legends · 5 min read ·
Vacancy
A new tenant is told the upstairs flat is empty, and the lease is amended to include its occupant.
**Residential Tenancy Agreement — 9 Ashby Court, Flat 3**
**Landlord:** Carlisle Estates Ltd · **Tenant:** Noor Haddad · **Term:** 12 months from 1 November
*Clause 14. The tenant shall keep the flat in good repair and shall report any defect within 48 hours. The tenant shall not make alterations without written consent. The tenant shall not allow any person not named in this agreement to reside at the premises.*
*Clause 15. The landlord's representative may enter the premises on reasonable notice, and at all times in an emergency.*
· · ·
Noor had been looking for a flat for four months. Everything in her price range was above a shop or beside a motorway, and the one in Ashby Court had come up at the last minute, through an agent who did not give her a surname and did not ask for a reference. The flat had a bay window, a narrow kitchen, and a bathroom with a cracked mirror that the agent said would be replaced.
The lease was signed in the empty front room, on a folding table, with a biro that had been chewed flat.
The key was on a loop of string taped to the inside of the letterbox.
On her first night she heard someone in the flat above her walking very slowly across the floor. Each step was deliberate, heel and then toe, the way you'd cross a room in a dark house after you had been told where the furniture was. The steps stopped above the bay window. A chair scraped. Then nothing.
She went up the stairs to the landing and knocked on the door of Flat 4. There was no answer. The door was hung on hinges that had been painted shut, and the knob was cold.
Through the letterbox she could see a strip of hall carpet and the leg of a table.
· · ·
**Inspection report — 9 Ashby Court, Flat 3 (Carlisle Estates, 4 November)**
*Inspector: M. Dell.*
Front room: window sash painted shut. Bay window locked from inside. Light fitting working. Floor boards level.
Kitchen: cooker functional. Cupboard door at left of sink does not close. Fridge empty, switched off at the wall.
Bathroom: mirror cracked diagonally from upper left to lower right. Replacement ordered. Extractor fan off.
Bedroom: wardrobe door open, empty. Bed made, with clean sheets and two pillows. Second pillow has no visible dent.
*Note: Tenant has moved a chair from the front room to the bedroom. Tenant states she did not. Inspector observes the chair is facing the bed. Chair is warm.*
*Note: The flat above (Flat 4) is listed as vacant. The inspector has been unable to gain access. The electricity meter reads normal use. The water meter reads normal use for two people.*
· · ·
Noor did not sleep well. The walking above her went on for most of the night, slow and deliberate, and sometimes it came down the stairs and stopped on the landing outside her door. She could hear it breathing. It was a patient breath. It matched hers when she held her own still.
She began to leave the lights on. She began to keep the chair under the handle of the bedroom door. Each morning the chair was back in the bedroom, facing the bed, and the door was unlocked.
She rang the landlord. The phone was answered by a recorded voice, calm and female.
*Thank you for calling Carlisle Estates. Please remember that all tenants at Ashby Court must reside in the premises in full. We cannot accept partial occupancy. If you have a concern about a neighbour, please note the flat number and the time.*
She noted it. Flat 4, 02:30.
· · ·
**Letter from Carlisle Estates to tenant (received 18 November)**
*Dear Ms. Haddad,*
*Thank you for reporting your concern. We have now inspected Flat 4 with the owner's permission. Flat 4 is vacant and has been since 2011.*
*Please note that Clause 14 of your tenancy agreement requires all persons residing at the premises to be named. We have checked your records and find only one name on the lease. We have also checked the second pillow in the bedroom, which the inspector noted in the report. It bears a small indent in the pattern of the fabric, consistent with a head resting on it for some time.*
*We have amended the lease. Please sign the enclosed addendum.*
*Clause 16. The second occupant of the premises is not a tenant. They are a resident. They have been in residence since 2011, and their rent has been paid in full by the previous tenant's direct debit, which we have been unable to cancel.*
· · ·
Noor signed the addendum on the folding table in the empty front room, with the chewed biro. She didn't read the clause at the bottom until afterwards.
Then she went upstairs to Flat 4 and found the door open.
The hallway was carpeted, and the carpet was worn in a single line from the front door to the bedroom, where the bed was made up, the sheet turned down. There was a chair by the window, facing the bed, and in it sat a woman in a long grey cardigan with her hands folded in her lap.
The woman looked up, pleasantly, as if Noor had come to collect a parcel.
"You're late," she said. "I've been keeping the bed warm."
Noor heard the walking above her again, heel and then toe, coming down the stairs toward the landing. The steps stopped outside the door of Flat 3. The chair under the handle scraped slowly, and was lifted, and set down, very gently, as if someone were making room.
"It's all right," said the woman in the cardigan. "You'll learn the routine. The flat takes care of you as long as you do what the lease says."
The bedroom light went out. Through the wall, Noor heard her own key turn in the lock of her own door, and a second key, from the other side, answering it.