He spread a rent roll across his desk that evening. Several units were already vacant. Three long-term households held particularly favorable leases: the Carters, Mr. Patterson, and the Washingtons. The others had newer agreements or had indicated they might move soon. He calculated that the old tenants were costing him money every month, not because their payments arrived late, but because someone wealthier might pay more for the same walls.
He began with the Carters, sending letters warning of future renovations and suggesting that they visit their daughter in California until work was complete. Lillian Carter told him she had no intention of moving across the country for a contractor who had not even submitted plans. With Mr. Patterson, Richard tried appeals to convenience, speaking loudly and slowly as if age had made the man incapable of understanding legal language. Mr. Patterson, who had served as a bookkeeper for thirty years, asked for every offer in writing. Richard stopped smiling at him after that.
The Washingtons irritated him most. Their rent arrived automatically every month. Their apartment was clean. They had neighbors who liked them, a lease his father had drafted carefully, and enough patience to read every document before signing. They never seemed frightened when he mentioned the changing market. When Richard stopped his car one afternoon and watched Eleanor hold the front door for a delivery worker struggling with boxes, he interpreted her cheerful wave as an insult.
"They act as if they own the place," he complained to his assistant, Felicity Shaw.
Felicity, twenty-eight and in her second year at Caldwell Properties, looked up from her computer. "They've lived there a long time. I suppose it feels like home."
"Feeling isn't ownership."
"No, sir."
"Make me a list of every violation in their file. Noise, guest activity, maintenance issues, anything."
Felicity hesitated. "There aren't any outstanding violations."
Richard tapped the edge of her desk. "Then review it again. Nobody's perfect."
She watched him return to his office and close the glass door. She was used to his temper, but not to the way he had started referring to longtime residents as obstacles. In her previous job, records were meant to describe things that had happened. At Caldwell Properties, she was beginning to suspect they could be used to prepare things that had not happened yet.
The first modernization notice arrived on October twenty-third in a cream-colored envelope bearing embossed company letterhead. Eleanor opened it at breakfast while James fetched the marmalade. It described proposed work on plumbing risers, electrical systems, and shared hallways. The notice requested that tenants temporarily relocate for sixty days beginning November first and offered two thousand dollars for voluntary cooperation. It gave no detailed schedule, no permits, no identified temporary housing, and no explanation of what would happen if the work took longer.