Аннотация: A lucky tenant. A realtor's story. (From "stories on the little sheets of paper").
A lucky tenant. A realtor's story. (From "stories on the little sheets of paper").
Kolya arrived to a large southern town from a neighboring region after the completing his secondary school studies.
His dad and mom were highly skilled specialists (with a relatively high levels in positions). Kolya, thanks to education in a family environment, had a wide outlook and a good amount of knowledge in general and special issues.
However, the family relationship of his parents came to the end. Each of them started to go his own way, had his own interests. Now, after secondary school, Kolya became a student of a high education system - he had to live almost without the parental support. In addition, Kolya had a light, friendly character, which contributed to his contacts with a variety of people and to his general success.
Once a student-Kolya saw an advertisement for a two-room apartment in the city center. The rental price was relatively low.
This apartment (like the very apartment building) was built in Stalin's times. This house and other apartment buildings (located nearby) were called "houses of specialists" as they were built for highly qualified people with education - people who were especially needed during the industrialization period in the pre-war 30s of the 20th century.
The owner of apartment was a pensioner - a former university teacher. He moved to live with relatives, and decided to rent out his apartment.
Kolya and the pensioner were people of different ages, but from the same social environment, even from the same sphere (higher education). They understood each other.
Kolya rented an apartment.
The pensioner periodically visited Kolya, drank tea with Kolya and explained the rules of a correct behavior. Kolya listened to these conversations and showed attention.
The age and the health conditions increasingly prevented the pensioner from regularly visiting Kolya. Kolya lived independently in a two-room apartment. The value of money in the country was falling due to inflation, and the rent rate remained constant.
In Kolya's life, such an inconspicuous factor, as constant time saving, has appeared.
Shops were located nearby. Kolya spent a minimum of time on purchases. There was no need to buy for future use, with a margin. Such manner gave some savings in expenses.
Sometimes Kolya needed more than just shops. Everything was nearby. Kolya easily visited public places and solved emerging issues (of a various nature).
The yard of the house was quite spacious (residents parked cars in it, trees grew in it and a playground was arranged in it).
There was no crowding in the stairwell and at the entrance. Only two apartments were at one stairwell [place, space, site], and there were four floors at the entrance.
All concerns and all expenses associated with the presence of an elevator were absent (since there was no elevator).
Kolya did not need a personal car.
However, from time to time Kolya was worried in connection of the beautiful cars of his colleagues.
Colleagues were visiting of Kolya very often. First, Kolya had enough space (a two-room apartment), no one interfered with the meetings, Kolya lived in the city center. Secondly, it was possible to park the car without difficulty and without expense.
Kolya had a possibility to looked out the window and to saw the beautiful cars of his colleagues. Of course, there were no inscriptions in white (or other) paint, that cars were bought on credit, and that regularly - every day, every week, every month and every year - their owner spends a noticeable share of his income - pays for owning a car.
Kolya and his guests (colleagues in a large company who lived in rented housing on the outskirts of the city) had many common interests and common talking points.
However, for example, guests hardly talked about their expenses for cars bought on credit.
The mandatory "program number" was the mentions (by guests): that in the same area, in the center of large city, apartments of the same area are rented for "the same price" - but with beautiful floors and with renovated walls and ceilings, with curtains on the windows.
The guests looked with regret at the wooden floor, painted with ordinary paint, at the cracked plaster on the walls, at the whitewash flying (periodically) from the ceiling, as well as at the old doors, requiring replacement, but serviceable ones.
If Kolya and the retired owner of the apartment were people of a different circle, they might somehow solve the issue of renovating the apartment. But their interests lay in other areas, and a situation did not come to repair. Kolya lived in an unfinished, worn-out apartment. Kolya had no complaints about utilities (gas, electricity, water, etc.).
Guests might not to visit Kolya if they did not like the apartment in which he lived. But they regularly visited him.
Guests regularly mentioned rental apartments in the same area (in the centre of large city) at "the same price", but with the renovations and with curtains on the windows. To these mentions were added a views of beautiful cars in the yard - of cars on which guests were arriving.
The level of rent ceased to attract Kolya's attention - the rent expenses became an insignificant element in the structure of his costs.
In Kolya's character came - in addition to lightness of character and common benevolence - a quality such as carefree.
The state of health of the pensioner-the owner of the apartment was deteriorating. During the increasingly rare visits of the pensioner, Kolya not only listened to pensioner's stories about the rules of life, but also handed over to the pensioner the stories of own guests about apartments in neighboring houses (with repairs, with beautiful floors and walls, with curtains on the windows), which rented at the "same [similar] price."
Kolya felt that the pensioner was not ready to look for a new tenant and did not intend to increase the rent level.
Not so much out of harmfulness or out of economy, but because of a such new quality as the own [feeling of] carefree, Kolya began to pay for the apartment not regularly.
The pensioner made a polite remarks, but nothing more.
A summer and the summer vacations approached.
Kolya announced to the pensioner that he, Kolya, needed money for a summer vacation, he would not live in an apartment in the summer, and there was no point in paying for the summer months - after all, he would not be in an apartment in the summer.
It was obvious that the pensioner would be forced to make concessions.
The playing cards, unexpectedly for Kolya, lay [fall] down in an unforeseen way.
He received an offer to move out of the apartment.
Having accumulated a significant amount of carefree in his character, Kolya was not ready for such a turn of events, for negotiations, for concessions, for retreat. Kolya left, moved out. There was a summer vacation ahead, and he had the opportunity to place his things somewhere for the summer months.
Oddly enough, in the autumn, in the same area (in the center of city ), Kolya failed to rent an "similar" apartment for the "same price."
Yesterday there were options, and tomorrow such options will appear. And today - no.
He had to rent an apartment (well renovated) on the outskirts of the city in a modern, newly built apartment building.
In the new conditions, he could not do without a car. It's not convenient, not appropriate to walk [to go on foot] here. A new situation, a new conditions. Grocery purchases (and much more) had to be made for future use, with a margin.
Somehow unexpectedly, the moving from the center to the outskirts of the big city pulled a lot of changes into the Kolya"s life.
The most noticeable were the loans that entangled [around] [which covered] Kolya, as well as the heap of concerns related to the car (the parking space, the gasoline, oils of all kinds, a maintenance, an insurance, fines and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, etc.)...
Kolya could not demand the compensation of damages from friends who regularly mentioned apartments in the center with good repairs and curtains on windows rented for the "same price." These were a general conversations (a friendly chatter), but not a written recommendations with the financial responsibility for the results of the application of consultations.
Kolya's spending rose to such a level that a financial deficit was created - the gap between income and expenses.
A constant lack of time was added to the financial deficit.
There were, also, advantages in moving from the center to the outskirts.
Periodically, Kolya looked at the beautiful floor in a rented apartment, at the walls and ceiling with good decoration, as well as at a beautiful new car bought on credit. And he was feeling [himself] like a modern, successful person.
November 24, 2022 10:24
Translation from Russian into English: November 24, 2022 13:26.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский " Удачливый квартиросъемщик. Риэлторский рассказ. (Из "рассказов на листочках").".
{ 3242. Удачливый квартиросъемщик. Риэлторский рассказ. (Из "рассказов на листочках").
MMMCCXIII. A lucky tenant. A realtor's story. (From "stories on the little sheets of paper").
Vladimir Zalessky Internet-bibliotheca. Интернет-библиотека Владимира Залесского}