Dead Landlord Jokes

Probably no one who hasn’t lived here will understand this at all. I’m not sure I do, either.

On the other hand, we did used to live in a 75-year-old farmhouse on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and there were giant blacksnakes in the eaves. I always thought that was kind of cool, in a pagan sort of way. But everywhere you go, there’s an undiscovered darkness to explore. I seem to have a talent for falling into it, and that’s all right: it gives a deeper color to the larger picture, and I usually feel more like “me” for knowing what’s under the rug. Or in this case, underneath the dead landlord’s place.

Dead plants and old clothes abiding

That’s a little studio apartment that our late landlord once built on the end of the house we occupy now. He died about a year and a half ago at age 75 of too many cigarettes and a few other things. He was a sweet, gentle man — erudite and stubborn as well — tall, thin, and frequently sick, in the short years I knew him, and he’d lived on this hillside for over 30 years.

The entire property consists of about 3/4 of an acre with three dwellings nestled close together under tall elm trees. First there was the old mud-floored adobe we live in now, which he’d expanded by adding a bathroom and a kitchen and adding more windows. I’m not sure of the sequence, but later he built a passive solar adobe right next door and added a little studio apartment for himself at the back of the original building. At one time all of this was wonderfully landscaped but now belongs to the sagebrush and chamisa. Our place is extremely funky but solid. Nothing will ever blow it down. The uneven adobe clay floors were laid directly on top of the hard, flat-scraped soil. No creak or give or rattle! There’s no crawl space of any kind. It’s like living in a cave with windows.

Keep your eye on that odd little door

Last Friday morning I discovered that the toilet wouldn’t flush, something that had never occurred before. Being no stranger to this happenstance in other times and places, I right away fetched the plumber’s helper and went to work. But nothing would go down.

It was then I remembered the septic tank. Believe it or not, all three residences here use the same tank. Right now, in fact, the property is in disputed probate at least partly because of this, but that means nothing for our tale. What is important is that the landlord built his studio apartment right on top of the septic tank, including the only lid!

But you see that wooden door in the image above? That’s where the heavy concrete lid is, a couple of feet below the level of the ground. I only learned that a year ago. For most of the last five years, I thought the little cubby behind the door was just an evil-smelling place to stash the lawn tools. And wouldn’t you know it, by 10:00 a.m. Friday morning I’d discovered it was that and more, with half a foot of dark gray water in the bottom, covering the lid! Yes, I’d say this thing is full, I thought to myself, and with an out-of-state landlord and neighbors off in India, of all places, I knew I had to make something happen pronto.

This is the “after” picture

The first septic service I called showed up in 10 minutes in a shiny truck that looked as if it had never been used for its intended purpose. After the fellow eyed the situation, I understood why:

“I can’t do it! That’s a completely illegal installation, and I’m not going to break my back hauling that lid out of there. Tell you what, though: if you get it out, I’ll clean ‘er for you…”

Mildly astonished and not a little insulted — Jesus, you mean no one will work on this?! And this was a big, young guy — I shooed him on home and called another septic service. In the meantime, our neighbor actually telephoned from Dehli with the number of a local plumber who knew who’d cleaned the tank out last time. Whoever that was could definitely do it, obviously, but that wasn’t whom I’d called. And when I realized that was almost four years ago, I felt a quiet panic, especially with the weekend coming up: if whoever else was on the way had the same reaction as the first guy, we were going to have to poop in the woods until Monday, or maybe forever.

The second fellow was my age, short and stocky with an ample belly. He drove up in a groaning, rusty, old second-hand truck with the the faded business lettering of a previous owner on its sides. “Sure, I can do that,” he said and certainly did. It took a while, but he tied a rope to the lid and the other end to a tree (“so I don’t lose it”), got down on his stomach, and used a home-made tool to lift the edge of the lid out of the way just enough to get the hose down. Ah, thank God!

The first guy did say something else, however, that I remembered after all the excitement died down: “Must be awfully unhealthy living in there, what with all the fumes…”

I told him it was vacant now, remembering all those coyotes, laughing in the night.

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