today I am a (man) landlord

Squeak, squeak, creek, creek, bang, bash.

Man, those floors upstairs are creeky. Almost makes me wish I'd kept that ugly carpet, as some of my friends suggested, but then no one would have rented the place.

I have tenants. They moved in last night. They had a bunch of friends helping them. When he first got up and saw the empty apartment, one of their friends exclaimed "Score", implying, I guess, that they scored with this apartment.
That made me feel good.
It's not a spectacular apartment, just perfectly nice. But I'm glad they like it and I hope they're very very happy there.
It was cool the way it came together.
The renovation of the apartment was supposed to be finished by the end of April, but like the rest of my renovation, it didn't quite work out that way. My plan was to advertise it early in May and have most of the month to find a tenant. I probably should have gone ahead and just advertised it anyway, assuming it would be finished for June 1st. But the guy who was supposed to finish it got a little sick and the days wore on and I lost track of time and before I knew it, it was the third week of May and I figured I'd blown it.
But my guy finished the final few touches and I put an ad in the paper.

I didn't have many bites. A young woman who looked around and said "I like it but it's not me". Another young woman who came with her mother and wasn't happy about the lack of laundry facilities, among other things. And neither of them was looking for June 1st anyway.
I figured that was that.
Like I said, it's not spectacular. I've seen spectacular apartments, even lived in one or two. It's not a Victorian home so it doesn't have any of those kinds of touches. And there's no deck, no laundry, no walk out to a backyard. And it's not huge with high ceilings and lots of windows. And I think you could get a cheaper place, though I'm charging the same as I paid for my last apartment and even if my last apartment was more beautiful, this one is much more livable in many ways.
I expected to have a few more responses on the last weekend of the month because everyone says that the Saturday Star, where I had the ad, is a big day for renters. But I got none.
On the Sunday, or maybe it was Monday, I got an email from a woman who I'll call K. She was interested. I responded to her, I can't remember if she answered me back. But a couple of mornings later - last Tuesday, the third last day of May - she left a couple of phone messages while I was sleeping.
There was just something about her emails and her phone messages that made me think this might work out. So I called her back. When she didn't pick up, I started to think I'd blown it. I'd heard the phone ringing while I was trying to sleep. If only I'd answered it....
But K did call back and said she's be over in an hour. An hour later, she phoned again and said she was getting closer but needed another half hour.
I was on the porch when I saw her turn the corner on my street. She was with a guy, who I'll call J. I think maybe they were holding hands. K was holding a map of the city. J was holding one of those free Renters magazines. K smiled at me when she saw me. But behind that smile, I could see that these were two frustrated and exhausted young people.
As I led them up to the apartment, I imagined her thinking "What fresh hell"... or words to that effect.
But when we got up there, the tone of her voice demonstrated relief, if not excitement. I showed them around, K made some comments like "nice sized closet", though it was a pretty standard size.
I left them up there and went back to wait on the porch. When they came down, K said "We love it". I asked them a few questions, found out a bit more than I needed to know about their fresh couple status, confirmed that they'd be living there together and heard a bit about how frustrating their day had been.
"You can't believe what we've seen", she said.
"Yeah I can", I replied, as anyone who's ever looked for an apartment in Toronto (or probably anywhere for that matter) would respond.
She told me that at one place, they were asked whether they'd be wearing shoes in the apartment. That's a new one. I mean, when the floor creeks, I can understand the impulse behind the question but still, that's a hell of a question to ask someone.

The thing I kept telling myself, last night as they were moving in, and today as I hear them rooting about up there, is "This is their home!" I know that goes without saying. But I think I'll have to keep reminding myself for a while, as I get used to having people up there.
I remember occasionally, as a tenant, thinking my landlord didn't understand that he may have owned my place but it was my home and I deserved the same kind of privacy and freedom that I'm sure he expected to get in his home.
I don't think that's going to be a problem for me. I get it.
But still, it's weird having people IN my house.
Doing the things that people do in their own homes.
Doing, I suspect, things that I haven't done in my home for a long time.

Anyway I guess I skipped the part where I decided to give them the apartment. I liked that they wanted it; I liked that they liked it; I liked that they were relatively small people and so their footsteps would be relatively light.

I guess I thought it was kind of kismet. I left it till the last minute to find a tenant and they left it to the last minute to find a place. They thought they lucked out finding my place and I figured maybe we all did.
It's a gamble.
But it felt really good to deposit those first and last month's rent cheques.