Electra & AML: Spring update-residence

(See all posts related to Electra's ongoing treatment)

As Kevin Smith would say, I'm not going to bury the lead here: Electra was kicked out of her house for having cancer. I'll just pause a second and let that sink in.

There is some more to the story of course, though not as much as one might hope to have it make any kind of sense. For the last year and a half or so, Electra has been living in Stourport, in the west Midlands. She was in a three-person house, renting a single room. Since her AML came to light, her parents have been renting one of the other rooms. This was a convenient arrangement, as it allowed her family to stay close to her; at any given point, there would usually be someone (Electra's mother, father or brother, generally) in their room, and I would be in Electra's (as would she when she was out of the hospital).

Then, in early April, Electra's landlord Keith sent her an email saying that he would "have to give notice" on Electra's room. He claimed to be very sorry, but his mortgage terms were changing, and he needed to rent the entire house out (i.e. all three rooms) starting in May in order to make payments. He further asserted that he was having trouble renting the third room (the master bedroom) because of Electra's "condition"; people would hear about the situation, and then back out.

Now, I understand that the house is a business, and Keith needs to protect his investment. That's fair enough. I can also understand why a potential tenant might be a little uneasy about moving into a house with one tenant who's rarely there, whose boyfriend is around half the time (and working from home all day during that time) and whose parents were sporadically there. But, there are a couple problems with this. First, Electra never told Keith she was OK with his divulging of her very personal medical info. Secondly, considered objectively, there were two rooms that were rented and for the majority of the time, two people there; sometimes myself and her mother, sometimes Electra and her father, etc. But both rooms were paid for fully and both were occupied.

In any event, what's strange is that Keith's claim that he'd ben unable to rent the third room out rather falls apart when it's revealed that the other tenant was informed that someone would move into that selfsame room on May 1st. The tenant was informed of this BEFORE Electra was asked to vacate. So it seems it wasn't that hard after all!

Finally, while I understand that such a decision has to be looked at from a business standpoint, asking someone to move out during the brief window between rounds of chemotherapy is-at best-cold or-at worst-downright heartless. Had Keith come to explain the situation and seek a resolution towards it, no harm would've been done. Instead, he simply stated that he'd have to give notice, but was really sorry. I'm not sure why he was so keen to empty the house by the end of April (the other housemate was also asked to vacate, though that had been planned for sometime and it was merely the date that was set as such). It really seems suspicious to me that he was pushing everyone out all at once.

I feel it necessary to point out, as well, that Electra paid her rent every month, promptly. She kept the house clean, didn't smoke (the only housemate who actually adhered to that rule!) and was basically an ideal tenant in every way. So there's no history of problems to justify such a drastic action. I should also point out that it's definitely illegal to kick someone out for having cancer, and certainly to do so without sufficient notice (though no move-out date was dictated, and end-of-the-month timeframe was certainly alluded to). I haven't decided exactly how i'm planning to respond yet, but I have a range of ideas from "ignore it" to "polite but diffident" to "ruinous". I'll update once we decide.

The upshot of this is that Electra has now moved to Birmingham. She's looked at a place fairly close to the city centre and had planned to buy it anyway, for a number of reasons. But now, instead of having a place in Stourport where she could stay until move-in date (her flat is still under construction), she was forced to move in the midst of her treatment. Luckily, her parents were able to rent a flat in the same development as her new place, but asking someone to do this during the most stressful time of their life is just wrong.

So, yeah. We're in Birmingham now. It's better in many ways-a more interesting city, close to the city centre, more accessible to the hospital, easier for me to come visit, easier for her family to fly into, etc. Birmingham is-in basically every way-a better choice. I just wish that it had been a choice, rather than being foisted upon us by someone else without the decency and compassion to allow a basic amount of leeway for extenuating circumstances.