To Each His Own

So, the situation with my daughter's apartment took a turn for the better!

Shortly after I posted yesterday's blog entry, my daughter's landlord called to say that he'd be by in the morning to pull up the old flooring, treat the mold with bleach, and have someone come in to fix things up. Though he knew the bathroom needed attention, he hadn't realized how bad it had gotten. He said I gave him a wake up call.

Wow.

True to his word, he came by. Poor guy. I could hear him retching as he pulled up the old vinyl flooring, scrubbed the icky stuff and washed on the bleach.

In between treatments he worked on some stuff in the yard. I helped out in the main part of the apartment by cleaning the entry way and scraping the crud out of the kitchen sink and de-greasing the stove. So ... he saw that I wasn't just some mom demanding other people do work, I was willing to get in there and help, too.

Later on, we had a very nice conversation about our kids and the whole learning-to-become-adult phase. His daughter made it through and is a fine upstanding member of society now. I apologized for my rather aggressive attitude yesterday, and noted that the mama bear was coming out to protect her child.

I guess what I'm saying is ... because I was so forthright last night, he saw the situation through the eyes of a parent instead of his more usual role as the eyes of the landlord. When I spoke to him in terms of not wanting my daughter to live this way, he could see that he wouldn't want his daughter to live like that, either. To his credit, he took direct action.

In our conversation today, I got to see through his eyes, too. He explained his time constraints. He made a comment about how he was disappointed in the housekeeping abilities of his current tenants. It was a small, non-vehement understated comment ... and it said volumes. As a landlord, he had a hard time wanting to make improvements on a place when the tenants weren't taking care of what they already had.

We had a chance to see through the eyes of each other's experience today. We each gained a valuable new perspective.

Well done. Good, good day.