The Landlord Story, told in initials

Tuesday, 3 February 2009 – 12:45am

E (my German friend) and I moved into our new place today. It’s much cheaper, almost by half for me, and while my room is much smaller, the house itself is better and the situation highly improved. We’re now living with three English guys, two of whom study at the University in the special British Students program and the third at the French Institute. The house is nice—there’s a covered living area with a big table and chairs for working, an uncovered patio area upstairs, a bigger kitchen with an oven (hooray!), and the general ensemble of sinks, toilet, and laundry room/shower. Even better, the guys have had no problems with our landlord. Hooray.

So, the story:

I had noticed from my first day in the house that the co-landlords, Hasoon and Walid, had a tendency to wander in and out of the house without warning or reason. Neither actively lived in the house—it was just E, our Chinese roommate N, and myself. Now, as is the custom in the United States and everywhere else in the world, I had assumed that upon renting a room in the house I was actually renting one-third of the house itself and could expect to enjoy the lack of landlords on a regular basis. (The situation is of course different if you move in with a Syrian family. But we hadn’t done that.) Instead, Hasoon and Walid felt it appropriate to bring over their male friends and spend lots of time watching TV and drinking in our living room/basement. At our housewarming party, strange men in our living room forced us to stand in the courtyard.

Being uncomfortable with strange men I didn’t know in my house without warning, I spoke to Walid Saturday morning. I explained, in Arabic, that I didn’t like men I didn’t know—and who didn’t live in the house—in my house. He appeared to understand, and though he showed up several times later that day to do piddling work around the house, the living room was mercifully free of strangers that evening. Ah, I thought, my message was received and all shall be well.

Ha.

Sunday evening I am out with some friends at Abu George, a lovely hole-in-the-wall bar fifteen minutes away from my new place. Around ten I get a text from E saying that there are strange men in the house again. I tell her she should ask them to leave, and she texts back to say that she did, but they refused.

I get angry. To have men in the house is one thing, but for them to refuse to leave when asked by the residents is absolutely unacceptable. I call Ahmad, the middleman and E’s tutor who initially introduced us to Hasoon, and explain, quite forcefully in both Arabic and English, that I do not like men in my house who do not live there, and for them to refuse to leave is intolerable. He tries unsuccessfully to calm me down, then says he will speak to Hasoon. I am not overwhelmed with confidence. Instead, I head home with another German friend of mine, O, to confront and remove the men from the house.

We meet up with E and her friend, C, and learn that they had been hanging out in the living room when the two men walked in, sat down, and turned on the TV, forcing E and her friend to leave. Ridiculous. The four of us walk downstairs to the living room—the strange men turn out to be Walid and his friend, drinking and watching TV. Walid is speaking to Ahmed on the phone as we arrive and is clearly bothered at our anger. The situation quickly turns into a shouting match, with Walid arguing that this is his house and he can do what he likes, and the four of us pointing out that we live here now and shouldn’t have to put up with random men in the house. I ask Walid if he has another house; when he says ‘yes,’ I ask him why he’s here. He says he sometimes sleeps here, so I ask him where his clothes and things are. E points out that there are only girls here and it’s inappropriate for there to be random men in the house. The conversation goes in circles, a mix of English and Arabic, with Walid occasionally turning to O and C and saying with exasperation, “You understand?” as if the male bond would allow O and C to see how irrational these silly girls are being.

I speak to Ahmed on the phone, who says that Hasoon doesn’t want to meet tonight, but we’ll get together tomorrow afternoon to discuss everything. He tells me not to worry, at which point I remind him that I am not worried, I am angry, and that until tomorrow I still have to put up with strange men in my house. Ahmed is unwilling to actually ask Walid to leave or to do anything for us, so I give up and agree to a meeting the next day. When I get off the phone Walid asks me if there’s a problem, as if everything should be solved. Soon someone else calls, possibly Hasoon. E and I walk up out of the living room for a bit and run into M, a house guest of N who has been staying with her for several days before returning home to Switzerland. We explain what’s going on, including our general shock and outrage at being treated so poorly by our landlords. Soon C and O join us at the top of the stairs while Walid continues to talk to someone on the phone down in the living room.

Suddenly, Hasoon appears. I start to explain that I don’t like men I don’t know in the house, at which point he turns to M and demands to know what he’s doing here. M explains that he is a guest of N, to which Hasoon says, “Guests, one, two hours. Not overnight. Not several days. Get out.” M calmly refuses, saying that he is a guest and questioning Hasoon’s premise that you cannot have guests in Syria. Hasoon also demands of us who our friends are and for why they are here. (It’s obvious what Hasoon was trying to pull: we were saying that he and Walid couldn’t have friends over, so he was switching the tables and trying to say that E, N, and I couldn’t either. This works as a debate strategy if you are five.)

O makes a couple of points, to which Hasoon takes an extremely aggressive stance, mimes someone zipping his lips closed, and says “Enough.” M refuses to leave, and Hasoon makes the same patronizing shut-up-or-I’ll-punch-you movement towards him. Hasoon then demands that E and I move out right then; we demand our money. When he says that he can’t get it until tomorrow we say we won’t move out until it appears. N, hearing all of the noise from her room, comes out of her room; Hasoon yells that she must leave too. N is completely baffled, having not been a part of the conflict at all. She receives the same, “Guests, one, two hours. He must leave,” lectures, and is shocked to see her guest so rudely treated.

We all stand in our circle and watch Hasoon, half daring him to do something to make M leave and half stunned that the situation has escalated so rapidly. Instead, he goes downstairs to speak to Walid, while M and N escape upstairs so M can explain what on earth is happening. A few minutes later Hasoon reappears, says that we will get our money tomorrow, and stalks out. Evidently the situation is settled for the evening—Walid will stay, but we will all move out the next morning.

Monday morning E and I wake up and pack—we’re going to store our things with our friends at German House, then start looking for a new place. While she’s moving some of her things Hasoon walks in the door and voluntarily offers me my rent money, minus the days I lived in the house. I am shocked—I was sure that he would refuse and we would end up using the police to force him to return the money. E returns, followed a few minutes later by Ahmed. I explain the entire story to him in English. He goes and speaks to Hasoon and Walid, who are wandering around the first floor while we pack upstairs.

After ten minutes Ahmed asks us to come down and speak to them. Hasoon apologises, and Ahmed explains that there has been a misunderstanding and Hasoon did not tell us, when we moved in, that he needed to be in the house ever few hours to see who was there. This is bullshit on so many levels: E was living in a house owned by Hasoon before this one and never had such a condition, it is absolutely not their prerogative to babysit us, and watching TV in the living room goes way beyond the bounds of just checking around. Ahmed says that we are welcome to stay, but we are determined to leave. Walid tries to make the argument that because the men never touched us or harassed us, we have no reason to be upset. I counter that yes, while it could have been much worse, that does not negate the bad things that did happen.

Ahmed asks what we want—E and N want their money. Hasoon agrees to pay E that afternoon, but refuses to pay N. She has been living in the house since the 21st of January, and unfortunately paid two months in advance—she wants to leave, but Hasoon says offhand that oh, she can stay through the end of the month since he does not have the money to pay her. I start arguing with Hasoon, asking how he can pay E and I but not pay N, at which point he becomes confrontational again, demanding that I stop interfering in other people’s business. I refuse, pointing out, along with N, that it’s not her problem if he doesn’t have the money, and that she can go to the police if he refuses to pay her. Hasoon continues to insist that he does not have the money, and N eventually negotiates for 10,000 within three days, and the rest later. The meeting ends badly, I finish packing, and we make our way to German House. On the way out Hasoon pays E her rent, having pulled some strings with a friend to get the money. Then, escape.

Our friends at German House were kind enough to put us up in our state of homelessness. E and I spent the afternoon looking at houses, which combines the joy of exploration with the exhaustion of negotiation and half-promises. We ended up choosing the first house we saw. Then we all go to watch a play called “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” the final project of the University theatre students, which was excellent but largely beyond my detailed understanding, being all in Arabic. Then to dinner, then to bed, then to sitting around getting sunburned on the terrace the next morning while waiting for our new rooms to be prepared. Then to moving, then to other things. And now I am here.

The end.