Doing the right thing isn't always easy. It requires strength, integrity, and sometimes, a lot of effort. An anonymous landlord demonstrated all these qualities with a kind-hearted gesture toward his former tenant, Chris Robarge. Chris was so moved by the surprise that he shared the full story on social media. The uplifting tale left people in tears, with many praising the landlord as someone who truly lives by his values.
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Olly
In an age where thank you letters and kind notes are becoming rare, this landlord sent Chris a heartwarming letter that left him speechless. Chris, originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, had rented from this landlord for quite some time. In August 2021, he shared a Facebook post expressing his astonishment and gratitude for the unexpected gesture.
Representative Image Source: Pexels | Jmark
“I have been sitting with this for more than a day and I am still completely beyond an actual way to describe what this act means to me," he wrote in the post. "All that I can say is that there are people who talk about their values and there are people who actually live them, and the reason I wanted to share this is that I want to encourage us all to actually live our values." Chris added, "Do it off the clock, do it when no one is watching, do it always."
A few days ago, the landlord contacted Chris to ask for his current address. Chris wondered why, but when he received an envelope in the mail, he was astonished. Inside was an honest letter and a cheque for $2,500. Chris shared pictures of both items in his post. While he had enjoyed his time renting from the landlord, this generous gesture was completely unexpected. The heartfelt letter explained that the landlord had sold his house and was giving Chris and every former tenant a share of the profit.
The landlord stated in the letter that keeping this money after the sale of the property was “exploitative and antithetical to a just society.” He even explained the math behind the amount on the cheque he had enclosed with the letter. “I tried to keep the rent equivalent to the monthly expenses of keeping the house (mortgage principal, mortgage interest, taxes, insurance, utilities, improvements). While the mortgage principal, especially in the first years of a mortgage, is a small fraction of those overall expenses, I wanted to return to you that portion of the rent you paid,” the owner described.
He also mentioned that he calculated the principal amount paid each month in the rent, split it by the tenants who were living in the house at that time, and added 40% as the increase in the house cost. “While it’s not much, it’s yours! It was a great house and I’m glad that I was able to share it with you,” he said.
After the post caught people’s attention, Chris posted an update revealing that he was keeping $500 for a car repair service, and donating the rest of the money to those who needed it the most. “I want this good deed to reach as far as possible,” he said. He offered $500 to Black and Pink Massachusetts, a prison abolition organization. Apart from this, he said he was going to fill every Worcester Free Fridge.
The post melted the hearts of people online and gave some of them "a reason to believe once again in humanity.” @g.w.smith.5 commented, “I needed to see this kind of humanity today. Thank you for that.” @virginia.bechtold too was inspired by the landlord’s generous act. She said, “This is what I’ll do if I ever own a rental property. Thanks for the inspiration.” @lisa.mullen.18 also noted, “This is wonderful...goes to show that there are good people out there.”
Image Source: Facebook | @alison.milano.56
Chris concluded his post with a shout-out to his landlord and an inspiring message for others, “If you can't do what my former landlord did, let this inspire you to give whatever you can spare to someone or someplace that needs it."
Many lauded Chris' landlord. "What an amazing example of good karma. I’m sure you were careful to choose a landlord with similar values to you. This is wonderful," wrote Kali. Virginia added, "'Not all landlords' - this is what I’ll do if I ever own a rental property. Thanks for the inspiration." Casey added, "If this is who I think it is they are a gem of our community and one of my personal heroes (if Im wrong...well they are obviously all of those things anyways)."
Image Source: Facebook | @jill.ferraresso
This article originally appeared last year.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.