize renting to another woman to help make you feel safe. If not, no worries, I wish you luck. Just let me know by tomorrow at six."
She thought on it for a minute and stood up. "That sounds good. The price really is good, and I like it a lot too."
I stood to walk her to the door, "that's great! I hope that the agreement is to your liking and that we talk soon, then. I just want to make sure the folks that live here are safe and happy and that the cheques clear so I can keep this place up."
I watched Violet walk down the steps of my house, a nice petite bubble butt rolling back and forth in her jeans, and waved with a big smile as she turned back to smile at me. "By six, right?"
"That's right," and she trotted away.
Behind me, Pete, all six two and two-forty of him rolled out of the kitchen. He's a big guy, not fat, but muscular with a thick layer of padding like a linebacker. "Danny, dude, she's cute, why didn't you offer her the room?"
Shaking my head, I closed the door and nudged him in the ribs, "because I'm not renting just for cute, man, I need to cover the expenses. Neither of us want to live with a thief or a psycho or someone who can't pay."
He laughed, bits of the peanut butter sandwich he'd eaten in his teeth, "yeah, that's just your girlfriends, bro!"
Annoyingly, he was probably right. I'd had a bad run with the ladies recently... if you could stretch the meaning of 'recent' to the last four years. My current girlfriend, Zoey, was probably the least crazy of the bunch, but she definitely showed up deeper on the hot-crazy scale than I'd like to admit.
"Don't remind me, Petey. Don't remind me."
=================================
I got the house when my parents passed, and my brother, Randall, most of the cash. He'd moved out west to finish school and had turned into a cowboy scientist, frakking the shit out of things and constantly angry at the First Nations folks for getting between him and a payday, a real piece of shit, if I'm being honest.
Me, well, I'd probably come out of things a bit better than him with the house. Toronto real estate is insane, and I'd sell the place for a mint one day. In the meantime though, my mom had thanked me for staying close to home through my twenties to take care of my drunk dad by handing me the keys. Nobody wanted to admit it, but dad was at fault for the crash that killed them, blitzed as usual. So at twenty-six, I had a house and a struggling comic shop to manage on top of my parents' deaths.
It had been Pete who gave me the idea to rent. He'd needed a place, not making enough to go out on his own as a young warehouser, but also unable to spend another day in his mom's house, who'd been taking every dime of his paycheque for years. I ended up giving up my bachelor apartment, and he and I set up in the house.