My landlord did not deposit a single one of my rent checks during three years — when I finally questioned him, he simply handed me a shoebox.
After my marriage ended, I was left with a four-year-old daughter, $1,100, and a car that only started after turning the key twice.
The apartment was a small garage conversion behind a blue house on Palmer Street, containing one bedroom, a closet-sized kitchen, and a sink window looking out at another’s tomato plants.
Mr. Alvarez met me in the driveway. He seemed to be in his seventies, wore the same gray work shirt daily, and never revealed his emotions.
He asked three things: Did I smoke? Did I have a dog? Was the child mine?
He said, “Eight hundred a month. First of the month. No lease, because I don’t like paperwork.”
I almost broke down on the spot; $800 was less than half the price elsewhere in the city.
Every month, I wrote out a check and placed it under his back door. That was our arrangement; no receipts exchanged, and I never requested one.
After three months, in November, something didn’t seem right.
I kept checking my bank account, hoping for change, and spotted that my balance hadn’t dropped.
The $800 was still there.
My reaction wasn’t happiness, but concern I’d look like someone who missed payments. I feared he’d lost my check.
I knocked on his back door.
“Mr. Alvarez, I think you might have misplaced my check. I can write another; if you find the old one, destroy it.”
He stared briefly.
“It’s handled,” was his reply.
He shut the door, neither rude nor abrupt — just finished.
I reassured myself he was old-fashioned, maybe depositing all his checks in bulk. My grandfather had similar habits.
Yet, December arrived and my check remained.
This continued through January and February. By the end of three years, almost $29,000 stayed untouched in my account. I finally confronted Mr. Alvarez, who silently handed me a shoebox. ⬇️