A Stranger in my House
• Kira Isak Pirofski, BA, MA

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The Tenant from Hell

Deprived of sleep and mental diversion, my nerves frayed. I became paranoid and fearful.

She was an odd, misshapen creature with a mass of curly, short, gray and black hair and a putty face. Clearly she was a person who had seen hard times, been knocked around, settled for a minor role in life, and yet maintained supercilious, superior airs.
She told me that she wanted to move in immediately; a request, which generally signaled that the last living situation had not worked out. I needed the extra rent, so I agreed that tenancy would begin the following evening.

I had been renting the spare room in my house for the last 6 years. Typically I took on male tenants. However, having recently turned forty-six, the prospect of living in close proximity to someone of the opposite gender had become less appealing. I wanted to hide from the opposite sex. This strange creature with the crooked smile and the nervous manner seemed harmless enough. Anyway, I could always run another ad if she didn't work out. She paid me the first months rent and the prorated amount in cash, and I let this stranger into both my life and home.
We were the same in precious few ways; both of us smoked, and had similar ethnic backgrounds. Strangely enough both our grandmothers were from the same town in Russia. That is where the similarities ended.

I am self effacing and polite to a fault, she was arrogant and sharp tongued. I favor environments that are stark and spare. She was a certified pack rat with boxes of 40's videos, stained cookbooks, battered kitchenware, and dozens of jars of cooking spices crammed into her room. She filled three kitchen cupboards with an unappetizing assortment of canned goods. The freezer was crammed with steaks, lamb chops, sausages, and chicken legs.

I am slim and feminine with long, straight dark hair. My defense against depression is buying new clothes, experimenting with makeup, jewelry and perfume. She was overweight, messy, wore leggings and sweatshirts, and eschewed any frills. Her method of depression control was cooking spicy meals, sleeping for days on end, and criticizing me.

Gradually lack of concern about her physical appearance made me even more aware of my own. Her unshaven legs reminded me to shave mine, her unbrushed hair alerted me it was time to was and blow-dry mine. The sight of her flabby body forced me to diet and exercise. This arrangement was the one positive aspect of her tenancy.

What irked me were her odd habits. She did document delivery for doctors, and worked from 4 pm until midnight. I tended to get to bed around 11pm, and she would arrive home shortly thereafter. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I would hear the clang of pots and pans as she began to cook her elaborate midnight feasts.

If the crash and bang of her cooking equipment didn't wake me up, the pungent odor of the meal she was preparing would. The oppressive stench of sweet and sour chicken, lamb stew, or Boston baked beans permeated my room nightly. It roiled my stomach. Each night was torture; I felt nauseous and queasy. It was impossible to sleep with the air filled with the smell of her salty, greasy, spiced meals.
I was getting less and less sleep. I was unable to awake with my usual energy and optimism. I would awake, and find the kitchen reeked of her previous cooking and eating orgy.

She slept like a bear in hibernation. She could sleep through an earthquake or a nuclear war. Gradually her ability to sleep soundly, and my increasing difficulties to get any sleep at all, began to wear me down. The constant exhaustion was debilitating as were her thinly veiled jabs aimed at my leisure activities. I knit and bead; she deemed my hobbies trivial.

Deprived of sleep and mental diversion, my nerves frayed. I became paranoid and fearful. Each time we talked, I would mentally duck her usual verbal abuse. Polite emails I received regarding articles I had submitted were in her words, "form letters," arts and crafts I planned to sell would, according to her, not yield any profit. My efforts at tutoring were looked on with derision and condescension.
Through it all I managed to keep a civil tongue, and simply wait for the rent payment. I took to hiding in my room, watching videos, and chain smoking. I relied on caffeine for energy. I lusted for her absence. When she went to work, I would heave a sigh of relief, catch up on my sleep, and try to mend my broken psyche.

Months went by. I did not dare to share the details of my tortuous living situation with anyone. After all, I had chosen to rent to her, and I had the right as well as the option of finding another tenant. But it was not that simple, I had become masochistically attached to her mental assaults. I had grown up in a loving wherein my parents provided lavish praise for every effort I made. My intellectual and artistic expression had always been received with positive feedback. It was a novelty to have to endure jabs and insults, yet somehow, I felt I would become a better, stronger person if I could learn to tolerate her negativity.

This twisted logic led me to put up with her, and to resist any efforts to improve my
living arrangement. However, I began to realize that Nietche's adage "what does not kill
me will make me stronger" could not be further from the truth. What does not kill you
makes you weaker and chronically sick.

Slowly and insidiously I began to feel drained of creative and intellectual energy. I
dragged myself through the motions of the day and hoped that very soon my depression
would lift. I hoped and prayed that I would find the guts to withstand the sinking feeling I
experienced in the pit of my stomach each time I encountered her.

It was not to be. With no one to turn to, and with no end in sight, I began to contemplate
suicide. I saw no other option. My self esteem and judgment had been so decimated by
my constant contact with her abrasive ways that I felt that any tenant would make me feel
as sick and sad as I felt around her.

One weekend I checked into a nearby motel, ordered room service, ate one last meal, and
downed a bottle of sleeping pills. As I got sleepier and sleepier, all I could think of was
that I would finally be free from her hostile presence. I would be at peace, the next world
would be kinder. I would be reunited with my long lost confidence and my sense of
mental equilibrium.

None of that happened. Instead, through a series of twists and turns and events I still do
not fully understand, my suicide attempt was aborted. Somehow, someone found I had
checked in and had tried to call me. When there was no answer they tried later. And later. And later. Finally, this unnamed person called the front desk of the motel and the front desk called the firemen, and the firemen and the paramedics took me to the nearby hospital emergency room and the doctors saved my pitiful life.

I did not die, and three days after what was to be my final day on earth, and found myself
on a locked Psychiatric ward. I was miserable in ways that defied description. I was
denied access to my beloved hobbies; sharp objects were not permitted. My caffeine
intake was restricted, and I was put on one anti-depressant after another.
After three weeks, I was set free. During my hospitalization and treatment, I had finally
confided in my mother regarding the sordid details of the mental hell I had been living
through. She had spoken to the tenant, and without going into the nitty gritty of what I
had done, and where I had been, she got rid of my strange, bitter, and nasty tenant.
On the day I returned to my empty house, I felt, for the first time in months, free and
happy. Without her constant, negativalty and oppressive presence, joy and at last regular
sleeping habits returned. Each night I lay in bed and smiled as I drifted off to relaxed,
restful sleep. Each morning I awoke and watched the sun stream through windows now
cleared of the grease and grime that had been by products of her nightly cooking orgies.
I filled my refrigerator with fresh vegetable and fruit, which I hoped, would make me
forget the cans upon cans of salty, pickled constables she had crammed into my cabinets.
I clawed and willed myself back to sanity. I fought and fought feelings of despair and
depression. Some days I succeeded, and others I was filled with the old sense of
incompetence and hopelessness. Each day was a struggle, but as I looked around at my
house, its sparseness and clarity restored, I felt hopeful. With her out of my life the
clutter had left. The mental and physical clutter was gone, and that alone was relief
enough.

The key to fighting depression is thinking about the past. Looking to the future is self-defeating; looking back at how bad things had become cheered me up. I knew that losing a tenant meant financial problems, but this seemed minor compared to the mental torture I had experienced when I was renting out the room.

When feelings of despair crept into my thoughts I resisted them by forcing myself to recall the misery my bizarre tenants mere proximity had yielded. That and keeping busy worked most of the time. The rest of the time I kept Courtney Loves mantra, "live through this," in mind. I did not what was in store, what awaited me if I in fact lived through the financial loss and somehow managed to restore a sense of normality.
Whatever lay ahead, I resolved to "live through it."

© Kira Pirofski March 2003
Kpirofski@aol.com

Kira Pirofski earned her master's degree from San Jose State University in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications in 2001. While a graduate student at SJSU Ms. Pirofski received the Ridder Foundation Scholarship for Journalism and started a non profit spinal cord injury newsletter which was distributed on 7 California State University Campuses.
For the last six years she has taught English to ESL students as well as worked as an independent scholar writing on subjects ranging from multicultural children's literature to the digital divide in elementary and secondary schools. Her Master's Thesis, Disability Narratives and Graphics in Children's Magazines pre and post PL 94-144, has been published by ERIC (Educational Research Information Clearinghouse), and her writings have appeared in ProjectAppleseed.,Multicultural Pavilion, and the Journal of Literacy and Technology.

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