Brian & Brooke vs. White Plains, NY

Brian vs. White Plains

So, from day one, my landlord’s been a bit crazy. I should have known when I first talked to him that something was a little off, but in my hurry to get a furnished apartment with a 3 month lease in NY I ignored what should have been the warning signs.

Chef “Billy” as we call him, informed me early on that he lived in the building, too. Keep in mind that this is a house-apartment, not some big apartment complex. In other words, this guy lives a little too close for comfort (especially considering what I’m about to tell you next).

I didn’t think too much of it at first, but Brooke definitely thought he came off strange on our first encounter. We just moved in and the cable guy arrived to hook up our internet. As he was doing so, Chef Billy came in and told us to slip him a couple bucks so we can get free cable TV. I guess he said this was normal around these parts, but we just couldn’t do it.

One day after work, I think I was taking the garbage out, I saw the landlord and his woman (mail order?) hanging out on their balcony. He asked me if I was from Brooklyn. His woman, apparently not understanding English very well, thought he was referring to his beer; I suspect he was referring to my wifebeater. Regardless, I wound up taking a fresh 6 pack of Brooklyn Brewery’s East India Ale home with me. At the time I thought he was just being a good guy; now I’m not so sure.

Not too long after, just a matter of days, Chef Billy gives me a call to see how I’m doing, only he decided to call me at 1 am… wasted. We were just getting home from the bars, walking to our door when the phone rang. I took one look at the caller ID and decided I probably shouldn’t pick this one up - it just couldn’t be anything good when your landlord is calling you in the wee hours of the night. A few moments later the phone is ringing again; It turns out he decided to leave me a message. It went a little like this, slurred speech and all:

“Hey Brian… Uhmm, I can see you’re not home right now, but I’m just calling to see what you want to do about the money I owe you. It’s in my pocket.”

Red Light, Red Light! “Uhmm, I can see you’re not home right now…”?! Are you serious? Let’s just say it was a bit awkward dealing with him face-to-face the following day.

Nothing too crazy has happened since, except for him adding me to his chain email list, but I’ll let that slide (there were only a total of 5 people on that list). I still can’t get past how Landlord would think that calling a tenant in the middle of the night, drunk, would seem like a good idea… It’s just too weird!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 6:09 pm and is filed under People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.