Chapter 130

In the beginning of 2023, things were going great. The fiance and I had found a balance between life and work and were doing quite well. We spent our work days just going about our jobs and nights rock climbing. The fiance found every occasion to wear her ring to show off and that was just fine with me…as long as she doesn’t lose it… I love seeing her happy, it’s just nice to have a partner in a good mood. 

As for my hobbies, they were thriving on the weekends. Or at least thriving in the sense that I was proud of. In a nice work life balance with my job, I had time for a bit of everything. I would do a bit of 3D printing then document my journey and update my social media. Though my Youtube and Instagram accounts never went viral or anything, I was proud of my creations and for the very few followers I had, they seemed to enjoy it too.

Apart from the online presence there, I would also attend a weekly breakdancing session here and there where I would work on things I wanted to work on. I was happy with all of this. Instead of cramming for the next exam and being frustrated with how much I had to study, I would now be frustrated with a difficult rock climbing problem or figuring out how to do an air flare (a difficult breakdancing move). These were frustrations I welcomed. 

There were frustrations I didn’t welcome at this time too. These resided on my mom’s side of things. She had a bit of a run in with a tenant at the condo we weren’t living in. Before we get to that though, let’s do a recap. My mom owned 3 properties. They were the following:

Property 1: “Small Condo”

• This was called the Bayview condo a few chapters ago. It was a small bachelor pad of sorts with a living room that was attached to a kitchen, a den and a bedroom. It had one shower and bath. It was good for living with an occupancy of 1 person and we rented this one out. 

Property 2: “Large Condo”

• This was the big condo I was living in with my fiance. It was much larger and we had cleaned it up since the previous tenants’ occupancy to a very liveable condition. It was at the intersection of Yonge and Finch and the location meant we could easily access the subway line. The suite was 1 master bedroom with an ensuite, 2 smaller non-ensuite rooms, a washroom with a bath and a fairly large living room equipped with a kitchen. 

Property 3: “House”

• This was the one my mom was living in. This was a semi-detached house near Bathurst and Steeles. It has a nice garden in the front and was a nice living space in general. There was 1 garage and a large basement. The top floor had 4 rooms and 1 washroom and overall, it was just a cute little property you can see yourself retiring in. Oh and the backyard was a nice place too with lots of space to grow vegetables and some small fruiting trees. My mom loved doing all the gardening and proudly showed off all the bounty of the place often.

All of these properties had mortgages but they were all manageable. Between the payout from my grandma’s accident and the selling of my grandma’s house in China, my mom was able to pay off most of the debt. She had a nest egg and even then, she was still working just because she loved teaching. A great situation to be in. 

When COVID hit and the housing market and rental market dropped, we were able to rent out the Small Condo at a lower price without having to worry too much about the finances. But finances were not the only consideration with regards to being a landlord. There were also considerations for who you’re renting to. And here, we are going to get a bit racial. 

My mom rented the property to a middle aged black male who was a teacher at TDSB (Toronto District School Board). He was the first to respond to an ad my mom posted and hang on a minute… Why am I mentioning race here? Well… This is because my mom had a history of being robbed by a black male back when we lived in Scarborough. Black on Asian crime is a real thing (even in Canada) and it, being a trend, and my mom having been a victim to it, meant that when she decided on the renter for our small condo, she did a little bit of negative connotation going into the whole thing.

While my mom could have just burned through money to just keep looking for other tenants, it was still money lost during COVID and a risk. With this in mind, my mom eventually decided she would give the benefit of the doubt and sign a contract with said TDSB teacher just to not lose money to the mortgage. This is all just to say, the relationship started off on a rocky bit. I wish I could tell you our tenant was amazing and persuaded my mom to believe in diversity again…however…

Throughout the year, though the tenant did pay the rent on time, he did everything else possible to piss off the entire building and the residents nearby. The security officer and front desk staff of the building contacted my mom countless times on complaints. The highlight of all of this was when the security of the building caught our tenant on camera stealing magazines of other tenants. 

Even when security wasn’t involved, he was still in trouble. One time he threw away the fridge that we had in the suite because it was “too loud”. This he did even after my mom sent over a handyman to check it out and confirmed that it was working fine. We thankfully got the fridge back in time before the garbage men took care of it all but this was a level of poor tenancy etiquette we didn’t think anyone was capable of. 

When we confronted our tenant about the fridge, he said that he didn’t know that he, as a renter, wasn’t allowed to throw out the fridge that came with the unit. When we confronted him about the magazines, he told us that his neighbours were just being racist towards him. When we told him we have him on camera doing this, he still dodged responsibility by saying that he thought the magazines were for everyone.

The only way this could have played out was with an eviction notice and after we issued one, thankfully he was at least compliant to that. Honestly, after having gotten rid of him, all I can say is good riddance and I hope he gets fired from TDSB. His existence in their systems shames the wonderful music teachers and science teachers I had experienced in high school. 

Towards the end of the tenant’s stay, and in the worst fit of rage I’ve seen in a while, my mom called him the worst thing she could think of at the moment. I expected a racial slur but instead, my mom called him a “filthy liberal”. Yup. That’s right. It was around this time when I realized that my mom was much more political than I initially thought. 

I didn’t think my mom’s political compass was so strongly tuned (or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it before). Calling someone a liberal doesn’t seem like such an insult and honestly, it wasn’t. Liberal? This was political banter. But the fact that my mom chose to go into politics when insulting someone? Now that’s something to think about. 

With the tenant situation behind us, I tried avoiding the subject of politics altogether because in my eyes, I knew that this would be an unyielding point of conflict with mom. Unfortunately though, at this point in time, politics was not only popular but super sensational. 

My mom was super deep into all of it and because of this, it seems it was only a matter of time before we’d have to talk about it. Sure enough, when our conversations finally steered towards it, it would prove to pretty much ruin any progress I’ve made towards mending our relationship.

I always believed that as long as I vote, that’s my duty done. There is a reason why we fill out our ballot forms behind curtains and do it anonymously. It’s exactly so that if we don’t want to share our feelings on politics, we don’t have to. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean we have to share everything and personally, I don’t like talking about politics with people. 

My mom wanted to talk about it though. So, in her endeavor to talk politics with me, she dragged me into her morality war with the political climate. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but this would prove to be the seedling that would ruin our family.