Those Funny People That I Met (Pt. 2)

I have been renting a room ever since start my independent working life. Well, have to adapt to it as I chose this path. A shift from living worry-free at home to sharing common space with total strangers and even landlords with attitudes. Besides alert, still need to be cautious all the time. Need to lock the room, lock my luggage, lock the drawer where I keep valuable stuff or document, close the windows, and most of the house chores I have to do on my own now. Once laundry is dry, need to remove them from hanger on the day itself; common drinking water tumbler needs to refill with boiled water once it is empty; tidy up your belongings especially at the common area like kitchen, living room, bathroom, and dining area.

Huh… Sounds like super stressful. Well, I went through all of it as if I have no choice but to do it kind of mindset. All these ‘regulations’ have trained me to be super cautious, think through every single thing 360 degrees and be considerate with others.

Some landlords are just… too much! I remember once, when I went to view the room for rent. The old lady shows me the room and then sit down and chat a little with me to know more about my background if she were to let me be her tenant. Well, fine with me, landlord at least needs to know what I do for living to ensure I have the ability to pay the rent. But this auntie, she brought out a small booklet full of her tiny hand-writing; she read out row by row – Those are the RULES she set for all her tenants to follow!

(Oh my gosh, a booklet!?! So long? So many rules? I haven’t even agreed to rent your room yet, auntie!)

“Walk slowly and make sure no noise made when you walk up the stairs.”

“No loud noise when come back from work, no loud music or talking, as I would have already sleep.”

“Not allow to bring friend to this house.” She keeps on reading her rules, one after another…

(Speechless… Am I here to rent a room or being a prisoner? Even a prisoner is allowed to talk, to sing and move around freely with the common area, right?)

“Auntie, let me consider first. Thank you for your time.” I interrupt her halfway. I have to as I don’t know how many more pages those rules she is going to read out. I excuse myself and leave the house immediately. Run for my life! Crazy… With that few minutes interacting with her almost makes me gone crazy.

There was a place that I once rented; the landlord is operating a restaurant few blocks away from the house. She has hired an Indonesian maid to help her with house chores and taking care of her child.

One night, when I went to kitchen to refill my drinking water, I saw the maid busy ironing clothes. Her room is just right next to the kitchen. So her room is rather small; she leaves the door open so that not so stuffy when ironing clothes. I have been seeing her ironing clothes in the evening, maybe that is her daily schedules. A ‘mountain’ of clothes is what I always see, the load that she needs to iron each evening. I didn’t take note much but just having a light conversation like ‘hi’, ‘how are you’, and ‘good night’. Slowly we get more familiar and chat a bit more sometimes, only when landlord is not around. Else, she might scold the maid for not working properly. Well, she is the boss.

“What? You have to iron these?” I ask the maid with a surprise look on my face. I point to the ‘thing’ that she is ironing now. She nods her head.

That is a bra! Do we need to iron bra? Did I miss out something here? My mum didn’t do this, I learnt from her, I also never do this. Should we iron bra? I doubt myself there for a second. The me, at that time have zero knowledge about Self-Love, so very often I doubt myself first and questioning myself if I have done it wrong.

I don’t think so. Will anyone go and iron bra? The maid then shows me another item that she needs to iron – panties. I think she also finds this rather ridiculous that she is tasked to iron them.

(Speechless with my mouth wide open…) Do we iron our underwear? I laugh imagining myself ironing my bra and panties. That image is just hilarious!

“Haha… Do we really need to iron these?” I ask her.

“I don’t know, she wants me to iron all.” She says.

Oh, my gosh… What on earth. I know we need to iron necktie, handkerchief, and sometimes even shawl or scarf but underwear… No wonder her ironing job never finishes early, so many items to iron!

Now, I have more knowledge about bra. So, on second thought, did my landlord get herself an over-sized bra? Over-sized until she needs to iron it to make the fabric looks not crooked? If one has got herself the right cup size and so on, the bra would nicely cup the chest. There won’t be any extra space. The fabric will nicely ‘expand’ and won’t go crooked at all. I have no idea the reason behind ironing bra, until this day… Interesting.

This maid has been tasked to do many things, cleaning not only this house, landlord’s sister’s house and even her restaurant. There’s always this kind of grey area – what a maid should do and what not. But most of the time, maids have no place to voice and stand for themselves. No, maid agent would beat them if they ever rejected and ‘returned’ by their owner. Yupe, you hear me right, maid agent would beat them up for not listening to their owner’s instruction and causing maid agent more headache things to handle. Pity world.

One night, the maid asked me if I could help her buy a bus ticket.

Oh, boy… “Sorry, I don’t think so.” I refuse her. I would not involve myself into such a thing; letting myself being the culprit to help her run away from home or her owner. This is the issue that you should settle with your owner in a proper way or legal way. I know she has her reasons.

Few days passed. Morning when I went down to grab my fruits from kitchen, my landlord told me the maid ran away from home at night.

(Oh… I see, she finally did it.)

“Huh? Serious? She ran away, last night?” I asked my landlord with a shocking expression.

(Of course, how I show her the expression of ‘Serve you right!’ kind of face. Come on…)

When I go get my motorcycle at the front gate, I look to the sky and whisper softly: “Good Luck, Sumi! Don’t get caught by anyone.” Sumi was the name of that young yet hardworking Indonesian maid. I don’t know how she is going to do; her passport is withheld by the landlord.

There is another Chinese family (from China) where I rented a room from them. It is a family with three generations in the house – grandparents, my landlord (husband and wife) and their two daughters. They hired a maid as well, 16 years old Indonesian lady.

Why I say some people are weird, there is a reason to it. What they do is just not normal; I have nobody to define it as right or wrong. There is no right or wrong but just the decision of that person at the particular moment.

The granny is a rather a control freak. When I happen to take a rather long shower, she would switch off the heater power and light from outside. Not only once, but a few times. One day, I lash out to her when I came out from the bathroom. “Why did you switch off the power? I’m still using the bathroom.” I ask the granny who is the only person at the kitchen area. Bathroom is right next to kitchen.

“I don’t know, maybe the maid switched it off.” She never admits but blaming onto the maid instead.

(Yeah, right, no one is awake at this hour, only the you here. I pay my rental on time, alright. Who are you to do this to me? Piss me off.)

What extreme act this granny would do? In the middle of the night, she wakes up. This is pretty normal. Most ageing people can’t fall asleep for long hour but tends to get up at 4am or even earlier. So, this granny wakes up, can’t go back to sleep. Bored. Look at the maid who is sleeping soundlessly on the floor (of living room), she goes and wakes the maid up, asking her to take out all the plates and bowls from the kitchen cabinet to wash and clean them all once again.

How did I know all these? Well, the maid told me when my landlord has all gone out for family gathering. Poor lady… Not even having enough sleep.

And I look at her; she was making something for her lunch. Curious, I asked her: “What are you preparing?”

A plate of white rice with some soup base. “I mix with Milo.” She says. ‘Milo’ is the brand of one of the instant chocolate drinks.

“What? Milo? With rice?” “Just this for your lunch?” I was shocked and few questions in a row I asked her.

“Nothing to eat.” She replies.

“Vege, meat?” I asked further. Landlord and family often has dishes for their meals.

“They ate all. I only have rice.” She says.

Sigh… Oh, my gosh… How heartless can one be? If you can’t afford paying for a meal to your maid, you would better don’t hire a maid then. Shame on you.

Same goes for pets, if you can’t afford to buy them dog or cat food, don’t think of keeping a pet. They are not supposed to eat human’s leftover food.

I can’t say the owner is the one at wrong. Sometimes, the maid also shows attitude. At a hawker center, the middle-aged couple was ordering food for themselves and also their maid. Each of them has a proper meal set served; i. e. a plate of roasted chicken, a plate of white rice, with some cucumber toppings, and a bowl of soup. But this time, it is the maid who refuses to eat the lunch. Her owners were stunt by her reason – ‘It is not halal.’ Oh, great, the chicken rice set was not from Muslim halal stall, therefore she refuses to eat.

What in the world… I shake my head when I overheard their conversation from next table. There is maid with no proper meal, and here the maid refuses to eat well-served meal set.

I put on my headphone and enjoy my lunch, quietly. Leaving all those ‘noise’ aside.

I moved to another place not long after that. That granny is really getting on my nerves. I am going to a place with better or at least new energy around, Ciao~

Based on my experiences and interaction with people thus far, it is better not to expect the other party change; unless they came to their realization and own initiation that they need to do something about themselves. We change ourselves or way of doing things; more efficient that way. No point expecting that granny to refrain her weird behaviours and actions, I choose to move out and stay away from that place, more efficient and happier I feel.