Episode 94 • Apartments
Landlord
Tenant
Be behind on rent
Get evicted
Get locked out
Story
[Knock]
Lucy: Yes?
Mr. Rogers: It’s me! Mr Rogers, your landlord.
[Door opens]
Lucy: Hello, Mr Rogers, how can I help you?
Mr. Rogers: You know why I’m here, Lucy. You can’t ignore it.
Lucy: [Sighs] Listen, Mr Rogers. Can you just give me a couple of extra months?
Mr. Rogers: I’m sorry, Lucy…
Lucy: But- But, come on! Aren’t neighbors supposed to help each other?
Mr. Rogers: I’m your landlord, Lucy. The fact that I live across the hall doesn’t change anything. You are the worst tenant in the building, you‘re always behind on rent. I’m sorry, Lucy, I’ve got no choice.
Lucy: So, what? You’re just going to have me evicted?
Mr. Rogers: As a matter of fact, yes. Yes, I am, Lucy. I’m sorry. But as of right now, you don’t live here anymore. I’ll come by first thing tomorrow to make sure you’ve left. Goodnight.
[Clunking noises]
Lucy: What’s- What’s the matter, Mr Rogers?
Mr. Rogers: I can’t… I think I got locked out.
Lucy: Oh, no… You know, I’d let you stay at my place but… it turns out I don’t live here anymore…Goodnight!
[Door closes]
Questions
Lara: All right. I don’t know if you noticed but that wasn’t actually my voice. For once, I had a man on the podcast.
Martin Johnston: Am I the first man to appear on this podcast then?
Lara: You are, I had another guest but she was a woman.
Martin: Wow, what an honor!
Lara: As I was saying before, Martin also has a podcast. It’s called Rock n’ Roll English. I’ve listened to it. I think it’s great. I think it’s super fun and interesting and honestly a great way to learn new vocabulary. Martin, tell us what is cool about your podcast.
Martin: It’s difficult to talk about that to say ‘My podcast’s so cool. What I think is maybe cool about it is that it’s just everyday conversation basically between friends. Generally everyone on the podcast, the regular guests are like my lifelong friends and we choose a topic and the thing that I enjoy about it is the stories that come out generally embarrassing stories about when we were younger.
I think these embarrassing stories they make, one, the stories more memorable and also the vocabulary, that helps people to remember. That’s why I really like your podcast as well because you do it in stories which keeps it in context, which is something I’m a big fan of instead of like other people online. let’s say, that just say, this is a word, this is the meaning, this is a word, this is the meaning.
Lara: I’ve listened to Martin’s podcast, I think it’s great. Again, learning from real-life conversations is priceless, is what works. Make sure you go check it out and now Martin is going to help me out explain to you these words.
Martin: I’ll do my best.
Landlord
'It’s me! Mr Rogers, your landlord.'
• What does a landlord do? Does he rent an apartment or does he sell apartments?
Martin: A landlord rents an apartment.
Lara: Correct. He collects the money. You pay him and you can stay where you are.
• Does the landlord always own the apartment you are renting?
Martin: I think so. Don’t they? Or sometimes they don’t because sometimes they can just collect the money.
Lara: Exactly. I think there’s a difference between who owns the property. Sometimes they’re just there to collect the money.
• Do you have a landlord/landlady? Are they nice?
Martin: I I don’t actually, because I bought the place where I’m living a couple of years ago now. Luckily, I don’t but I have had many in the past and some nice, some not so nice let’s say.
Lara: Any landlord or landlady that was particularly nasty?
Martin: One I think that I actually used to have to write a check. This was when I was at university. I remember he kept saying that the money hadn’t arrived in his bank account when it clearly had and that caused quite a lot of stress. Similar to Mr. Rogers in the story, also threatened to throw me out. Luckily, I didn’t have to sleep on the street.
Lara: I’ve only had good experiences so far but I’ve only had two. I haven’t had as many as you have.
Tenant
'You are the worst tenant in the building, you’re always behind on rent.'
• If you are a tenant, does that mean you have bought the place where you live or are you renting it?
Martin: That means that you are renting the place where you live.
Lara: Correct.
• Can an apartment have more than one tenant?
Martin: Yes, of course. It can have many tenants.
Lara: If you share an apartment with your friends, with other roommates, yes.
• Are you a tenant right now or do you know someone who is?
Martin: My wife, I get her to pay rent to me.
Lara: Really?
Martin: No, that’s a joke. I know lots of people that are tenants and especially, for example, in London where people have to pay a lot of money to be a tenant.
Lara: I think especially now among like even older people, it’s more common, especially if you don’t have a family to rent a place as opposed to buying a place.
Martin: Absolutely. I rented places from 18 to 33, so 15 years.
Lara: All right.
Be behind on rent
'You are the worst tenant in the building, you’re always behind on rent.'
• If you are behind on rent, have you paid last month’s rent?
Martin: No, you haven’t. Maybe you haven’t paid the rent the month before either.
Lara: Who knows? It could be two months that you owe, three months. Exactly.
• How would your landlord feel if you were behind on rent?
Martin: Pretty angry. I would imagine.
• Have you ever been behind on rent?
Martin: Absolutely, no. That’s one thing that I would never do because you signed the contract, you know you have to pay that. I always made sure I had enough money to pay my rent.
Lara: Despite what your old landlord used to say.
Martin: Exactly.
Get evicted
'So, what? You’re just going to have me evicted? '
• If you get evicted, can you continue living where you live?
Martin: No, you can’t.
• If you get evicted, do you leave because you want to or because someone makes you?
Martin: You leave because someone makes you, generally the landlord or landlady.
• What could be the reasons for someone to get evicted?
Martin: If you’re behind on rent, maybe you have animals secretly when animals aren’t allowed, you make a lot of noise that neighbors complain, I suppose there can be a few reasons.
• Have you ever been evicted or have you ever risked getting evicted?
Martin: Well, I risked getting evicted even though I was paying the rent. I risked getting evicted then but luckily that was the only time.
Get locked out
'I think I got locked out.'
• If you are locked out of your apartment, can you get in?
Martin: No, you cannot.
• What could cause you to get locked out of your apartment?
Martin: You could close the door when the keys are inside. That’s a classic one. You could just lose the key. Someone could steal the keys. Lots of reasons.
Lara: Number one is really the one that’s the most frustrating because if they steal your keys then really it’s not your fault but leaving the keys inside and then walking out the door and closing it behind you then–
Martin: That’s a blow. That’s difficult.
• Have you ever gotten locked out? What did you do?
Martin: Many times. When I was a child, I specifically remember closing the door and the keys were inside and my dad was extremely angry and made me walk with him to where my mom worked to get the keys. It was a very, very long walk, especially for a seven-year-old child which I was. Another time when I came back to the apartment I was renting in Sicily from England and then I realized I’d left the keys to my apartment in Sicily in England. I phoned my landlord and said, “I haven’t got the keys.” He said, “Oh, no problem. I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll give you the keys.” I thought, “Okay, brilliant.” Then my mom was going to send me the keys and I thought, “Oh, this is fine.” I arrived at like 3:00 PM and he told me I’ll be there basically in a minute and then he actually arrived at midnight. I had nine hours of standing around on the street with all my bags.
Lara: Waiting for him.
Martin: That was a bit of a nightmare.
Lara: Do you think that taught you the lesson?
Martin: It has actually. I don’t let my keys out of my sight now.
Lara: Great. Thanks again, Martin. You guys make sure to go check out his podcast, Rock n’ Roll English, and his website, rocknrollenglish.com. I’m going to leave all the links in the notes so you can go check it out.
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4 thoughts on “Episode 94 • Apartments”
Very nice episode Lara
Thank you so much, Khaled! 🥰
I knew about you in Martin’s podcasts and now you have him on yours. It was fun! Martin always has funny stories to tell and he also knew all the answers to your questions! 😂
Hey Eduardo! Thank you for listening to this episode as well then! Yes, Martin’s been an amazing guest! 🤓😀