This was apropos of
Franks thread, which I did not want to hijack. I figured I post it in its own thread.
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I also use to rent an apartment short-term in Santo Domingo. Oh, the things I saw!
I am a very discreet person, anyone that knows me knows how paranoid I am about blabbermouths, so I have never shared a story on DR1, I still feel as if I have to protect my ex-customers. I would never share any of this with anyone, specially not in a public forum. In this case I will make an exception and tell you one that will curl your toes, after all my "customer-client privilege" have expired. You'll see why.
I leased the apartment to a certain gentleman in his 60s. In previous conversations he seemed like a nice-enough person (not that I am a great judge of character or anything). He wanted to stay for 3 months, and so as was customary he paid all of this in advance.
The day we met to hand over the keys, sign stuff and whatnot he shows off with a girl in her twenties. The girl in question, it was painfully obvious, did not speak any English, and to make matters worse the gentleman did not speak a word of Spanish. You can see where this is going...
Seeing as they were very talkative, and I am good enough at listening, I soon learned that they had met over the internet, she had 3 young kids of her own, he was widowed, this was his
first visit to the country, they had just
actually met the day before and were now engaged. I will pause for a second so you have time to pick up your jaw from the floor.
...
They were soon installed in the apartment and calling me at all times to help them communicate. I didn't mind much, really, I actually like dealing with customers (most of the time and most of the people). Soon I started helping out with other things, like calling taxies, making reservations, etc. I still didn't mind that. As I included cleaning service, she soon took the maid as confidant, who relied to me all that was going on.
I soon started hearing the tales of her visiting relatives, and the things they said about the poor sap, er I mean Gentleman. He apparently suffered from ED, only much worse. The Young Lady's plan was to get pregnant and well, just secure her future. Things were not working as planned. They berated and insulted him while he still had no clue what was going on. My husband witnessed that a couple of times when he dropped by with clean towels and linen.
One day I get a call at an odd hour from the Young Lady. She seemed very worried, freaked out even. The Gentleman had fallen ill and was now in a private clinic. He was getting worse by the minute and doctors could not find the cause. At this point she tells me that she called to tell me that she was leaving him. "This is too much trouble". So much for their 2.5 weeks engagement.
I tried to talk her out of it, if she had made him think that they had a relationship she better stick around and see this through, it was the decent thing to do (after all he was drowning her in gifts and money), when he got better, if she still felt the same way she could break it off. She decided to heed my advice.
As things progressively deteriorated the Gentleman had to be air-lifted to the US for treatment, leaving me with the Young Lady in the apartment. As the Gentleman, having been diagnosed with Leukemia, was incapacitated the Money Fountain suddenly drained, leaving her in an unenviable position. Suddenly I started hearing complains from the neighbors about noisy carnal activities going on in the apartment. The maid showed up for a scheduled visit to find the grieving Young Lady with a gentleman, wearing, well, very little. She remarked that he was her lawyer, and that he was advising her on her "inheritance rights" should her "fiancee" croak (I wonder if Fabio Guzman's lawyer offer that kind of service
). In light of this, and the fact that she commented she was moving her 3 kids to my apartment, I asked her to leave. I had no deals with her, and she was, at this point, almost an intruder.
Seeing as this was an unfortunate occurrence I offered to return the remaining monies to the Gentleman, and should I receive written AND verbal confirmation from him, I would give her the money. Although not a fortune this was a small fortune to her, so she convinced him to do that. And she left and that was the end of the story... But it wasn't.
A few weeks later she called me to relay the "good" news, she had talked him into postponing treatment to return and marry her. I congratulated her, from the bottom of my lying heart and got on with my live. I thought I had heard the end of the story, until a couple of weeks later.
I got another call, this time she told me how she had planned a grand wedding at a fancy restaurant in Santo Domingo. She had carefully planned her wedding, again delaying him in returning to the US. The morning of the happy occasion came, and the Gentleman dropped dead hours before the wedding.
She was informed by the American embassy that they would take over, that "almost married" was not a legal status and to get lost.
For an impotent guy, he screwed her real good.
A broken fairytale...
