The Mexican in My Basement

Our landlord began a long promised remodel of our house this month.
We were scheduled to get new windows & doors, siding & trim repair or replacement (where needed), and a paint job.
BUT, like all remodels things quickly turned into a full-on damage control event.
Every time they pealed back the existing siding they found new areas of rot which seemingly began at the dirt and reached to the eaves.
I had asked to have some plumbing fixtures serviced. We found that the old plumbing wasn’t in much better shape than the siding; so, we go all new plumbing — a 3 day exercise.
While playing with the plumbing down stairs they noticed some funky wiring and replaced it.
So far we have a story of your typical remodel, nothing extraordinary. But there is more to the tale here.
You see, our landlord had hired a Mexican carpenter (and assistant) to do the job. His work was pretty good and he ploughed through these tasks with a smile (being paid ‘hourly’ ya know).
With my background in design and construction I was asked to keep an eye on them and answer any questions they may have. So far, so good. However our contractor doesn’t speak much English and his assistant speaks none.
We all made out, however, and they willingly crawled around both ours and our neighbour’s crawl spaces as they fixed beams, floor joist, etc. I did notice one thing though.
Every time the Coast Guard helicopter flew overhead (a fairly frequent event in Summer) the helper suddenly had pressing business in the crawl space.
As our landlord neglected to get a permit, and had the house totally opened up on our busy street, it wasn’t long before the state inspector showed up to check on our contractor’s license & permit.
Well, he doesn’t have one and we were told to stop work until all was legal. As our landlord began working through this mess I noticed that our helper hadn’t returned from the basement and I wondered if he had dug himself an “underground railroad” back to Mexico. He emerged after a time, smiling sheepishly, to accept his ticket. And so it goes today...
The Mexican in my basement is both a blessing and a curse.

B&B's Cat Taken to the Woodshed

Lillian’s mascot runs amok and pays the price!
A couple of winters ago Lillian’s head housekeeper rescued a young cat from the alley during one severe storm. “Shadow” quickly took up residency in the lobby.
At meal times he would make his way to the dining room for handouts. At night he would ask to go out and wouldn’t usually come home until the wee hours, when he crawled into his favorite bed next to the fire place.
It was a good living until one night he woke the house with his screeching and thumping. They found him trapped in the wood box (which he’d mistaken for his bed). Pinned to his collar was a bill from the pub up the street for 2 chicken dinners and 4 beers.