reporter/photographer: Miguel Dominguez
On the week of September 15, 2014, Mark Schulte, an acquaintance I befriended since 2011, but whose private life I knew nothing about, sent a mass email saying he needed a new place to move to. As bad luck would have it, a former roommate I had, just moved out the day before, and having a room to rent, I asked him to come look at it if he wanted to move in.
On the 3rd week of October, 2014, Mark finally called me for an appointment to come look at the room. When I asked him what took him so long, he told me he had been in Intensive Care for 5 days at the hospital because he fainted in the street with pneumonia. He claimed that on his way to the hospital all is property, including all his clothing and documents, were stolen, and he was completely destitute. Furthermore, his landlord had locked him out of the apt. because the was a subtenant in it while the prime tenant had moved away to Europe, and the landlord would not let him come into the apt. to pick up his belongings. I felt very sorry for him, so I offered to let him stay in my apt. as a guest until he could get his bearings together and eventually become my roommate once he was able to get his finances in order. He accepted, with the promise he would pay his share of the rent before the month of December would be over.
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| Black out drunk Mark Schulte in one of his freeloading, public binges at the Leslie Lohman Museum |
On the 3rd week of October, 2014, Mark finally called me for an appointment to come look at the room. When I asked him what took him so long, he told me he had been in Intensive Care for 5 days at the hospital because he fainted in the street with pneumonia. He claimed that on his way to the hospital all is property, including all his clothing and documents, were stolen, and he was completely destitute. Furthermore, his landlord had locked him out of the apt. because the was a subtenant in it while the prime tenant had moved away to Europe, and the landlord would not let him come into the apt. to pick up his belongings. I felt very sorry for him, so I offered to let him stay in my apt. as a guest until he could get his bearings together and eventually become my roommate once he was able to get his finances in order. He accepted, with the promise he would pay his share of the rent before the month of December would be over.
By mid month of December, 2014, I started asking Mark Schulte on a daily basis to pay his portion of the rent and he pleaded for me to wait till after new year's because of the Christmas rush to be over at the bank. Not realizing that the same housing laws apply to licensees as they do to paying sub-tenants, I let him stay at my apt. for more than 30 days, which did not allow me to throw him out unless I resorted to court litigation.
