Tenemental: Adventures of a Reluctant Landlady

by Vikki Warner, Rebecca Mitchell (Narrator)

An unsuspecting landlady navigates exploding plumbing, financial independence, and the 2008 market crash with no blueprint.

Detouring from the traditional timeline of marriage-kids-house, twenty-six-year-old Vikki Warner skips straight to homeownership. She buys a downtrodden three-story house in Providence, Rhode Island, and suddenly finds herself responsible for a rotating cast of colorful tenants. Adulthood comes with unforeseen challenges: backed-up sewage, gentrification, global economic downturn. A candid portrait of how sharing space profoundly reshapes our lives, and forces us to grow into ourselves.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography, Biography Memoir

7 pages, Audible Audio

Published June 12, 2018

About the author

Vikki Warner's work has appeared in BUST, The Boston Globe, Literary Hub, Zagat, and Electric Literature. Her debut memoir Tenemental: Adventures of a Reluctant Landlady (The Feminist Press at CUNY) is a testy love letter to her house, her tenants, and her Providence, Rhode Island neighborhood. Kirkus Reviews called it "refreshingly original reading," and O, The Oprah Magazine called it an "ebullient memoir," featuring it as a top summer book of 2018. Vikki has worked in the audiobook field for more than ten years. She is now an acquisitions editor for Blackstone Publishing. Visit her at www.vikkiwarner.com. Instagram @pennhenge.

Reviews

[Pat Camalliere · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book on the recommendation of an agent I respect, who said it was an example of a memoir that revealed more about the author than the simple fact that she owned and rented a three-flat building. I had done that with my husband, and thought it would be interesting to see how a single woman faced renovation, upkeep, and rentals. It disappointed me on many counts. I didn’t find the conflicts with tenants to be entertaining, but rather flat. I liked the author well enough, and I’m glad she ended up finding her soul mate, but I thought she kept basically making the same points over and over, and I got bored. Kept looking for it to engage me, and it never did. I’m sorry, because I really wanted to like this. Since I wanted to learn more about writing memoir, I now know some of the things I don’t want to do when I write my own. I’m a demanding critic, I know. I don’t expect it to be easy, and I admire the author for her attempt.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. The book purported to be about a single woman who bought a three-family house and then spent her days dealing with tenants and home repairs--and part of it was. That part was interesting, at least at first. But Warner's tenants for the most part have tended to be stable, long-term renters, so there weren't many stories about oddballs.

I liked the premise of the book but there just wasn't enough material to flesh it out. Much of the book was less-interesting filler: Warner's love life, a list and lengthy description of all the places she's lived since birth, the emotional hazards of being an only child, a rant about the things we're doing to Mother Earth, etc. I skimmed through most of the book.

[Matthew Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decided to make 2019 the year I get over my irrational, lifelong fear of reading books written by people I know IRL. This is more of a rom-com than I expected, and also more about the author's intestines than I expected, but I like surprises. In the Providence way of knowing everybody but also not really knowing anybody, I've known the author and her husband for years, as well as at least four of the tenants that get mentioned in this memoir (which is mostly set two blocks away from my own apartment). In fact, a bunch of years ago I nearly looked at renting from her myself. Anyway, I mention this because the neighborhood descriptions are all spot-on both physically and sociologically. I sort of want to buy a copy for each of my relatives and highlight by hand all the parts about how and why local Italian-Americans are now afraid of a neighborhood that's no more or less dangerous than when their parents and grandparents lived there in the fifties. I also related to other parts, specifically the parts about being an only child and having parents who live twenty minutes away but have never once come to visit.

Sorry, it's 5am and I think this is the longest Goodreads review I've written in ten years on this site.

[Kristina Horner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an audible daily deal, which is how I learned about it in the first place. I’ve been reading more nonfiction lately and this was a really interesting one. As someone interested in real estate, I loved hearing about all the trials and tribulations of this crazy house purchase. Relatable, interesting and informative.

[Marilyn Correia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so many things...starting with excellent, entertaining and just a good read

One minute I am wishing to be 26 and gutsy...the next I am wondering what was she thinking??? But she left me wanting more of her writing..

Thank you Vikki for your honesty...I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

So our intrepid author buys a broken-down old money pit of a three-family tenement that she should clearly not be able to afford and survives the experience. Between bad renovations by the previous owner and the inevitable bad renters, she somehow manages to navigate her way through years of being a landlord, despite not appearing to have the wherewithal to withstand the catastrophic financial challenges, and then finds her better, wiser self along the way.

This is an okay book. I enjoyed some parts of it and found other parts of it sort of boring.

I don't think I would've put up so long with some of the renters she did, but then, I would never attempt to be a landlord unless I was financially well enough off to afford really good lawyers. Bed renters can ruin you. Most of her's seem to have been man-children who could never figure out this whole being-an-adult thing other than enthusiastically embracing adult vices.

Anyway, I enjoyed it well enough overall. There are some life lessons here and a bit of the history of Providence Rhode Island. It depicts a world far removed from the small microscopic prairie town where I grew up, so I learned some things.

[Kelly]

The audiobook on this was the right way to go, as it reads like story about some of the challenges of being a landlady when you're young, dumb, and see the opportunity in part because of a person you're dating's encouragement (even if that person doesn't stay in the picture very long). Vikki's voice is fun and relatable. This isn't necessarily going to dig into what being a landlord is like nor does it go into a whole bunch of eccentric tenants -- there were a few with quirks, but nothing out of line -- and there's something of value to it because it's what is likely a typical experience. I loved the Providence setting (a favorite city of mine!). I listened to a lot of this while working on my own house, which was built in a similar time and style as Vikki's three up, and that made for an even more appreciative experience.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Providence, and have also had an intense urge to buy a home recently, and frankly this book was delightful and very Rhode Island.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Initial thoughts: "Adventures of an Impulsive Landlady" would've been a more fitting subtitle for Tenemental. After all, Warner chose to buy that house on Rhode Island and she made those mortgage calls out of her own volition. That aside, she had no clue what she was getting herself into, so maybe in that regard, she could be compared to a reluctant landlady.

Tenemental chronicles her first decade as a landlady, how she stumbled into it, the hardships she faced, and the tenants she's had to deal with during that time. I enjoyed her wry self-reflection and her honest admission to not always thinking things through. She knew she didn't always make the most sensible decisions but she took that in her stride while still growing.

As much as she prized making friends with her tenants, she also realised the importance of being firm. She learnt to be the boss of largely men in her house and also took on sudden responsibilities land lording flung her way. She didn't have any ambitions to build a real estate empire but she still relished the power that came with being a tenemental landlady. That candour and self-awareness translated well into the audiobook and kept me entertained this public holiday afternoon.

[Karyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes life leads us in a direction we’re totally not expecting. As a woman in her mid-20s, Vikki Warren hadn’t exactly planned to buy a tri-plex on Federal Hill in Providence, but somehow, she’s signing the papers and looking for tenants. This book recounts her misadventures as a landlady, and the growing up she’s needed to do in order to become a fully functioning adult.

Living in Rhode Island myself, I was immediately drawn to this book. I also really enjoyed Warner’s voice throughout this memoir; she seems like someone I’d love to sit and have a cup of coffee with. And maybe I have actually run into her, if she’s the type of person to enjoy the FreePlay arcade downtown, or possibly at one of the record stores that I enjoy browsing (although Dave would really tsk-tsk at me for keeping my collection in an unheated and not-dehumified sunroom...). It was almost surreal when she started talking about Sunny Acres, a neighborhood I pass every single time I head over the Mount Hope bridge to Bristol.

Warren is very candid in sharing with her readers her personal struggles, not only in being a landlady but in life and love and career. It’s refreshing that she has no interest in turning PennHenge into a money machine, and instead enjoys providing a safe home for people at a reasonable cost (living in Rhode Island is stupidly expensive). I do wish she has, by now, figured out what to do about her first floor tenants; I’m all for live-and-let-live, but it sounds like the place needs a lot of care and attention they’re not willing to provide, and Warner does need to protect her investment.

I appreciated her ruminations on gentrification and white flight and the issues of being a resident landlady, when most other landlords own multiple properties and live a state or three away. I’ve watched the neighborhood I was born into become gentrified, and an area definitely loses its character when that happens. I could have used fewer reminders that she’s just a tiny white worn, however. I realize she’s pointing out that she’s aware of her privilege, but she whacked her readers over the head with this fact a few times too often.

I found this to be an interesting and engaging book to read, and if you enjoy memoirs about average people doing average things, you’ll enjoy this as well.

[Connie Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not all that interesting. Way too much information about her personal bathroom habits, though I feel for her predicament.

Lots of swearing. Lots of ranting about people who have money and try to make money. Lots of whining that she's a white "privileged" woman. Please. She's clearly a liberal who is very confused about what's she's doing. She assumes the people who own the big, beautiful houses are white and privileged. (I hate that word. Unless you've inherited massive amounts of wealth, we all work for what we have, no matter what color we are.)

She was very upset about what the world was going to look like after Trump was elected. I found it interesting that both parties are trying to accomplish what they feel is right for the world; we just have very different view on what is right sometimes. Of course, the United States was doing great in so many areas after Trump was elected, until Covid took down the world.

She told some stories about her tenants, a highly eclectic bunch but nothing terribly unusual. We hear all about her boyfriends who use her for years with no commitment. Spoiler alert:


She does manage to get married when she's 40, so I'm glad for that. I'm always happy for people who commit to each other.

I just wanted to finish the book. It got hard to listen to toward the end.

Yes, I'm very opinionated as you may be, dear reader. Agree with me or not, I carry no ill will for those who disagree. We are all entitled to voice our opinions. Well, for now anyway.

[Emily Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could've easily been a boring, monotonous read, but it was written well. I was engaged through til the end. It reminded me of my mom and how her house is currently being used as an unofficial boarding house. She went through similar dramas of house maintenance and renter chaos. I'm also obsessed with anything that has to do with homes. Renovation, decorating, gardening, etc. This book filled my cup in that sense and I zillowed homes in Providence to see more of what the authors experience was.

[Kate Hanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! And not just because it takes place in Providence. Funny, feminist, thought-provoking, and vulnerable, I want to be friends with Vikki Warner. (Hey maybe because I live in Providence I can make this happen). I only wish she had talked a little more about the money side of landlording--she was very frank about the costs, but didn't really talk about it as a personal investment. Minor critique.

[Alexis Lorence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this last summer when I was living in Providence. Based on the neighborhood I was living in, so much history there (Federal Hill). This book is so relatable and comedic. Thoroughly enjoyed and recommend.

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. It was fun to read about someone’s story in my own neighborhood!

[Marissa Kielman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would read more from this author. I would most enjoy reading the story of the Italian couple next door

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this because I thought it would be a humorous and entertaining account of issues the author had with her tenants and other amusing anecdotes about her experience as a landlady. It wasn't quite that, because for the most part the tenants were not very amusing and would be people I certainly couldn't tolerate living around. I think the author has amazing patience and ability to turn a blind eye to chaos. I expected humour and didn't really find any of the book to be funny. Perhaps my expectations were misplaced.

There was a lot more of the author's past and other experiences unrelated to her being a landlady that were included in the book. These are somewhat interesting but because I don't feel I have much in common with the author, they didn't resonate much with me. Perhaps also because I have never lived in an area like the one where the house is located, and I've never had experiences with tenants of the type she experienced, I couldn't relate very well overall to the book.

I found her experiences trying to fix up the old house to be interesting and engaging. I've definitely had frustrating experiences with that in the past.

Good job by the narrator.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a sucker for a good memoir and Tenemental is one of the best. Warner's dry humor and self-awareness are slightly reminiscent of Patti Smith's Just Kids, and her uniquely personal storytelling voice allows the reader to perfectly visualize the titular 3-tenement home and its many inhabitants. Highly recommended.

[Linh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book would be about Warner's adventures as a landlord but even though she had that place for ten years, there wasn't enough content to form a book. Most of the book was repetitive, tangential and not often fully formed.

[Leslie Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when that traditional path of marriage-mortgage-baby-takes a different path? That's what Vikki Warner shares in her (mis) adventures of a landlady in her debut memoir, TENEMENTAL.

I adore old houses. I'm entranced by memoir. So when I stumbled upon TENEMENTAL, I knew I had to read it. Vikki Warner and I are just about the same age--she was twenty-six in the early 2000's, had a bit of a nest-egg and was trying to figure it all out. And so she bought a house. An old house. In Rhode Island. She was single.

At just about that same time, but in Minnesota, my finance and I purchased our first home together. Also old. But not a three-family flat. It was a single-family home and I was overwhelmed. When I think about Vikki doing this herself, on a much grander scale, I am thrown into a full-on panic attack.

Suddenly, I am responsible for two stories, a giant yard, and plenty of old-house problems. Meanwhile, across the country, in Rhode Island, Vikki Warner is responsible for a rotating cast of characters/tenants, expensive repairs, and navigating adulthood while trying to pursue a writing career.

Vikki is a delightfully wry writer, with plenty of grit, feminist leanings, and a DIYer-mentality one has to applaud. Life isn't always perfect and houses aren't at all. Nor are the people who occupy them. I felt enamored to to her lovely Italian 'grandparent' neighbors and sensed such anxiety when she'd describe the problems this old house endured (burst pipes and all).

TENEMENTAL is a memoir at heart--in that we get a glimpse of Warner's journey, her childhood and even her love life--but there's a very heavy-handed focus on the house and what it stands for that shapes the narrative. Is Warner a reluctant landlady? Not exactly. She goes into this full-on, she's maybe a little less conventional than other landlords/ladies in the sense that she also lives in the house, but she grows and so does the house, and that's what a good memoir is all about.

If you're reading this as a how-to or house-flipping guide, you might be disappointed. TENEMENTAL a journey of growth, adulting, and learning to appreciate life's imperfections via an old house.

For all my reviews, including author interviews, please see: www.leslielindsay.com
Special thanks to Feminist Press/CUNY for this review copy. All thoughts are my own.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know those old house fix-up porn books? Where a guy or a couple buy an old house that’s in bad need of repair, have stressful-yet-now-humorous adventures as they repair it, but then a few years later it’s gorgeous? This is not that book. It’s also not a cute collection of awful tenant stories you might tell at a dinner party.

Once I realized it wasn’t a genre book or light entertainment, that it’s instead a serious yet sweet autobiography that uses the house more as a touchstone and symbol to shape its story, I relaxed into it and gave myself up, emerging blinking on the other side with no idea of how much time had passed.

It’s odd and wonderful to read an autobiography by a woman who is someone I’ve passed in the street. She’s not a celebrity. She’s in her 40s. Her house, a vinyl-clad 3 decker from the turn of the century, looks like a thousand others here.

To see inside someone’s life, who is not ordinary but definitely regular, is a special privilege. To see how they floundered through decisions, how they figured out who to be, how life works anyway, how they came to self-acceptance even though their house/life was never going to be tidy, profitable or picturebook pretty.

This is also a book of philosophy about life I think we need. A house doesn’t have to be gorgeous to be loved. Gentrification sucks but so did old homogeneity. It’s ok to not know how to make big decisions. It’s not about the money. It’s more satisfying to live among others, even when they are all too human, than to be alone in a perfect house in the burbs.

It’s a true Gen X book. And as another woman who has been out there shoveling the driveway while men were warm and dry inside, I get it.

This was a great book and I’ll be thinking about it for awhile.

[Marleen Chiaravalle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t read memoirs, but Tenemental interested me on several levels. I am pleased to say, I was entertained, educated, and intrigued with every page. As a fellow landlady, I empathized with 1) her struggles to both improve and maintain PennHenge (why did I never think to name my properties?) and 2) her frustrations with a revolving door of quirky tenants. As someone who currently rents an old home, I nodded and smiled knowingly at her humorous recollections of plumbing issues, leaky roofs, and nonfunctioning front doors because hey, we can laugh about it now! And as a New England transplant, I founds her insights on her neighbors, the neighborhood, and her state to be informative, stopping a few times to exclaim, “Oh! That explains a lot!”

This memoir is more than a funny collection of anecdotes. Vikki is an unpretentious woman who unabashedly lets us strangers into her life through the front door and openly admits she’s had to abandon a few hopes and dreams because they were replaced with new challenges and goals. She tells us about her personal relationships, health issues, family dynamics, and love of punk music. She is honest about her shortcomings, but is also humble about her strengths, many of which she polished through her years of landlady experience. As I witnessed her life and her home through her eyes, I appreciated her honesty, respected that she has some strong opinions that differ from mine, and smiled with her as she found joy in her garden and in her personal relationships.

Vikki’s waiting to show you around, so take her up on it.

[Andrew Lewandowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very enjoyable for me: reflective, well researched, thoughtful, and a lot of fun. As a Gen X-Millenial cusp, reading it reminded me of my high school and college days, longing to live like my older, edgier and slightly cooler friends. The author's complicated love for her house shines through, and she doesn't shirk away from acknowledging her complex role in a gentrifying neighborhood, which I appreciated.

I considered three stars for this book, but waffled and ended up putting it at 4. The other reviews stating this book veers a bit off course in the last third are true, and the theme and overall structure of the memoir and book become a little murky because of that. I see the author's struggle: she didn't want to make the book about a journey for a husband and a more normative lifestyle, but because of the time in her life where she's writing it, ending it where she's ending it risked making it that. It's hard to write a counterculture book that risks being read as "and then I found myself a husband and thought about moving away from the punk rock house of my youth to become a Respectable Adult." It's not neat, it's not tidy, it rambles.

But I think that's also why it works. We grow older and our needs change, and the path to our values growing clearer to us isn't neat either. I appreciated the honesty with which the author depicted that conflict, because it was relatable to me. In short: it's an enjoyable read, but not the book to pick up if you're expecting a story about disaster tenants or HGTV-style remodeling.

[Tanya Bettencourt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. I’m sure a big part of that is because it was written by a local that is around my age, who shares many of my beliefs, it takes place in Providence, and was published by Feminist Press. This is a memoir of a local who decided to purchase a tenement house in Federal Hill during the housing bubble and her experiences with being a landlord, the seedy history of Federal Hill, and the ups and downs of love in her 20’s and 30’s. I really related to the author and appreciated that another woman has had similar feelings that I tend to push away and try not to feel. I needed this book at this moment in my life. Anyone else love when a book puts things into perspective for you?
My two favorite “damn I felt that” quotes from the book:
“We spend out entire lives working up to something, and when we finally get it, we start finding all it’s faults.”
“My old tendency toward romantic speculation, of striving to figure a person out and then trying to force our goals to coincide.”
**Support Your Local Artist and Businesses**
I purchased this book at Riff Raff, a local bookstore, coffee shop and bar in Providence that has a generous selection/section of local authors. That section of the store is my absolute favorite. This is a great place to support local business and artists.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

What started off as a novel with a lot of potential veered off track in the last third. I was expecting (and hoping for) a novel about people interacting in a specific environment. I expected to have the house become a character with challenges and personality. What happened was the “obstacles” were more like bumps (the plumbing broke so I fixed it and on to next subject). The tenants got descriptions at move in but despite extended tenancy they never grew or changed. The last third of the book was a lecture on the economy in Rhode Island and the state of rental properties and how neighborhoods are losing character. What happened to the elderly neighbor? What happened in the houses around you? The author lost the most important part of the book; the heart of the story. Don’t tell me about gentrification issues in a long diatribe, show me! Develop your characters. I get that they’re real people but no one lives in your house for years and never changes beyond the stock character you painted them as at move in.

[richard e vezina · Rating 5 out of 5]

My memories of city living

So I don’t forget because I can ramble ( I loved this story and author, on a scale of 1 to 10 it is certainly a fourteen!) this book had me sneaking into my bedroom to read early. My early formative years were spent in a three decker in Providence. Next to St Mary’s church , Barton street. Lived through so many great times and a few not so great. I had a feeling like bonding with this house . My boyhood paper route ended on Courtland street near Penn St. the garden scenes with Italian neighbors brought back wonderful memories. Made me almost want to be back their again. Our city block was our world and what a world it was. Like I said, I can ramble. Keep writing with your wit and finesse and honesty and hopefully I will read you again real soon. Capt. Richard E Vezina Ret. Thank you

[Sara Gerot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was great. I love talking about and thinking about property. Real estate. City planning. What it all means. The rigmarole of it all. How property can be something that feels like weight holding us back, or down, or prohibits entry, or sets us free, offering security, or profit. How quickly it can turn on a dime. This book explores the meaning of this journey of acquirement. And the feelings of never-enoughess that arise internally even at the best of times.
I thought that thinking about her body as a structure that she also had a difficult journey to understanding how to care for mirrored that of her struggle externally with the house. The writing was great. Fresh. Fun. Even though this writer's story is so different than I really identified with so much of it. The end was really moving to me. Best memoir I've read in some time.

[Barbara Law · Rating 2 out of 5]

**This book was chosen without any previous knowledge about it.**

I have to admit that this book did not keep my interest. The first few chapters were engaging and I enjoyed reading them, but after that the author lost me. From about a third of the way through the book it just started going off on what felt like endless tangents. I got the feeling that each chapter was some sort of stream of consciousness exercise that happened to get published. Compounded with the fact that a lot of the details of the author's life outside of PennHedge just seemed unnecessary and, frankly, uninteresting to me. By the time I got to the Economies of Scale chapter I was just forcing myself through.

Overall, great start but did not continue in a way that I enjoyed.

[Deb Heyden · Rating 1 out of 5]

So pathetic I had to skip some chapters of her whining about situations that she put herself into. She is political and thinks it's acceptable to make typical political complaints about people she is stereotyping and knows nothing about. She tries to make herself out to be some strong liberated woman who continually gets stepped on and used, all in the name of being anti-capitalist and yet privileged. She is not strong when she continually allows people to walk all over her. Her continued complaining about her life is exhausting, and the fact that she is in all these relationships with men that are complete train wrecks is just ridiculous. I guess if you want to feel better about your own life decision making, this book might be for you. The author is not someone I'll ever read again.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in [almost] one sitting and immediately picked up my computer to write this review. I didn't expect to be so engrossed in the life of a total stranger. Vikki's experiences as a woman, as a landlady, and as a writer are so wonderfully vivid, even the experiences that may seem mundane and may not inspire much enthusiasm (i.e. crumbling basements and sexist plumbers). The book sneakily leads you through a large chunk of a person's life, and it tricks you into feeling like you've made a friend of whom you are enormously proud for growing more competent, more capable, and more compassionate as you make your way through the chapters. I absolutely adored it.