Tales of a Slumlord

As we stumble, sometimes drunkenly, into our highly depressing mid-thirties, there is but only one little bit of comfort left to us doddering old folks. Thankfully our wallets are by this time pleasingly plump, almost invariably quite as much as our rapidly expanding waistlines.

Which gives some of us ample largesse to throw around. Into expensive hobbies. Into trust funds. Into trophy husbands.


Think the damned tenement slumlord shut down the electricity again.
And yes, into profitable real estate as well. As it turns out, one of my friends Jamie Jetsetter has turned into a regular Donald Trump buying up parcels of land, setting up rentals and denying poor widows / orphans their due. So much so that our Jamie has been pointed out to me as a budding hotel magnate!

Paul : OMG You actually own a building!
Jamie : A small one only!
Paul : It's a hotel?
Jamie : Make that a motel. I partition the floors with wooden panellings and make them into small rooms. About ten rooms on one floor?
Paul : Eh? Ten rooms on one floor? Wouldn't that be really small?
Jamie : Well it's really cheap! Less than 50 bucks a night. And I usually rent out to...
Paul : Drug addicts and whores?
Jamie : Possibly. More likely to be waiters and labourers though.
Paul : OMG. You're a slumlord.
Jamie : A nice one!

Even as I talk to him, I can already imagine the deplorable view. Endless human debris clutter the dingy halls, mutant bugs scurry on the linoleum floors and there's an acrid mixture of stale cigarettes and forgotten pet odour in the air.

Far from living the life of a posh hotel heiress such as Paris Hilton, poor Jamie finds himself having to play the lowly janitor instead to clean up the messes left behind, especially when his untrustworthy squatters just vanish into thin air. Dealing with leaky piping, botched ceilings, broken windows and the like, he has turned into a regular DIY handyman!

Not easy being a property magnate but I guess even the Hiltons had to start somewhere!