ASHAMED
Tom Corrigan, a store tenant, said he wouldn’t pay the rent because his ceiling had been leaking for months. Corrigan, who owned single-family houses, used my storefront as an HQ for his rental biz. He said he wanted out of his lease with me. He had just a couple months to go. He would not pay the rent, he said. “You can sue me,” he said. “I don’t care. The leak has been going on far too long.”
“I’ve had two roofing companies look at it,” I said.
“So what. I’m not paying the rent. That’s how we’re going to part.”
“I hear you, you’re not paying your rent.”
“See you, buddy. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I was ashamed.
We fixed the leak about a week after he left. We found a couple holes in the porch deck right above the rear door jamb to his store, and nobody could find the leak until a week after the guy moved.
2 comments
My sympathies. We had a leak in the ceiling of our kitchen for years. The guy who built the kitchen — he did the job just before we moved in — died before he could find the problem. Another repair guy finally found the source in our second-floor veranda. It was like going from doctor to doctor for 20 years to get the right diagnosis for a rare disease. Maddening.
I bet that roof only leaked when it was raining.
(from an old joke)
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