I got the call every landlord dreads.
It came on a Tuesday morning, right as I was finishing my coffee. When the phone rings and you see a tenant’s name, your stomach just clenches. You brace yourself. It’s either a broken pipe, a noise complaint, or the dreaded, “I can’t make the rent.”
This call was from Maria. She’s been in my upstairs unit for seven years.
Now, you have to understand. In seven years, Maria has never been a problem. I’m not a big corporation; I just own this one duplex in Ohio that my parents left me. I live downstairs. Maria’s rent has been on my desk on the first of the month, every month, for 84 straight months. Like clockwork.
She keeps that apartment spotless. I mean, cleaner than my own place. Two summers ago, she planted flowers in the window boxes out front—on her own dime. Said she just “wanted to make the place look cheerful.” Anytime something small broke—a running toilet, a fussy light switch—she’d get it fixed and just send me the receipt. She treated my property like it was her home.
She’s not just a tenant. She’s a good neighbor.
So when I picked up the phone, I wasn’t prepared for what I heard. It wasn’t a complaint. It was sobbing. That deep, broken kind of crying that cuts right through you.
“Frank?” she whispered. “I… I’m so sorry…”
My heart sank. I thought, “Here it comes. She’s moving out. Or something terrible happened.”
She told me she’s been sick. Really sick. It started a few months ago, and her doctors have been running tests. She finally had to take leave from her job at the plant.
“I’m on FMLA, Frank,” she said, her voice cracking. “So they have to hold my job. But… but it’s unpaid. I don’t qualify for disability yet, they say. I used all my savings. I… I don’t have the rent for this month. I’ve never… I don’t know what to do.”
I was quiet for a second. I’m 68 years old. I’m on a fixed income. I’m looking at my own stack of bills on the table. The new property tax assessment. The insurance premium that went up again. Losing a month’s rent isn’t a joke. It hurts.
I thought about this system we have. Where a woman who has done everything right—worked hard her whole life, paid her bills, been a good person—can be one bad diagnosis away from losing everything. One roll of the dice from being terrified and humiliated, crying on the phone to her landlord.
Then I looked out the window at those flowers she planted.
“Maria,” I said, and my voice was firmer than I expected. “Stop. First, you stop crying. You’re going to make me cry.”
She sniffled. “But the rent…”
“Forget the rent,” I said. “You’ve been a blessing to me for seven years, you hear me? You’ve taken care of this house. Now, you have one job. You take care of yourself. You get better.”
“But Frank, I don’t know when…”
“I don’t want to hear about the rent for 90 days,” I told her. “Not a word. Call it a vacation. Call it a bonus. I don’t care. You just focus on your health. We’ll talk again in 90 days. That’s it.”
There was just silence. Then a small, “Thank you, Frank. God bless you.”
We hung up. I sat there and looked at my ledger book. Sure, there’s going to be a blank space in that column for a few months. I’d rather lose a little money than lose a person like Maria.
Sometimes, the most important profit isn’t the one you put in the bank. It’s the one you invest in another human being. We’re all just one phone call away from being Maria. We’re all just one bad day from needing a little grace.
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