Chapter Forty-Seven: Trash

“Didn’t the people upstairs just move in recently? I haven’t heard you or Dad mention this before!” Ning Shuyi was a little puzzled. “And what kind of work do they do? Are they home all day making noise, never going to work?”

“Don’t even start! This time renting out the apartment has been such a headache.” Ning’s mother lowered her voice a bit. “I never bring it up in front of your father. He agreed to let the tenants move in, so I don’t say much more, afraid it’ll weigh on him.”

“At first, three young men signed the contract with your dad. They said they were colleagues at the same company, renting together for convenience. Your dad saw they were young and seemed reliable, so he agreed.”

“It was fine for the first couple of weeks after they moved in, but soon enough, they started inviting friends over every few days. With your dad and me at home during the day, it sounded like horse-drawn carriages thundering overhead! Whenever we went upstairs to knock and ask them to keep it down, their attitude was polite and they promised to quiet down, but as soon as we left, it was back to the same racket within a minute!”

“Didn’t Dad check the tenants’ backgrounds before renting to them?” Ning Shuyi was confused. Her father had always been cautious when choosing tenants and never had any trouble. “What do these people do for work anyway? Are they nocturnal?”

“Don’t mention it, this time nothing went smoothly from the very start!” Ning’s mother sighed, quietly complaining to her daughter. “I don’t know what happened. Our apartment’s location and rent are perfectly reasonable, and it always rented out easily before.”

“This time, when the previous tenants’ lease expired and they moved to another city, we posted rental ads early in the neighborhood’s community bulletin. But not a single call came in. When we went to check, guess what?”

“Someone covered up your ad?” Ning Shuyi made the most reasonable guess.

Ning’s mother spread her hands. “Exactly! Who knows who was so malicious, covering our rental ads with paper or scraping off the phone numbers. How could anyone find us to rent the apartment? Your dad said it must be the local agents up to no good. Last time we rented, he tried posting ads online like everyone else, but got calls all day, all from agents insisting on representing us. Your dad refused them all.”

“Mrs. Chen from Building Twenty trusted an agent to rent her place. They said it was for a family, convincing her to agree, but behind her back, the agent turned her apartment into a subdivided group rental with partitions everywhere!”

“So your dad and I always preferred to post ads ourselves, waiting for someone to see it at the bulletin board—it’s more trouble, but safer. Who would have thought someone targeted us like this? It’s infuriating!”

Compared to her mother’s outrage, Ning Shuyi was much calmer. She thought for a moment and asked, “What about the other rental ads on the bulletin board? Were they all covered up too?”

“No! Isn’t that maddening?” Ning’s mother was even more exasperated. “Everyone else’s ads are untouched, only ours are covered up! And whenever we repost, it’s covered up again almost immediately!”

“If not for that, those three young men wouldn’t have called to see the apartment. They liked the place, and your dad, seeing how polite and respectful they were, didn’t ask too many questions and rented it to them.”

“But after they moved in, things changed, right?” Ning Shuyi mused. “Aside from the noise, are there any other issues?”

“Oh, don’t get me started. Your dad is furious.” Ning’s mother sighed. “Yesterday he went up to help them fix the circuit breaker and was shocked by the mess—dirty everywhere, trash all over the floor, empty food containers, drink bottles, cigarette butts everywhere! Supposedly three young men living there, but that place is packed with appliances. No idea why they have so many electrical devices. Maybe they’re using them all at once and burned out the circuit breaker.”

“Last week they broke the faucet, flooding the apartment. Your dad had to fix that too. Luckily, we live downstairs and caught it early—otherwise, who knows what disaster it would have caused!”

Ning Shuyi frowned. “Didn’t you remind them to be careful with electricity and keep the place clean?”

“Of course we did! Your dad told them after fixing the circuit breaker that they shouldn’t treat the apartment like that and ought to take care of someone else’s property. The young men laughed it off, not rude at all, but clearly didn’t take it seriously.”

“Your dad spent half the night brooding, regretting that he rushed into renting because our ad was covered up and didn’t investigate properly.”

“These things, if someone wants to put on a show in front of you, there’s not much you can do! Even if you dig deeper, how much can you really find out—are you going to conduct a background check?” Ning Shuyi comforted her mother. “So you and Dad shouldn’t let this upset you! It’s just rented, not sold—the initiative is still in your hands. How long is the lease? If they keep violating the rental agreement and disturbing the neighbors, I can go talk to them. We have the right to terminate the contract early and ask them to leave!”

Ning’s mother hurriedly waved her hands. “Don’t go! Even if you are a police officer, you’re not tall, and you’re a girl. Do you think those rough types would listen to you?”

“I can’t intimidate them myself, but we have plenty of people on the team who could.”

“That won’t do! We can’t trouble your colleagues with this. Besides, you shouldn’t use your job to scare people after work—this is a matter between ordinary folks.” Ning’s mother, not wanting her daughter to worry, after venting, turned to comfort Ning Shuyi. “Anyway, they only paid three months’ rent and more than a month has passed. Your dad told them yesterday that when the lease is up, we’ll take the apartment back and won’t renew. We’ll just put up with it for another month or so, and then we’ll have peace again!”

“You took a deposit from them, right?” Ning Shuyi asked.

“Of course, your dad and I know what we’re doing!” Ning’s mother nodded immediately.