The Landlord's Game of Control

“Mr. Henderson' s smile, wide and greasy, never reached his eyes. "What is it now, Sarah?" he' d asked, after ignoring my pleas for two weeks to fix the heater in my drafty apartment. He dismissed the strange, sweet smell coming from the vents as just an "old building" problem, scoffing that "You women are always worried about something." But the real insult came when my 72-year-old mother, who' d arrived for the holidays, collapsed, pale and confused, her words slurring, from what I suspected was that very smell. "She' s probably faking it to get some attention," Henderson sneered when I banged on his door in a panic, calling for an ambulance. "You' re a single mom, right? Always struggling. Maybe this is some kind of scheme to get a discount on your rent. A sick old mother, a dangerous apartment. It' s a classic." His cruelty hit me like a physical blow, leaving me reeling and powerless as paramedics wheeled my barely conscious mother from our apartment, declaring the CO levels "off the charts" and the place a "death trap." My mother was fighting for her life in the ICU, while Henderson was on the phone, his voice warm and accommodating, promising to immediately fix a torn window screen for "my best tenant," Dave. "Are you serious?" I whispered, trembling with fury. "You' re going to fix his window screen right now, but you couldn' t be bothered to fix the heater that almost killed my mother?" His voice dropped, menacing. "That\'s none of your business. Dave is a model tenant. He understands how things work. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him." He hung up, confident in his power over "hysterical women." But as my mother' s doctor grimly told me she was being moved to the ICU, and I recalled every ignored complaint, every dismissal, every woman Henderson had mocked and endangered, the helplessness burned away, replaced by a roaring, determined rage. He thought I was just an emotional woman. He was about to find out just how hysterical I could be.”