By Lisa Skriver
My father has been a landlord in Iowa City for as long as I can remember. Over the years, I’ve met and heard about some of his very interesting tenants.
He is a relaxed and easygoing man. He learned early on that when it comes to renting property, he should only do as many fix-ups as city code demands, because tenants seem to have a special talent for destroying carpets and anything one considers nice. For example, one set of dickheads took every condiment out of the fridge and covered the living room carpet Jackson Pollock-style prior to moving out. They squirted bottles of mustard, ketchup and barbecue sauce onto the floor and left nasty heaps of lumpy, curdled and rotting mayonnaise in front of the doorway.
Every time something like this happens, my dad replaces the carpet with the cheapest, bottom-rung sale carpet that Menards has to offer. He hauls load after load of forsaken trash to the dump whenever tenants move out. These tasks have to be completed very quickly as there is usually very little time to make the house livable (yet again) for new occupants.
A few years ago, a seemingly normal and bright grad-student couple nearly wrecked one of his houses in Iowa City. While working through the particulars of the lease, the normal and bright 20-somethings had asked casually about pets—particularly if it would be okay to adopt a dog from the shelter. Being a dog lover, my dad saw no reason for them not to have one; of course he agreed.
A good tenant is one who doesn’t call too often and pays the rent on time. Early in the lease, though, dad also listens to the daily police reports on the radio, hoping they never mention any of his properties. Not having heard of any drug busts or domestic assaults at any of them, he hoped this would mean smooth sailing with his new tenants.
But one day, dad got a call from the normal and bright 20-somethings saying that the water heater was broken. He went over to take a look at it, entering the house through the back door where a set of steps led to the basement. The tenants had left a note—black sharpie on the basement door—that simply read, “Beware of Hercules.”
He pondered the note for a moment before opening the door and heading down. As he fiddled with the water heater, he noticed something curled up in the darkened corner behind it. As he walked closer, he shined his flashlight into the corner and learned that “Hercules” was in fact an 8-foot boa constrictor that slithered around the basement as it pleased.
Shaken up from seeing the enormous snake, he went back upstairs and opened the door to go inside the house. There, the unmistakable stench of cat piss hit him hard. A loud chorus of incessant and inquisitive meowing roared and whined as cats of all kinds appeared from every nook and cranny. Dry cat food covered the kitchen table where there was a feeding frenzy in process. Dad’s eyes watered uncontrollably as he entered the bathroom, covering his nose and mouth to keep out the the scent of ammonia. The tub had been transformed into a giant litter box; layers of old crusty cat shit and kitty litter filled it to the brim.
Fighting back the urge to vomit, he exited the bathroom abruptly and started to make his way out of the house. Another note caught his eye, this one taped to the bedroom door: “Do not let the cats into the bird sanctuary.”
Furious, he cautiously opened what used to be the master bedroom. The flapping wings and screeching of birds greeted him, along with walls and floor covered in thick, dried white bird shit and feathers. The overhead light fixture was now a nest complete with parakeet chicks chirping in it.
He stood there, shocked. A few cats enthusiastically made their way into the sanctuary for some play time before he backed out slowly and shut the door. A loud barking was coming behind the door to the second bedroom. He feared whatever was pounding on it from the inside. He opened the door slightly and a warm wet slobbery nose emerged. Peeking inside, he counted no fewer than five big dogs, scratching the wood floor and chewing on the windowsills.
Exasperated, he walked through the living and dining rooms to find cages housing various reptiles, hamsters and ferrets. He wasn’t sure where the humans of the house lived because animals occupied every space. Noah’s probably had fewer species aboard his Ark than these occupants had living in my dad’s house.
I earned the lovely privilege of helping to clean up the house. Hundreds of cat food cans still filled the fridge along with bags of frozen mice for Hercules. The corner of the living room was warped and rotted, where gallons of cat piss had soaked through the carpet all the way to the sub-flooring. I hauled out an entire bathtub full of cat excrement one bucketful at a time. I especially enjoyed scraping the hardened bird shit off of the walls and floor of the bedroom.
We persevered, cleaning up the house as best we could in just a few days’ time. Dad put in a partial new sub-floor, slapped down a new roll of cheap carpet, sanded the scratch marks on the floor and replaced the windowsills. Voila! After spraying nearly six bottles of air freshener throughout the house, you almost couldn’t even smell the cat piss—ok, you could still smell it, but it didn’t make you wretch and tear up anymore, which was a marked improvement!
A new tenant re-rented the house, none the wiser that just a few days before it was a stinking cesspool of animal filth. When he asked if he could have a small pet, my dad said ‘no’ without hesitation.
Lisa Skriver lives near Iowa City. She spends her days doing taxes and her nights twirling fire.
