Garage Tenants

I lease my car-less garage to three tenants, free of charge. I think they’re siblings. Covered mostly in white fur with patches of black all over their bodies, they lounge and luxuriate in my garage twice a day: early morning before it gets too hot, and late afternoon.

In exchange, I always remind them to watch over the apartment and keep the pesky mice coming from the nearby warehouse, at bay.

I’m talking about my feline friends. Manang Mimi, my landlady’s toothless housekeeper next door, feeds them. Consequently, they’re also getting fatter each day and thus spend the entire day sleeping.

From my window, I once saw one cat perform the Heimlich maneuver on another, feline version of course, as the latter tried to cough up fur balls created from all that licking.

I don’t give them food, because I want them to rely on their hunting instincts to survive. This would help eradicate the annoying mice infestation in our neighborhood originating from a warehouse owned by our chubby Chinese neighbor.

They have marked my garage area as their territory. It’s obvious from the acrid smell of urine. I always tell them to stop making the area where I grow my plants as their litter box, or they’ll lose their privileges. All I get are blank stares.

It’s been working quite nicely the past few months. I haven’t caught a single mouse in my flytraps ever since I forged a deal with my furry tenants. But since Manang is spoiling them and they’re starting to get negligent with their duties, I might sue them for breach of contract one of these days.