Princess Murray was a tenant of mine several years ago. He received this illustrious title because nothing was just quite right. He and his rotund Argentine wife moved into a Spanish single family dwelling after it had been on the market for several months. I had already spent mucho dinero on the renovation and watched it sit empty through the holiday season while I dutifully paid the mortgage and creeped further into the red.
I was thrilled to see Murray and his wife as they pulled up in their Porsche Boxster. They wanted to move in ASAP and they loved the place but needed more parking and access to the backyard from the bedroom. French doors would be nice. Ok, I thought. $2800 more in improvements and I will have a year lease. I agreed immediately and completed the desired renovations within a week. They moved in and seemed happy.
Except that I came to realize that they liked having us around a lot. Lots and lots. I would get a call one day that his car was getting water spots from the sprinkler. The next day I would hear from his wife that the kitchen drain was clogged and upon inspection found and entire pot of pasta in the drain. I guess she thought the garbage disposal worked like a food processor.
“We don’t mind having you around” she would say when I called to schedule one of many repairs. The problem was I minded. I would come over to find Murray in his robe on the couch and wifey wearing some impossibly short sun dress. Murray would point to a spot on the wall and say “we really could us an electrical outlet here”. Was he kidding? Sadly he wasn’t. The world revolved around Murray. He was a male Jewish American Prince. We could never do enough.
The breaking point came when Murray called me one day to tell me the toilet was too tall. First of all I had no idea that they came in different heights. Nor would I have noticed if I lived there. It wasn’t like you needed a step ladder to reach the seat. They were both normal in height. Murray went on to tell me that it was a big problem and had to be changed immediately because his wife was having trouble inserting her gynecological cream. Yikes, that was too much information!
Murray did pay to have the toilet changed and soon after we sold the property and used the proceeds to buy our first apartment building. Our new apartment building was predominantly one bedroom units so our new tenants were single or young couples with less time to manufacture complaints. We received fewer calls and were much happier.
Murray’s new landlord was much less accommodating and soon after we sold the property Murray moved out. The new landlord was able to replace Murray rather quickly because after all the renovations everything was “just so”.