In 1971, I moved into a basement apartment in Chicago with my then-husband, who was a medical student. The floors were covered with ugly carpeting installed by the previous tenants, and they told us that if we wanted the rug to stay, we had to pay them. I was appalled. “You mean you’re going to remove the carpeting if we don’t pay you?”
That’s exactly what they meant. It would be completely worthless, but they would pull it up, nail by nail, and take it to the dumpster rather than allow the new tenants to enjoy for free what they had paid for. This is when the stubborn, hot-headed New Yorker in me kicked in. “Well, I guess you better get going,” I said, “because we don’t want it.”
The truth is, we did sort of want it, but it was a matter of principle. (Don’t ask me which principle; I don’t know.) It just seemed cheap and mean-spirited of them, and it pissed me off. They were moving up in the world, leaving this dreary place behind, and rather than doing so with goodwill toward the victims next in line, they intended to extract some petty cash. And I do mean petty. I stood my ground. Or rather, my bare floor.