Dateline: Where we sometimes all have to just move on.
When the old lady finally moved out in October, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. As I later learned from her son, she balked at the last minute and tried to refuse to leave. But in the end, both he and I were tired of her constant excuses as to why she wouldn’t move out as planned, and he had had to tell her that if she didn’t move then, he’d stop talking to her. To this day, I remain eternally grateful for his forceful intervention.
When I bought the house from her, she was living in the third-floor apartment, with her two maids and 70-something years of accumulated tchotchkes. In her younger days, she was a professional ballerina. When she retired, probably in her early thirties, she gave private dance lessons around town. Later she gave them in the Estudio de Baile, the open and high-ceilinged third floor of the house next door. But by the time I met her, she was bedridden, on oxygen, and used a walker to get about, when she left bed. Which was seldom. When I first met her, she received me, my lawyer, and a civil engineer from her bed, where she had been made up, and propped up for the occasion, surrounded by pillows, and bottles of pills on the nightstands. Later, when we signed the papers at the notario, she cried as she didn’t really want to sell the house. As part of the deal, I gave her six months to live there, rent-free. Her plan at the time was to build a house in Querétaro, where her eldest son and several grandchildren lived. She supposedly already had a plot of land and an architect working on it. But as you might imagine, permitting and bureaucracy slowed things considerably, and the six months quickly passed. At that point, she had to start paying rent, and for me, this wasn’t entirely disagreeable. I was still very busy with the main house, and some extra money coming in to help pay for things was welcome.
As time passed, we talked about her maybe becoming a long-term tenant. For me, there would be the advantage of not having to remodel her unit. For her, obviously, she’d never have to move, and the Querétaro project was becoming problematic. But there were also some sticking points. On the azotea (roof) on the back third of the house was a cuarto de servicio where her maids stayed. From the beginning, I had wanted to turn that space into a small, rooftop apartment, and I made it clear that this was a non-negotiable point. Also, I had planned to convert the Estudio de Baile into another apartment. Both projects would require building a passageway through her apartment, something she was wildly opposed to.
I also worried about her deteriorating health. In the early days, she would go out from time to time for dentist and doctor appointments. Her maid would put a stool at the bottom of the stairs where she could wait for an Über. And La Doña herself would gingerly clamber down the long, spiral stair, clutching the banister, all the while tied to a 50-foot oxygen tube. It was alarming to watch, particularly as the maid just let her walk alone. Of course, I always accompanied her if I was there. Later I told her son that it was insane that no one was right by her side when she was on the stair.
One night in late February 2023, I got a call from her maid. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t really explain it, and seemed panicked. So I called her son, who said his mother was having severe abdominal pains, and could I move my car? I rushed over to help, and after a couple of hours waiting for an ambulance, a couple of burly guys strapped her into a gurney, carried her down the spiral stairs, and whisked her off to the hospital, about 10 minutes away. I’d have driven her myself, but she couldn’t manage the stairs. Later we found out that she had an intestinal blockage, and without emergency surgery, would have died that night. A week later she was home, for a slow recovery.
By now it was pretty clear to me that she’d have to move. The surgery had weakened her, and she wasn’t doing anything to get better. She never tried to walk or do any of the exercises her Dr. prescribed. Given her health, there was no way it was practical to live on the third floor of a non-elevator building. She was also getting a little loopy. Like several weeks earlier, she had phoned me to say there was no water. I rushed over, checked everything, but all the plumbing was fine. She had also become an annoying obstacle to the remodeling, complaining about the noise, and trying to impede various parts of the job. “You can do that later,” she’d say. “I’ve got guys here now, I’ve rented scaffolds, and it has to be done now,” I’d respond. She even complained about the new electrical conduits in the garage. “Those pipes are very ugly.” I was getting tired of this, so I waited a few weeks for her to get better, and then I went over to tell her she had to move.
It wasn’t a pleasant conversation. I think she thought she’d be able to stay there forever. But I reminded her that we had always planned for her to leave, and that I would not be able to finish the remodeling while she was still there. “You mean I can’t stay here?” She didn’t seem to immediately grasp that she was being evicted. I was firm. “No, you have to move, Doña. I’m sorry but this isn’t a good place for you to live any more. You saw how long it took to get you to the hospital. You need an elvator and I need the azotea, and I can’t remodel with you here.” This conversation took place about a year ago.
Thus commenced the era of nagging: me nagging her, me nagging her son, her nagging me about all of the noise. “The best way to escape the noise is to escape the noise and move” became my catchphrase in response to all this. But she didn’t want to go. Her son began to look for places, but she was very picky. The place had to have 3 bedrooms, a balcony, a separate maid’s quarters, an elevator, and not be too expensive. Oh, and near the old house, which is an increasingly expensive neighborhood. Why someone who never left her bed needed a balcony was never clear. Her son managed to find several places that fit the bill, but then she’d dilly-dally about making a specific offer, and the place would get rented to someone else. Her son and I became very frustrated. More nagging ensued.
Finally, in early September, her son said he had found a suitable place that his mother liked. A couple of weeks went by, and then finally, he announced that she’d move on October 15th. I crossed my fingers, hardly believing it could be true. But that day she left, and I was delighted. Oh, there were a few unpleasant details. Her movers scuffed up the new paint on the stairway, and she stiffed me on the washer and refrigerator she had promised to leave behind. But I was finally done with her and could move on with my project.
Since then, we’ve mostly worked on her apartment and the azotea, while the house remains pretty much neglected. There, I still need floors, broadly speaking, kitchen cabinets, and then a long punch list of smaller, but important details. People keep asking when the project is going to be done, but it’s two houses and three apartments, not a small task. My next posts will talk about the big apartment and what I’m doing there. You can see the original floorplan above. Meanwhile here are some photos to look at.
Saludos and thanks for reading!
El Gringo Suelto 