Family Landlords Raise the Rent to Force One Sister Out
“Thank you,” I said.
I walked out of the records office and into the wide, quiet lobby of the county building.
The lobby was empty except for a security guard standing near the metal detectors at the entrance.
I sat down on a wooden bench near the elevators, holding the photocopy in both hands.
The transfer date was the twelfth of October, three whole weeks before Vanessa had knocked on my door with her designer suitcases.
My parents had formally given her the apartment as an advance on her inheritance while I was still paying them nine hundred dollars a month.
The rent increase my mother had announced was not designed to help pay for property expenses.
It was designed to force me to pay my sister’s mortgage on a building she now owned.
Vanessa was not looking for a job to pay her share of the living costs.
She was waiting for me to leave so she could have the entire two-bedroom apartment to herself, fully furnished with the things I had bought.
