In most ways, I am a grown ass man. I have a decent idea of who I am and what I stand for. I have a family. I am successful at a high-pressure job in a cutthroat industry. I have well-defined hobbies and interests. I've spent years in therapy and it's finally beginning to pay off. I have a fair amount of life experience and a well-rounded, realistic view of how the world works.
The only thing that reliably freaks me out is my own mortality. Well, that and my landlord.
For many of us, landlords are a necessary evil. Buying property is a huge commitment and not just because of all the money involved. It brings with it a whole new set of responsibilities, not to mention the presumption that you'll stick around in one place for the foreseeable future. If you're young, you rent. If you're broke, you rent. If you just relocated, you rent. If you're lazy, you rent. If you're in massive denial about your current situation or hate yourself, you rent. If you just can't be bothered, you rent. All of these are valid ways to be alive.
When you rent, though, you're suddenly at the mercy of a total stranger who could give a fuck less about you. At best, you're a monthly income stream for them. At worst, you're a potential threat to their investment. It's a business relationship where all you can do is tread water. You're expected to pay on time and not trash the place. Anything more is a waste of your time. Anything less and you could be gone as soon as the lease is up. If this doesn’t keep you up at night, you're a far stronger person than I am.
Landlords are the worst kind of authority figure in that they wield absolute, arbitrary power. The kind that makes you feel absolutely powerless, like getting pulled over by the cops or getting a letter from the IRS. At a job, you've always got your performance to fall back on. Maybe you've pissed off someone more important than you, but at the end of the day, you still have value. You have some leverage if things get sour. Landlords? Nothing. They own you. You signed a piece of paper that gives you the right to borrow their spot and expect some basic rights. If something breaks, they're supposed to fix it. Get too demanding, though, and you might piss them off. They want you to be invisible. They're in this game to lay back and watch the money pile up. Your comfort is not their concern.
What's so maddening about renting isn't just that landlords are a constant source of existential stress. It's that having a landlord keeps you from attaining full adulthood or independence. They make you feel helpless, like a damn child. And in the same way that everyone acts like a teenager around their parents, a landlord can awaken some seriously immature parts of a person. They can strike fear into your heart. They can inspire sheer hatred. I once tried to figure out how I could get a really shitty landlord on the terrorist watch list after he falsely accused me of walking around the parking area in my underwear (don't ask). At least once a day, I ask myself why there aren't more angry songs about landlords. Maybe everyone is too embarrassed or ashamed to be angry. (Shout out to Bob Dyland's "Dear Landlord," The Coup’s "Kill Your Landlord" and the Dead Kennedy's "Let's Lynch the Landlord," even if these are all way more political or metaphorical than my extremely ordinary angst).
Or maybe landlords are mysterious signs sent from the heavens, a way of reminding us that we'll never really be on our own, never really be free.
I'm not suggesting that all landlords are inherently evil or that renters are always blameless people. The customer is not always right and if I were a landlord, I'd be pissed if someone were blatantly disrespecting my property. I've had landlords who were truly mild or disengaged. I've had landlords who were overbearing jerks. The most pleasant relationship I've had with a landlord could've easily been a disaster.
For five years, we lived in the basement of a well-off real estate broker's fancy house in a gigantic mother-in-law apartment. She could've been a constant thorn in our side, checking in constantly and monitoring our behavior. Instead, she got to know us, trusted us like adults and worked with us when there was a problem to be solved. We weren't an annoyance. We were people who could help her maintain her investment. We were on the same side. We were all adults.
Maybe some day, I'll buy a house and I'll be free of all the emotional burden that comes with renting. That will bring on a whole slew of other problems, like how exactly I would keep it from crumbling to the fucking ground. I can barely even hang a picture straight. But it would probably be worth it. I'd rather control my own destiny, knowing that I was free to ruin a wall without risking my long-term stability. Being a grown up is all about responsibility and accountability. It's about realizing that you have to make your own rules up and stay true to them as best you can. Having a landlord means having these rules handed to you.
That's not the kind of thing anyone needs to live with past a certain age. Unfortunately, sometimes we don't get a choice. But maybe there's a silver lining. Maybe having a landlord is a test, a way to gauge how grown up you really are. If you can handle it with dignity (I clearly cannot), then congratulations, you're capable of managing your emotions and making the best of an inherently shitty situation.
Or maybe landlords are mysterious signs sent from the heavens, a way of reminding us that we'll never really be on our own, never really be free. Maybe our landlords are proof of an angry god, a higher power, a justification for all organized religion. In a way, that would make me feel better. I'd rather be scared of God than some person brought into my life through chance. At least then the universe would make sense.
Bethlehem Shoals is a writer living in Portland. You can follow him on Twitter here.
