Corona Daily 011: Romeo Budhoo’s Story: Part One

Romeo Budhoo had looked forward to 1 August, 2021.

Budhoo is an immigrant from Guyana who lives in New York’s Schenectady. In the early 2000s, in another recession, his family had arrived in Schenectady which had lost half the factory jobs. One third of the residents had left town. The city had thousands of vacant homes. $18,000 per house was needed to demolish them. The mayor had a bright idea. He knew the resourcefulness of the Guyanese immigrants. The hard-working Guyanese were known for their ability to repair dilapidated houses. The mayor offered to sell the houses at peanut prices, some of them going for a token $1. In all, 5000 Guyanese bought them, repaired them, rented them out, and started paying property taxes to resurrect the city. Romeo Budhoo was one of them.

*****

For the past fifteen months, on every first of the month, which Budhoo called “pay day”, he took his booklet of receipts and drove to his tenants. A hairdresser, a true gentleman, who owed Budhoo $7,000, gave $75 in cash to comfort him. On the receipt Budhoo wrote: “Thanks for at least trying to work with me.”

He then moved to his main source of income, a 1901 three story house at 1042 Cutler St. that was confiscated, condemned and about to be demolished when Budhoo bought it for $79,000, his life-long savings. He had personally worked on the wiring, plumbing, installed granite tops, and was renting it out for $950 a month. The house rent had paid for his daughter’s college degree. For the last twenty years, he had collected the rent on the first of the month. That process had come to a sudden halt in March 2020.

On 1 April, after missing the payment, he wrote to the tenant, “Just a friendly reminder.” A month later: “Good morning. Are you able to pay the rent?” In September, when he still hadn’t received a cent, the US government announced a national eviction moratorium. The first of several. “Please, I am willing to work with you” he wrote to the tenant, but didn’t receive an answer.

In May 2021, over a full year without payment, Budhoo was unable to use any of his credit cards, had applied for a secondary loan on his car, defaulted on $13,000 in property taxes and was taking medicines for panic attacks and stomach ulcers. He had started mowing people’s lawns for pocket money.

“This is robbery.” He wrote to his tenant. “You are stealing from me.”

*****

He got out of the car, and walked around the house soft-footed like a burglar. He didn’t knock, because the tenant had accused him of harassment, and police had read to him tenants’ rights. The police warned he would be charged for trespassing (though he was the owner of the house).

Inside he could see a TV and two heaters. The yard was dirtied with empty cigarette packs, wrappers and beer cans. The tenant was living free and damaging his home. Budhoo took a garbage bag out of his car, and began collecting the trash. Though he didn’t control the property, he was legally responsible for its maintenance. He had been fined four times for his tenant’s trash violations.

*****

Alfonzo Hill, 38, the tenant, watched Budhoo from inside. He made sure Budhoo’s car left before coming outside and smoking on the porch. Before the pandemic, he lived with his girlfriend and 13-year old daughter. Working as a cook at a local tavern, he was earning $700 a week until governor Cuomo banned indoor dining. He lost the job, and weeks later his girlfriend left him because he couldn’t pay the bills. After a year of surviving the pandemic, he was unemployed and broke. His daughter attended sixth grade virtually. They had a few dollars left. Poor and black, they were vulnerable to Covid.

“He is the exterminator and we are the rats.” He told her about Budhoo. “We’re not human to him. We’re money. It’s all a big game.”

*****

(Continued tomorrow. Source: Eli Saslow in Washington Post.)

Ravi