In the 30 years I have lived in Austin, I’ve been in 14 different places led by questionable landlords.

Being a landlord in Austin doesn’t sound like a great job. I would never want to be a landlord here. Most of my landlords have been real characters capable of miracles, benevolence, cruelty, and downright crazy behavior.

I found a garage apartment for rent in the Hyde Park neighborhood. I called and made an appointment with a bored sounding guy, then drove over to see the place.

Mr. Bored was sitting on an old, beat-up faux leather couch in a garage converted into an apartment.

He stuffed chips into his mouth as he spoke and seemed uninterested in me as a tenant.

At this point, I was desperate for a place to live during the COVID era, and I was trying to secure an agreeable lease from this guy. As I started to leave, Mr. Bored’s wife made an entrance, and the energy in the room went from depressive to manic. She had bleach white hair in an updo wearing thick turquoise glasses. 

Mrs. Landlord demanded a Venmo her the first month's rent and deposit immediately and against my better judgement I did just that.

As the Venmo "cha ching" went off on her beat up cell phone and she gave Mr. Bored a wink and suddenly I had two new landlords.

No lease meant I didn’t have to tell them about Tyson.

My best friend in the entire world was a mini Sebastopol goose.

When they confronted me about Tyson I acted like I had no idea what they were talking about and added a $400 "Goose Deposit" that I never got back.

The garage apartment was lightly cleaned, with a slight smell of Fabulso cleaner. 

That night after work at the photo lab I worked at, I started to clean. There's something hopeful about moving into a new place. A sense of new things to come, new adventures, and new memories.

While putting T-shirts up on a high shelf, I felt something up there that I couldn't see; it felt like an envelope you get from a cash withdrawal at a bank.

I joked to myself that it was filled with cash. As I brought my hand down from the shelf, I indeed saw a bank envelope stuffed with $5,000 in large bills.

I was amazed at my luck but concerned about where the cash came from. I looked at the pile of bills on my dingy coffee table and thought about who might have lived here before me. A drug dealer? Or maybe a thief or organized crime.

Then I thought it was some kind of integrity test from the landlords! That had to be it!

I knocked on the landlord’s door while holding the envelope. They opened the door and asked me to come inside, hoping I passed their test.

They both looked at me as if I were completely insane while I described finding the money.

"Half that money is ours! You found it on our property!” 

This was not an integrity test, just my bad decision to tell them I found the money.

Over the next several days I watched them bring home carloads of takeout dinners, scratch-offs littered their car dashboard and a new top of the line phone. 

I never did find out where that money came from, but my landlords never seemed to care.