Illustration by Drew Shannon
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In the 10 months since I arrived in Montreal, I sublet three different apartments in three different neighbourhoods.
I have always been able to quickly make myself at home. This occurred to me in a moment of lucidity while sitting on the floor in my pyjamas looking through a collection of records that wasn’t my taste. Really, the whole apartment was not exactly done to my taste. It was far more kitsch than I would ever have a place furnished. But in just a few months I’d be moving to another sublet anyway, so why not spin the records and enjoy the décor while I could?
I had always wanted to live in Montreal. Not just visit but experience it like a local. The discovery of a great Canadian city and wanderlust tugged at me. It wasn’t feasible until my work went remote, then it wasn’t feasible because I was on a budget, I didn’t know anyone there and I hardly owned anything to fill an apartment.
Rental websites were a drag – too daunting. I wanted a lower commitment with less stress. To me, that meant living in the city for longer than a vacation without having to bring a mattress across provincial lines and no need to change the address on my driver’s licence.
I found an ad online that read: “Apartment for sublet in the heart of Little Italy, November to April.” Huh. It was furnished in the pictures and the poster seemed well rounded. No red flags, so I e-mailed my interest. Then I called.
Soon, I was in Montreal for a weekend to shake hands and go over details. Details, of course, being the nuances of the apartment like the plants that need watering, the door that needs an extra push to close and how to work the espresso machine.
On my first night in the apartment, I dealt with that curious energy that accompanies any move by looking around my new dwelling. I familiarized myself with the new reading selection and cooking ingredients to try. I read the postcards on the fridge. I examined the art. The curiosities of a stranger’s quarters led me to believe that I could discover much more than just the city here; and new encounters are a joy of subletting.
Moving into a second sublet validated what I had long suspected, that nice apartments tend to be the ones for sublet. Tenants with clean, well-situated apartments rarely want to give them up, even if it means paying rent while out of town. If it’s rent controlled and comfortable then renters want to keep their leases.
I discovered that each apartment was a good base from which to step out and explore because even getting groceries is uncharted when you are new to the neighbourhood. Wandering to parks and metro stations and must-try eateries helped me get to know Montreal. By the time I moved out of my third and final sublet, my mental map of the city had taken good form and I could joke about generalizing Montreal apartments; perhaps none include a microwave but many subscribe to The New Yorker and possess a respectable library of records and battered books that includes, at the very least, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.
Moving without many belongings brought a lot of novelty. Being a subletter isn’t for everyone and subletting your space definitely isn’t for everyone.
Responsibilities often come up that amount to more than just picking up the keys. Watering plants? Sure. Bringing in the mail? No problem. But I became “the guy in the apartment,” too. I was a channel for building maintenance crews and plumbers and had to field landlord inquiries. One sublessor even called me from Thailand to ask if I could spend half an hour on video chat to go through their mail and look for an important document.
It was a unique exercise in trust. Trust between subletters and sublessors is necessary and felt stronger than, say, a landlord-tenant agreement, or even the trust needed between roommates. We counted on each other and, without that, they could never have travelled and paid the rent and I wouldn’t have been able to experience so many slices of life in the city.
The sublessors assured me I would eventually want to settle in Montreal. They were right. By the time I had seen enough of the city to begin acquiring my own furniture for my own apartment, I knew some trustworthy people who were able to lend a hand.
Nicolas Allard lives in Montreal.