STILL THE LAST TO KNOW

My last blog was about how it used to be. But some things never change. No one ever mentioned that a wrecking crew would show up today. At the moment I’m writing to a deafening surround-sound accompaniment: the crash of walls being torn down upstairs and down, the strident clanking of items like sinks being lobbed into the metal bins outside my window, the machine-gun rat-a-tat-tat of a jack hammer breaking up the foundation, the whine and buzz of power saws and drills and the shouts of workmen, as well as ongoing random thumps and bumps at various levels of volume from muffled to thunderous.

This is the work of the new owner—Bob. As I’ve already mentioned, our building with its seven small units—mostly unoccupied—was once a single-family residence. In fact, one recent morning on our way to breakfast, Ella and I saw a man and woman loitering on the sidewalk, contemplating our house, and found out it had been his grandmother’s.

Now Bob is determined to turn six of the already small one-bedroom units into two-bedroom units! How is he going to manage this? Every miniscule kitchen is going to become a second bedroom. Then new kitchens will be installed in the already tiny living rooms. He’s bent on developing a mini-dorm for U. C. students, assuming they won’t be bothered by living in such compressed quarters because they won’t be here long-term and, besides, they’ll know they’re lucky to find any lodgings near the campus at all. In the meantime he’ll be making twice the profits.

Because he can’t evict Ella and me, thanks to rent control, he did offer us a paltry settlement to leave. Otherwise, he’s advised us, we’ll be living here amid the ongoing chaos of renovation for the next eight months. Also, he plans to tear down our handsome floor to ceiling fireplace, the centerpiece of our living room, because he needs that wall for a supporting wall.

Of course there won’t be any parking for all the additional tenants when the renovation is done—not in the back nor on the street. And just imagine what life is going to be like for Ella and me when all these college kids have parties!

Ours isn’t the first building he’s converted in this way. In some of these mini-dorms, we’ve heard, they install bunkbeds, so, legally, how many people could be living here in eight months? Let me do the math. Four apartments times four beds, plus one apartment with six beds equals twenty-two additional tenants in what was supposed to be a single family residence. This is the wave of the future, Bob tells us. Gee! So much to look forward to!