I was packing up after a grueling overtime shift, ready to head home, when my phone buzzed. It was a notification from the Oakridge Condos Snapchat group, tagging me. 【Apt 1102, can you please control your kid? It’s past midnight and they’re literally jumping around like they’re at a rave!】 I froze. I’ve been away on a business trip for a month. Who the hell was in my apartment? It was 10:00 PM. I had just shut down my laptop and was about to leave the office when my phone started chiming like crazy. I opened Snapchat and saw the notifications in my building’s group chat. Someone had tagged my apartment. 【Apt 1102, I’ve warned you guys more than once. Control your kid! Why won’t you listen? It’s been happening for days. Jumping and running late at night! Some of us actually have to sleep!】 【Seriously! Entitled kids come from entitled parents. I live further down the hall and even I can hear it! It’s obnoxious!】 【1102, if you keep letting your kid run wild, I’m buying a ceiling vibrator to blast noise back at you!】 【Can you please handle this? I’m so done! If you can’t parent your kid, I’ll do it for you!】 Looking at the angry messages from Apt 1002 and Apt 1101, I was completely bewildered. 【Wait, is there a mistake? My condo was just renovated. I haven’t even moved in yet. Plus, I’ve been out of town on a business trip for the past month. The place is supposed to be empty.】 【Oh, please! If you don’t want to admit you’re a terrible parent, just say so. I’ve literally knocked on your door multiple times to talk about this. Every single time, your mother yells at me, calling me a fully grown adult who’s picking on a toddler!】 【Exactly! I live right next door to you, do you think I don’t know if someone is living there? Stop lying through your teeth!】 the neighbor from 1101 chimed in. Now I was even more confused. I double-checked the group info. Yes, this was definitely the Oakridge Condos group chat. The exact building where I bought my new place. But my apartment was newly renovated and completely unoccupied. How could someone be living there? Had I been robbed? Did squatters take over? I immediately messaged my boss to request emergency leave, booked the earliest flight back for the next morning, and headed straight to the airport. I wanted to see who had the absolute audacity to shamelessly occupy my property in broad daylight. When I reached the door of Apt 1102, there was a cheesy “Welcome” mat on the floor and two pairs of sneakers sitting outside. Did I get the floor wrong? Just as I was about to pull out my phone to check, the door to the neighboring apartment swung open. A woman in her thirties stepped out, holding the hand of a four-year-old girl. She saw me and stopped. “Are you with the people in 1102?” I nodded, then hesitated and shook my head. “This is Building 3, Unit 1, Apt 1102, right?” I asked. “Of course it is!” The woman gave me a look of pure annoyance. “Good, you’re back. You seriously need to discipline your kid. Running around like crazy every night is one thing, but a few days ago, he was literally trying to lift up other little girls’ dresses on the playground! When I called him out on it, your mother came rushing over and screamed at me. She’s completely toxic.” She then gave me a slightly sympathetic look. “I shouldn’t meddle, but you really need to raise your own kid. Leaving him with your mother like this is going to ruin him, and you’ll be the one crying later.” A kid? My mother? I looked at her, utterly lost. “Ma’am, I think there’s a huge misunderstanding. I’m not even married.” She stared at me, looking me up and down. “Yeah, actually, you don’t look like a married guy.” She shrugged. “But whoever that kid belongs to, someone needs to handle him. Doing stuff like that at his age? Imagine what he’ll be like when he grows up!”
After the neighbor walked away, I took a deep breath and knocked loudly on the door. An older woman in her late fifties, wearing an apron, opened the door. She looked me up and down with intense suspicion. “Who are you?” Her question almost made me laugh. Who was I? I was the owner of this freaking apartment! “Is this your place?” I asked, suppressing the rage boiling inside me. “If it’s not mine, is it yours?” she snapped back. I nodded. “Actually, yes. It is mine.” With that, I pushed past her and walked right in. I loved the minimalist cream-and-beige aesthetic, so when I designed the place, everything was pristine, white, and organized. But now? The once-fluffy cream carpet was a dingy, filthy gray. There were muddy footprints scattered across the white porcelain tiles. The couch was buried under piles of dirty laundry, and my favorite hanging egg chair had been broken and tossed into a corner, covered in trash. The further I walked in, the angrier I got. The kitchen floor was littered with rotting vegetables, with dark, smelly water pooling in the corners. The premium pots and pans I had spent hours selecting were caked in grease and piled high in the sink. The toilet bowl had a thick layer of grime, and my foot basin was filled with dirty underwear that looked like it had been soaking for days. I didn’t even dare to walk into the master bedroom. That was my personal sanctuary, and I was terrified that if I saw it trashed, I would actually lose my mind and do something illegal. Deep breaths. I had to take deep breaths. There had to be an explanation. “Hey! Who do you think you are, barging into someone’s home without permission?!” “Are you insane? Walking around a stranger’s house like you own the place! Where are your manners?!” Martha—the older woman—had followed me as I toured the apartment. She finally seemed to snap and started screaming at me. I clenched my fists, trying with every fiber of my being not to yell. “Are you absolutely sure this is your apartment? Did you perhaps get the unit number wrong?” I had read news stories about people accidentally renovating the wrong apartment, or moving into the wrong unit by mistake after being away for a long time. I didn’t know how they got the keys, but I figured maybe some weird mix-up had happened here. But Martha only got angrier. “What do you mean, ‘your apartment, my apartment’? This is my house! My daughter bought it for me! Let me tell you, don’t think you can bully me just because I’m an old woman living here alone. I’m not someone you can mess with!” “Fine. Fine.” I took three deep breaths and pulled out my phone. This was beyond my control, and it was definitely beyond hers. But the police could handle it. “911? Yes, I’d like to report an emergency. My apartment has been illegally occupied by squatters.” “You… you called the cops?! You’re playing the victim! You’re the one who broke into my house! You’re calling the cops to get yourself arrested!” Martha was still yelling when the front door clicked open. A woman in her thirties walked in, holding the hand of a seven-year-old boy. They both stopped dead in their tracks when they saw me. “Who are you?” the younger woman demanded. I let out a cold laugh. “I own this place, and you’re asking me who I am? I should be asking you. You’re occupying my property and acting like you own the joint.” “Ha! Your apartment? You’re hilarious. We don’t even know you! What proof do you have that this is yours?” “I already called the police. We’ll find out who owns it in about ten minutes.” Ten minutes later, two police officers arrived. I gave them a detailed breakdown of the situation and showed them my digital deed, the purchase contract, and the renovation receipts on my phone. The officers’ brows furrowed as they reviewed the documents. Finally, one officer turned to the two women. “Ma’am, according to public records and these documents, this property legally belongs to this gentleman.” The two women immediately lost their minds. “Impossible! My daughter bought this condo for me!” The officer paused. “And who is your daughter?” Martha puffed out her chest proudly. “My daughter is Lily Vance.”
Lily Vance? I froze. My girlfriend’s name was Lily Vance. “Call your daughter right now and have her come down here,” the officer told Martha. “I already called my sister,” the younger woman sneered at me. “She’s already on her way.” Twenty minutes later, Lily ran through the door, completely out of breath. The moment I saw her, my jaw dropped. It really was her. My girlfriend of one year. “What’s going on?” She first looked at her mother and sister sitting on the couch. “Oh, Lily, thank God you’re here! Look at this guy! He just barged into my home, claiming the place is his! And these two cops are actually taking his side! I swear they’re all in on it together!” The moment Martha saw Lily, she literally slid off the couch onto the floor, wailing and crying. “Mom! Mom, get up!” Lily rushed over, helping her mother back onto the couch. When she finally turned around, her eyes met mine. “Ethan?” I stared at her coldly. She looked incredibly guilty. “Ethan, aren’t you supposed to be on a business trip? Why are you back so early?” “If I didn’t come back early, I wouldn’t have found out that you gifted my half-million-dollar condo to your family,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Ethan, it’s not like that. Let me explain.” Lily grabbed my arm, trying to pull me to the corner of the room. I was so furious that I stood rigid, and she couldn’t budge me an inch. “Ethan,” she whispered, her voice tinged with annoyance when she couldn’t move me. “Come over here. We need to talk in private.” I shrugged and followed her to the corner. I wanted to hear what kind of absolute garbage excuse she was going to cook up. “My mom hasn’t been feeling well lately, and she needed to come to the city for medical treatments. You know how expensive hotels are here—like two hundred dollars a night! I just figured since your apartment was sitting empty anyway, they could stay here for a bit,” she said, her eyes darting around. “Oh?” I let out a cold laugh. “So you decided, without even asking me, to let your mother and sister move into my apartment?” “Ethan,” she said, looking offended. “What do you mean, ‘your apartment’? We’ve been dating for a year. What’s yours is mine! Besides, the place was just sitting here empty. Letting them stay here was basically doing you a favor by housewarming and airing the place out.” The sheer audacity! I needed her to do me a favor? “Housewarming? Is your idea of housewarming turning my brand-new, beautifully renovated apartment into a landfill?” Lily looked around the messy living room, looking slightly embarrassed. “Well, you know how older people are. They aren’t as obsessed with cleanliness. That’s why you need a woman in your life, Ethan! Once you’re back from your trip, we can move in together, and you can help my mom keep the place clean. Isn’t that perfect?” Hearing this, the anger I had been desperately trying to suppress finally erupted. “Let’s get one thing straight. First, we are not married! You letting your family move in without my consent is illegal trespassing. Second, I don’t need your family to ‘warm’ my house. And finally, I am giving you exactly three days to get your mother and sister the hell out of my apartment!” Lily’s face flushed with anger, and she shrieked, “Ethan Sterling! How dare you speak to me like that! That is my mother and my sister! They are going to be your family too! What’s wrong with letting them stay in your apartment for a bit? Why are you being so incredibly cheap and petty? I had no idea you were such a selfish, penny-pinching loser!”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “462012”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster
Leave a Reply