The Tenants' Board (Part 2)
Twenty-two people came, and nine of them brought chairs.
They filled the lobby between the mailboxes and the front door, in coats, holding cups of tea mostly because the tea was warm and there was nothing else to hold. Renata had planned to speak for two minutes. She got through one.
“So we've all called him,” she said. Separately. For nine days. What if we asked once, together, with all our names on it?
After that she mostly listened.
Nina from 2A wanted a real board, elected that night, with a leader who could sign things. She wanted a lawyer, and she wanted everybody to stop paying rent until the heat came back on. “He isn't ignoring us because he's busy,” she said. “He's ignoring us because it's free to ignore us.”
Dov from 1C didn't like any of it. He'd seen a tenants' group in his last building, and the two loudest people in it had found their leases not renewed in June. “We can be firm without going to war,” he said. “One letter, from all of us. Polite. Not a board. Boards make people angry.”
“Being polite is what got us nine days of voicemail,” Nina said.
“And being loud is what gets you a new apartment in a worse neighborhood.”
Aiko from 3B spoke last, which Renata later decided was on purpose. She was an accountant, and she asked one question: did anybody actually know how cold the apartments were? Not “freezing.” A number. Because a number was the one thing he couldn't argue with, and right now they didn't have a single one.
Nobody in the lobby had one.
They voted at ten past eight: eighteen for the board, three against. Renata was elected leader, mostly because she had printed the flyers, which is how most people end up leading anything.
Dov didn't vote. He put his chair under his arm and walked to the stairs, and at the bottom step he turned around.
“If you're really going to do this,” he said, “get numbers. Otherwise he'll stand in this lobby and tell you it feels fine to him.”