Don't Make Me Call your Mother!

I rented to two college students from the city.  They were inseparable friends growing up in a bad part of Brooklyn, and both got sports scholarships to the local community college.  Shortly after they moved in, we noticed a lot of traffic in and out the rear door, and the usual drug appertunances:  a pit bull, multiple visitors who stayed only a few minutes, etc.  By this time I knew what to do:  I called their mothers. 

Well, two very respectable women came thundering into town, and those boys made themselves scarce.  The apartment was strewn with garbage, used condoms, and mattresses.  One mother said if she’d seen the condition of the apartment sooner, she would’ve recognized trouble, because they didn’t live like this at home.  I wouldn't have been surprised to see those kids being pulled by their ears all the way from Hudson back to Brooklyn.  The women made arrangements to pack the boys up, and that would’ve been the end of it. 

But in the couple of days they were waiting for the movers, I realized the boys had left the dog in the apartment, and, although they were still around town in various drug houses, they hadn't been back to our building.  I had no idea if the animal had food or water, or where it was going to the bathroom, so I called the police.  With the police in tow, I unlocked the apartment, and while I was tending the dog, there, in plain sight on the coffee table, were baggies filled with crack.  So the actual eviction was quicker than I expected, since both boys were arrested for drug possession and immediately had other housing.  As for me, I never rented to students again. 

P.S.  During this messy in-between time, I managed to ask one of the boys how they were able to stay out of trouble growing up in such a bad neighborhood, and then get in so much trouble in a rinky-dink town like Hudson.  He shrugged his shoulders.

P.P.S.  At the end of every school year the local paper prints all the names of the graduates.  A few years later I was happy to see that one of the boys had his name on the list of CGCC graduates.