In a safe neighbourhood, clean, furnished, transit-accessible and available – good enough for me! My mind’s eye blinks back images of the four-floor steep rickety staircase suite and the old couple’s toy storage/bed-room normally occupied by the grandkids. This quasi-separate top floor flat above a family home is the best alternative Mexico City’s offered me so far. And I need a place to live ASAP.

As a foreigner alone in the biggest metropolis in the world, unfamiliar with its language and geography, my choices and mobility are limited. After over a week of being passed around from co-worker to co-worker, I am eager to find a place to unpack my bags. When I arrive at San Lorenzo 223, a large house in la Colonia Del Valle, I am optimistic – could this be the one? Beatriz Ijuarte, who lives downstairs with her husband and son (both called Julio), greets me at the door. At first impression, she comes across as warm and motherly, a model homemaker. The two-week trial period (no commitment necessary) seals the deal: I am home (for now)!!

In the days to follow, I establish the terms of the month-to-month inclusive rent: furniture, linens, kitchen appliances, potable water, local (non-cell-phone) calls, cable television and cleaning/laundry once a week. Of the three presently vacant bedrooms in the suite, Beatriz explains she will only be renting out two; the third is to be kept empty for occasional use by her grown daughters when they come to visit. She assures me that, aside from her counselling practice in her office off our hallway and dance classes each Sunday night in our living room, it will be like having a separate apartment. When she concedes that I can, in fact, have guests over (which she’d at first made a big deal about), it takes away my last doubt; I decide to stay.

Things go well for the next couple months. I settle in and get comfy in my new pad. A fridge and stove are installed in the previously bare kitchen. Maria, a Spanish intern at UNIFEM, moves in; we get along great. The daughters stay over a couple times, which is a bit awkward, but tolerable – and part of the deal. Then it all starts to go downhill...

In December, we are told that an Italian girl coming to young Julio’s university on a three-week scholarship will be staying with us for the duration. Hold on… That wasn’t part of the deal! But it’s only a few weeks and she’s pretty inoffensive. Besides, it’s almost vacation time, and who wants to complain when you’ve got travelling on the brain? Maria and I both leave the city for the holidays. We have fun. We get back and the apartment is ours again. All’s well that ends well, right?

Then, less than two weeks later, it happens all over again. I go down to pay my mid-January rent and Beatriz starts acting all phoney-nice-like – when she asks about my vacation, even though we’ve already talked about it at length, I get suspicious. Moments later, the feeling in the pit of my stomach jumps up and says “Told ya so!!”

“Tomorrow a Canadian girl from the university will be moving into my daughters’ room,” she says casually. What?? Less than 24 hours notice that she’s be introducing a third roommate into our happy home, thus breaching our verbal tenancy contract, not to mention totally invading our privacy and stepping all over any illusion of tenant rights??

She is very matter-of-fact, acting like it’s just a big surprise to which we’ll all have to adapt, as though she has no say in the matter and isn’t in any way violating any previous arrangement. I try to raise some concerns – for instance how it was a bit tricky sharing the bathroom between the three of us when Danila (the Italian) was there – and her oh-so-sympathetic response is something along the lines of “You’ll have to deal.”

Later, Beatriz goes upstairs to break the news to Maria, who brings up the possibility of her lowering our rent. Beatriz claims not to know how long CdnGrl (who asked that her name not be used in this story) is coming for and says she will think about it after she finds out. Mañana, mañana?

CdnGrl arrives on Friday. Saturday evening, some people come over to for a birthday celebration Maria is hosting for Anna, another UNIFEM intern. We eat, we drink, we relax, and then, out of respect for the folks downstairs, we all go out. Sunday morning, after the clean-up, the place is spotless. I take CdnGrl to the world-acclaimed Museum of Anthropology and it’s all good; having a third roommate may not be so bad…

That night Beatriz comes up and states authoritatively: “No estoy en acuerda que tengan fiestas aquí.” Wait a second… You’re not in agreement that we have friends over for a few hours every few months, and yet have no qualms about permanently moving in a stranger?

I ask what her problem was with our get-together, thinking maybe we were too noisy or that we hadn’t asked for permission in advance. Instead, she surprises me by blaming it on the extra gas and water used by our guests. Has she already forgotten we both just got back from over two weeks apiece of absentee rent-paying (at the usual inflated price that includes utilities), amounting to a hefty ration of unused gas and water credits?

Flash-forward to March. Maria pays her rent on the 8th, so she’s up first. She comments that, since CdnGrl is obviously around for the long haul, they should revisit the rent issue. Beatriz responds that she knows that Isaac, Maria’s boyfriend, has been staying over a lot and that she won’t lower the rent, but, at the same time, won’t complain about the boyfriend.

I don’t think it’s fair, but on the other hand, since we don’t pay water or gas, I can see the logic. Fine. I barely ever invite anyone over during the day, let alone to spend the night. Besides, I’m rarely even home myself except to sleep and I travel for work and most weekends. So, obviously, she’ll have to lower my rent, no?

March 15th, my turn.

I get home from work to Beatriz waiting with a package slip. Apparently, I’m going to have to find a way to get to the post office between 9am and 2pm before Friday – with work hours being 8:30 to 6 in another part of town, this is going to be nearly impossible. But if I don’t find a way, the package (materials I’ve requested for a forum I’m planning to volunteer at in Puebla next weekend) will be returned to Canada! Beatriz offers to help me look up the address in the map book. I run up to my room and rejoin her moments later, full rent in hand. We chat a while about the package and the problem, and she tells me that if I can’t find anyone else to do it, she would be willing to go get it on Friday. I feel relieved – how nice of her! Onto the next item, the cash getting moist in my palm... I decide to bite the bullet.

“Um, about the rent…” I start out. “Well, you said earlier you would think about lowering it if CdnGrl stays, and since CdnGrl has stayed…”

“Well, how has CdnGrl’s being there affected you?” she starts out, more accusational than defensive.

I have to admit, it’s been sort of cool to have CdnGrl around. There are pros (i.e., Canuck company) and cons (i.e., goodbye to ideal Spanish-speaking home environment, non-television living room time, etc.). But, regardless of any benefits of her moving in, in this context that is not the point! We put up with the dance lessons that evict us every Sunday night and the therapy clients who smoke and watch TV in our living room… That was part of the original understanding! Another (uninvited) resident definitely was not.

“If you’re asking me to lower the rent, I’m not going to do it.” She is resolute, offering no excuses or justification. I can see that, over and above her normally nervous demeanour, she is uncomfortable having this conversation. I can also see that she has no intention of going back on her word (well, on her latest word, that does, in fact, go back on her previous word). Her face looks paler than usual, blanched, blending into the light roots not yet touched up with the bright red dye colouring the rest of her hair; she is not a young woman, but something about her tone, or perhaps her logic, makes me think of a stubborn child.

“It’s not that I can’t, but I don’t want to,” she re-iterates, as though this is some sort of reasonable justification. As though she can just make up the rules as she goes along and treat us however she deems fit. And, really, can’t she? I mean, how can we stop her?

It seems Beatriz, once so accommodating, is no longer interested in fulfilling her obligation to us, her original (less profitable) tenants; after all, she has found a way to make more money off the space by milking exchange students (Cdn Grl pays more because she eats with the family). When I challenge her on the unfairness of her decision, she concedes that I am right and she is wrong, and that next time she will make an effort to inform tenants of the conditions of rental beforehand. Big comfort.

“I’m right and you’re wrong” – now that, I can handle; make sense of; discuss; agree to disagree or compromise. But how do you argue with “I know you’re right and I’m wrong, but I’m still going to do just as I please and you can’t do anything about it!”??

I can’t believe she is actually making me feel guilty for calling her, straight-out, on a pretty clear-cut case of landlord sliminess. To top it all off, she tells me that she will no longer help me out with collecting my package. Suddenly all the kindness shown over the last six months, the invitations to family dinners, the concern when I got sick, the day-to-day small talk, disintegrate into a customer relations blur. Baffled, I take back the package slip.

I trudge up the stairs, bewildered. Did that really just happen? Had I missed some part of the interaction, the piece that would suddenly fit in and reveal a picture that makes sense?

It took talking it over with the roommates to realise there is nothing to make sense of – no more than a simple matter of power, or, more accurately, abuse of power. Aside from find somewhere to move for my remaining months, there isn’t much I can do, no authority I can turn to, to resolve the situation. And Beatriz is perfectly aware of my impotence.

So, if anyone has any bright ideas, I’m all ears. For now, I can only say that I won’t be the one trying to stop any party attempts that evolve at San Lorenzo 223 over the next while. And if anyone wants to come visit, gas and water included, bring it on!