In the event your mother or father dies or leaves to Dominican Republic, because they are one of the lucky ones who were able to buy a house and return back home, the family member who lived with them in the apartment as a primary residence for at least two years immediately prior to them leaving has the right to renew the lease.
(For family members who are senior citizens and disabled persons, you only have to prove residency for one year to inherit their apartment. We really don’t like to advertise this.)
Family Member includes:
Fernando (son)
ángela (Cara’s sister)
Rafa (Cara’s brother)
Family member also includes: daughter, stepson, stepdaughter, father, mother, stepfather, stepmother, grandfather, grandmother, grandson, granddaughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, and daughter-in-law.
And what if you’re not blood related or in-lawed?
If you can prove you have an emotional and financial commitment and interdependence with the person who has passed on or who has left you for another person, country, or life, all you need to do is to provide evidence.
Evidence to prove a financial and legal connection:
Show proof that you shared a joint bank account, household expenses such as rent or utility bills, or owned property together. You can show a legal link by naming each other in a will or life insurance policy and listing each other as a Health Care Proxy or Power of Attorney. Listing each other as an emergency contact is also helpful.
Proof of an emotional connection includes family pictures at a birthday, holiday, religious celebration, or family events and/or exchanging gifts/cards and sharing of responsibilities, such as picking up children from school.
What to avoid if you plan on succeeding someone in an apartment:
Do not sign a lease in the former tenant’s name. Do not keep ties with other residences or have the former tenant visit too frequently or allow them to leave their belongings. It is also important to document that you are paying rent. Paying with a check or money order is best.
GENTRIFIED
RENT-STABILIZED BUILDING, INC.
BILLING INVOICE #452738
Little Dominican Republic
New York, NY 10032
To: Cara Romero
INVOICE
MONTH RENT (FEB 2009)
$888.00
OPEN BALANCE
$1,200.00
PAYMENT RECEIVED (02/05/09):
?$450.00
LATE FEE:
$40.00
Remaining Balance
$1,678.00
Rent is due on the 1st of the month. Please pay rent on time to avoid late charges.
SESSION FOUR
I’m not in a good feeling today. I know we need to work, but I need to tell you what happened.
The new manager of our building came this morning to inspect the apartment. This is what they do, supposedly document repairs that have to be done. But I know the truth: it’s to find reasons to throw us out.
Yes, yes. I have all my papers in order. I owe a little rent, but not much. I had to spend some money on that down payment of the surgery.
The building manager looks like the religious men that stand by the entrance of the train, with the white shirts inside their pants. He made a smile that goes up on one side and down on the other. He pretended to be innocent and this made me want to give him a pela. He walked inside with his forms and went direct to the kitchen to look at the plants I have on the fire escape. He told me if I don’t take them away the fire department will give me a ticket. Is that true? You don’t know? But you work for the city. This is something you should know.
The building manager looked around for everything: to the floor, to the ceiling, to the sofá, to the curtains.
Where is the smoke detector? he asked.
I told him, Every time I turn on the stove, it goes: Fire! Fire! Fire! It beeps so loud I get a migraine.
I know, don’t tell me. I should put it back.
He made a little note in his papers. Like you’re doing now.
What will you do with all these notes? A report? About me. You will make me look good, no?
Anyways. When he checked the radiator, I closed the curtain so he could not see the air conditioner in the window. It does not have the brackets. But tell me, you, when did an air conditioner fall out of the window and crack a person’s head?
Oh, really? That happens? What a terrible thing to happen to people!
OK, OK, so then he opened the bathroom door. He saw my panties hanging to dry, and ay, Dios mío, his face was like a tomato. And, from nowhere, Lulú appeared. Yes, Lulú! She finally appeared, and she had sirenas going off in every direction.
I said, mujer, I’ve been looking for you! I was so worried!
But she didn’t care about me.
She started yelling to the building manager: I’ve been calling you for weeks, months, about the leak in the bathroom!
He dropped his pen and papers.
It’s true, Lulú had a leak for many months, and I know because she accused me of throwing water on the floor, and I told her, I don’t do that. Then she came to flush my toilet and turn on the water in the sink to see if it was my fault. I can’t believe she didn’t trust me, but OK, people are like that.
Miss, the building manager asked Lulú, in what apartment do you live?
But Lulú exploded, her mouth shoot words like a machine gun: ?pa pa pa pa pa pa pa! With every word he step back and back and back, because Lulú is Leo with Aries rising: fuego-fuego, with the big orange hair, she scare people. The manager pretend his phone ring and ring, lifting his finger, saying, one minute, one minute. He then disappeared down the stairs. Lulú followed him. So I followed her, grabbed her arm to stop her.
Let me go! she yelled to me.
I didn’t let go. I waited for her to calm down. Then I asked her, Where have you been?
You have no idea what’s happening to me, she said.
And then, I saw her face. She has not been sleeping. Bags under the eyes, no lipstick, not even earrings. I had a feeling this had to be about Adonis. What else could torment a mother like this that she would stop taking care of herself?
Her son Adonis is in trouble. But not a little trouble. Big trouble. Adonis lost his apartment. Her son, the big professional that was making four, five times what we made in the factory, lost his apartment in Brooklyn with a view of Manhattan.
Tell me, you, didn’t he see those people in the news that lost their houses and are camping in the highway? What was he thinking? He bought his apartment, all of it, with a loan. Even his down payment was a loan! The banks call it a balloon—and it popped. The party is finished for Adonis.
Lulú received this bad news when she cashed the last of the unemployment checks. She always made me feel like una vieja because she was more young than me, but now she wants to be old like me so she could do this program and get the benefit checks. Her only income is what she makes working in the bodega. She can’t help her son. Lulú is very humiliated about Adonis. This is why she avoid me. She was afraid to tell me. But I don’t judge. To be a mother is to suffer. You try and try with the children and they step on shit anyway. It’s too bad because in truth our children have it more easy than us.
Lulú never took the side of his son’s wife, Patricia. She mopped the floor with Patricia’s name because, according to Lulú, Patricia never contributes to the rent. She only pays the phone and the electricity, and she makes Adonis do all the laundry for the house. Lulú hates Patricia for that.
She always says, Look at my poor son, working like an animal so that woman can spend her weekends fixing her hair in the salón. But Patricia’s not a pendeja. Women know that if we don’t put in all that work, men like Adonis, that love shiny things, would have eyes on someone else, and fast. But Lulú has no sympathy for Patricia, who works in an office for a lawyer. I am sure, too, that she does most of the work with the babies.
ángela and I never agree, but when we talk about Patricia and Adonis, we agree on this: Patricia was intelligent to put half of her check in a separate bank account. And thank God Adonis refused to marry her with papers. The relief that woman must feel now—legally free from Adonis, his debt, and his bad credit. If she had not saved her own money, Patricia and her babies would be left with nothing.
Women know even the things we don’t see. Yes or no?
* * *