Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1895 — TALES ABOUT TENANTS. [ARTICLE]

TALES ABOUT TENANTS.

Fanny Experiences of Landlords with Those Who Pay Bent. The amusing story which has lately gone the rounds about the lady novelist who, having entered upon the tenancy of a rickety dwelling, asked the landlord of the same that she might be allowed to name it, and then had “JerryBuilt Hut” carved upon the front, has had many parallels of late years. Not very long ago a sarcastic tenant advertised in several newspapers to the following effect: "Wanted, by gentleman who agreed to leave dwelling occupied by him as he found it on entering same, 100,000 lively blaek beetles,” and then followed the advertiser's private address. Not very long ago, too, a case was reported in the papers, in which it appeared that the owner of a flat had given notice to quit to a lady whose tenancy of the flat had only just commenced, and who had, at great expense, had the rooms newly papered and decorated. When this lady received the nolf.ee to quit she and her maid promptly set to work with the blacklead and blacking brushes respectively, and the whilom flower besprinkled walls soon assumed a most funereal hue. Some little time,since a well-known barrister—a lawyer certainly ought to have read the tenancy agreement —on entering upon a house in a fashionable west end row, unwittingly bound himself to paint the whole of the exterior of the dwelling. On finding what an expense he had made himself liable for, he remonstrated with the landlord, who simply smiled and declared that tile bond must be fulfilled. Then did the wily barrister cause the whole front of his house to be painted in stripes of vivid green, yellow and pink, greatly to the chagrin of the fashionable neighbors, who were the tenants of the same landlord. In vain did the landlord storm; the barrister tenant threatened, unless the bond be canceled, to have the back of the house painted like a rainbow, with huge black spots covering at at intervals. Agreement canceled.—Loudon Tid-Bits.