“It’s not that bad, is it? Let me have a look at the books.”

An excerpt from “Trouble and Strife,” by Johanne Levesque

Warren turns to me, “How’s business?”

“We are surviving.  Every day, I hear tenants’ bad news like death in the family and someone sick and I count my blessings.”

“Yes, they do have a way to pull your heartstrings, don’t they?  Eugene used to tell me about the silly tenant issues he used to hear all the time.  I guess you don’t hear trivial things anymore...”

“Oh, I still do.  The other day I had a phone call at dinner time.  One of the tenants kept me on the phone until my food was cold complaining about the tenants above her shaking mops full of dust from their windows with the result that she received the benefits.  She expected me to drop everything right then and there and go speak to her neighbour.  Sometimes I want to change my number!”

Warren laughs, “Understandable!  How are we doing financially?”

“Our expenses are enormous.  Tenants don’t realize how their actions affect us.  They leave taps running, lights are left on; more damage is done in one minute than we can replace in a month’s time.  I’m worried about running into debt.  Our rental payments are in arrears from one to four months.  I lowered the rents to keep the tenants, but with high interest and vacancies, I believe we’ll have a loss this year.”

Warren considers my words.  “It’s not that bad, is it?  Let me have a look at the books.”

If you liked this excerpt from Trouble and Strife, you can buy the book at any of the following links:

Austin Macauley Publishers™ (my publisher)
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble
Indigo
Walmart