My Mother-in-Law Decided to Move Her Relatives Into My Apartment for Free. But “Family” Ended the Moment the Word “Rent” Was Mentioned
“Irochka, give me the keys. Lyudochka and I came straight from the train station. The girl is tired; she needs a shower and to unpack. Tomorrow, kick your tenants out!”
Galina Petrovna floated into our hallway not like a guest, but like a housing inspector who had finally caught a chronic nonpayer. Behind her monumental back, Lyuda shifted from foot to foot — a thirty-eight-year-old “girl” from a district town who had come to conquer the capital. Lyuda held a suitcase the size of a small compact car, and her face wore the expression of a meek little lamb already mentally arranging her violets on my windowsill.
My husband, Sergey, who had been peacefully chewing a sandwich in the kitchen, froze in the doorway. The sandwich in his hand trembled treacherously.
“Good evening, Galina Petrovna,” I said, carefully closing the front door and cutting off their escape route back into the stairwell. “What keys? What are you talking about?”
“The keys to your one-room apartment on Babushkinskaya, what else?” my mother-in-law threw up her hands, outraged by my hopeless lack of understanding. “I told Seryozha last week: Lyudochka came for courses. She’s going to do nails, shape eyebrows. Our own flesh and blood can’t be crammed into some dormitory! And you have strangers living there. Throw them out. We’ll stay with you for a couple of days, and on the weekend Lyuda will move in.”
I shifted my gaze to my husband. Seryozha tried to merge with the wallpaper, but his treacherous checkered house shirt gave him away completely. He was not a traitor or a weakling; he had simply spent forty-five years of his life getting used to the fact that his mother generated ideas faster than he could build defensive fortifications.
“Mom, that’s not exactly what we agreed on…” he began uncertainly, shifting from one foot to the other. “I said Ira would think about it. And anyway, there are tenants there. The contract is signed for a year…”
“Oh, what contracts can there be between family!” Galina Petrovna waved him off majestically, throwing her raincoat into my arms. “Irochka, you’re not greedy. You rent it out to strangers, but you feel sorry for your own people? Lyudochka is a neat girl. She only needs to stay there for half a year until she builds up her client base.”
I mentally applauded. The seizure of someone else’s territory had been carried out with the grace of a tank division. The apartment on Babushkinskaya was my premarital inheritance from my grandmother. The money from it did not sit idle: it paid for our annual vacation, covered gaps in ongoing repairs, and served as the very financial cushion that lets you sleep peacefully through any economic storm. And I had no intention of handing over that asset to become a manicure salon for a distant relative.
“Galina Petrovna,” I smiled the politest smile of a clinic administrator explaining to a patient that there are no cardiologist appointments available and none are expected before the Second Coming. “People live there. A decent married couple. They paid a deposit and a month’s rent in advance.”
At that moment, our “meek little lamb” joined the conversation.
“Irochka, you’re a smart woman, think of something,” Lyuda cooed, adjusting a cheap copy of a designer scarf. “I’ll keep your apartment in perfect order. I have light energy. Real estate even becomes more expensive after me! I’ll make it cozy there, hang up my own curtains, cleanse the aura from those strangers. Consider it a favor. And besides, the apartment is just sitting there anyway, it doesn’t ask for food!”
“Lyudmila,” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling a cheerful, icy sarcasm begin to boil inside me. “You are mistaken. Unfortunately, an aura does not cover flooded downstairs neighbors or broken household appliances. And real estate does ask for food — very much so. Have you heard of depreciation of residential property? Any person, even one with the ‘lightest energy,’ physically wears down a living space. The service life of a washing machine is about a thousand cycles. A kitchen faucet is designed for fifty thousand handle turns. The refrigerator, the mattress, the hinges on cabinet doors — all of these have a lifespan that shortens with every passing day. When I rent out an apartment for money, I include that wear and tear in the price. But if I let you live there for free, I would have to pay out of my own pocket for your thousands of laundry cycles and the wear on my laminate flooring.”
Lyuda blinked her painted eyelashes, trying to digest the information. My mother-in-law turned crimson, outraged that her grand plan was being shattered by some household arithmetic.
“You heartless shopkeeper!” Galina Petrovna shrieked, theatrically clutching her chest somewhere near her collar. “You have a cash register instead of a soul! You’re counting washing machine cycles for relatives?! Miser! You want to profit off your own blood!”
My mother-in-law swelled up and reddened like an overheated boiler whose safety valve had blown.
Such a silence hung in the hallway that we could hear the upstairs neighbors’ television. Watching people willingly climb into the trap of their own audacity was my secret hobby.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Galina Petrovna went on the offensive, realizing that pressure through pity had not worked. “I’ve already decided everything. I even called Aunt Masha in the village and made her happy by saying Lyuda had been settled. She will live there. It’s Seryozha’s apartment too; you’re married!”
“Mom, actually, no. Legally, that’s not how it works,” my husband said quietly but firmly, finally putting his half-eaten sandwich down on the little cabinet. “It’s Irina’s personal property. I have nothing to do with it.”
“Be quiet, henpecked fool!” his mother snapped, destroying her son with a look. “Ira, don’t disgrace the family. People won’t understand. We’re family!”
“You know, Galina Petrovna, you are absolutely right,” I nodded softly, looking her straight in the eyes. “Family is sacred. Family should be helped.”
My mother-in-law gave her son a victorious look, as if to say: learn how to talk to women; I finally pushed her through. Lyuda squeaked happily and reached for the handle of her enormous suitcase.
“So, Lyudochka,” I continued, taking a work notebook and pen from the cabinet, “as family, I will rent the apartment to you on special terms. I won’t even take a deposit for the last month. Just payment for the first month and a small insurance amount in case of property damage.”
Lyuda jerked her hand away from the suitcase as if the handle had suddenly become white-hot.
“What do you mean… rent?” she muttered, losing all her metropolitan polish. “You said we were family…”
“Exactly that,” I opened the notebook, radiating businesslike hospitality with my entire being. “Let’s have a little educational session. According to Article 671 of the Civil Code, residential premises are provided for a fee under a rental agreement. The market value of my one-room apartment in that area is forty-five thousand rubles plus utilities by meter. But for you, I am ready to make a huge family discount. Forty-three thousand. And an official contract, so everything is crystal clear. As a law-abiding citizen, I pay taxes as a self-employed person. You’ll need temporary registration to get a job in a salon, won’t you? We’ll arrange it without any problem!”
Ugly red blotches spread across Galina Petrovna’s face. Her confidence in her own righteousness was replaced by the burning resentment of a person whose free pie had been snatched from right under her nose.
“Are you out of your mind?!” she hissed, forgetting about her supposedly weak heart. “Charging family money?! How does your tongue even dare name such amounts?”
“Why does that surprise you?” I raised my eyebrows sincerely. “You were shouting a minute ago that we’re family. And in a normal family, adults respect other people’s property and other people’s labor. I work as an administrator from eight in the morning, Seryozha spends days and nights over drawings. We are not a charity fund and not a shelter. If Lyuda needed urgent surgery or help in real trouble, we would give our last. But moving to Moscow to file nails is a business project. And in business, everyone pays for themselves.”
“For that kind of money, we’d rather rent from strangers!” Lyuda lifted her chin proudly. Her voice rang with steel; not a trace remained of the image of a modest provincial girl. “At least there the landlords won’t eat our brains with their depreciation and legal codes! What a benefactor you turned out to be!”
“Brilliant idea!” I happily snapped the notebook shut. “Especially since prices are rising seasonally right now. I suggest you hurry with your search. Look for something closer to the metro to save on transportation, because transport in Moscow is expensive.”
My mother-in-law began breathing heavily. She had finally realized that her beautiful plan — in which she played the role of a generous noble patroness at her daughter-in-law’s expense — had collapsed irreversibly. No control, no benefit.
“My foot will never again step into this greedy house!” Galina Petrovna proclaimed tragically, snatching her raincoat from my hands. “Seryozha, my son, if you stay with this mercenary… snake, you are no longer my son!”
Sergey sighed calmly, walked over to the open door, and said evenly:
“Mom, enough with the performances. Ira is absolutely right. If you want to help Lyuda conquer the capital, move her in with you. You have a gorgeous three-room apartment. And two rooms are empty. That’s where Lyuda can spread her energy.”
It was the perfect checkmate. Let a stranger into her sacred apartment, where starched lace doilies lay on every dresser and the TV remote was still kept in its original cellophane wrapper? My mother-in-law would sooner agree to host a whole gypsy camp.
“I have high blood pressure! At my age, I need peace, not the smell of acetone!” Galina Petrovna barked, swiftly pushing her stunned niece and her enormous suitcase out onto the landing.
The door slammed so hard that the keys on the hallway cabinet jingled. The conflict was over, and justice had arrived quietly but finally.
“Well then,” I turned to my husband with a smile. “And you were worried there would be a scandal. Turns out legendary family ties end exactly at the moment when the word ‘rent’ is heard for the first time.”
Sergey wrapped an arm around my shoulders, exhaled with relief, and narrowed his eyes slyly.
“Listen, were you serious about the kitchen faucet? Fifty thousand turns?”
“Absolutely,” I laughed, heading to the kitchen to finish my tea. “Everything in this world has its specific price. And peace in your own home has the highest one.”