not get ahold of her. After a week of voice messages, Sherrena called back, explaining that she and Quentin had been away in Florida. They had recently purchased a three-bedroom vacation condo there. In response to Doreen’s complaint about the plumbing, Sherrena reminded her tenant that she was breaking the terms of her lease by allowing Patrice and her children to live with her.
To Patrice, it was déjà vu. Before moving upstairs, she had inspected the unit. It needed a lot of work—the lint-gray carpet was worn thin and filthy, the ceiling in the kids’ bedroom was drooping, the balcony door was unhinged, and the balcony itself looked like it would collapse if you tossed a sack of flour on it—but Sherrena promised to attend to these things. Landlords were allowed to rent units with property code violations, and even units that did not meet “basic habitability requirements,” as long as they were up front about the problems.6
Patrice took Sherrena at her word and handed her $1,100: the first month’s rent and security deposit. But the repairs came slowly. Patrice’s bathtub stopped draining, but Sherrena didn’t return her calls. That time, she and Quentin were away on vacation. Patrice went two months without a working sink. When Patrice discovered a large hole in one of the walls, Sherrena gave her a pamphlet about how to keep her children safe from lead paint. When the door came off the hinges, “she sent her dope men over to our house to fix it,” Patrice complained. Things came to a head.
“I’m gonna get an attorney and sue you!” Patrice shouted.
“Go ahead.” Sherrena laughed. “But my money is longer than yours.”
“If I’m giving you my money, why ain’t my stuff fixed?”
The next month, Patrice tried a different approach. If Sherrena wouldn’t respond when the rent was paid, maybe she would respond when it wasn’t. Patrice gave Sherrena half the rent and said she would get the rest after she completed the promised repairs. As it was, the rent took 65 percent of Patrice’s income. It was hard to give up such a big chunk of her paycheck to live in such conditions.
Patrice’s plan backfired. Sherrena refused to work on Patrice’s place unless she delivered her rent in full. To Patrice, it felt like a catch-22. If she was paid up, Sherrena often didn’t answer the phone until the first of the month rolled around again. If she withheld rent, Sherrena refused to fix anything until she paid. “I’m not going to rush and bust my ass to take care of a bunch of issues, and you didn’t pay me all my money,” Sherrena said. Still, Patrice wanted to stay. She liked living above her momma and thought the apartment could be nice. Then Patrice’s manager at Cousins Subs cut back her hours, and she lost what little leverage she had. After Sherrena served her the eviction notice, Patrice couldn’t catch up. She promised to give Sherrena her tax refund, but by that time it was too late. Belinda, the payee and Sherrena’s new best friend, had called asking for a place, and Sherrena jumped at the opportunity. Patrice’s place would be available in a few weeks, Sherrena promised.
—
After two months without a working bathtub or sink and with a barely working toilet, Doreen decided to call a plumber herself. Having paid for a plumber the first time things got stopped up, Sherrena was not keen to do so again. And after what had happened at Thirty-Second Street, Doreen knew better than to call a building inspector. The plumber charged $150 to snake out the pipes. He concluded that the plumbing system was old and vulnerable and advised Doreen to catch everything she could from going down the sink. The first thing Doreen did after the man left was to run a hot bath and soak in it for an hour.
Doreen decided to deduct the $150 from her rent. When Sherrena responded by saying that would earn her an eviction notice, Doreen went ahead and withheld all her rent. If she was going to get evicted, she might as well save her money to put it toward the next move.7 It was a common strategy among cash-strapped renters. Because the rent took almost all of their paycheck, families sometimes had to initiate a necessary eviction that allowed them to save enough money to move to another place. One landlord’s loss was another’s gain.8
If Doreen had to move, she knew she wouldn’t be able to find