Owning a house is the dream of many people who unfortunately cannot afford to buy one and have to fall back on renting a house. Having a home means having a base, a place for yourself where you can feel safe and protected from the outside world in the most difficult days, or a place where you can invite other people and share your joy and your spaces. Renting a house, on the other hand, means continuing to pay indefinitely for something that will never really be yours. The female protagonist of this story received a wonderful surprise from the owner of the house after 23 years of renting.
Jane Sayner, a 74-year-old woman, lived for 23 years in the home of a John Perrett, a local pharmacist. To live in this house, located in St Albans, northwest of Melbourne, in Australia, the woman paid $200 a week. The price of her rent has never changed in the many years she has lived there, and Sayner has always described Perrett as a wonderful landlord, who preferred to receive his money in cash but never wanted more than they had agreed. Jane felt right at home and certainly contributed to making the house cozier: when she first entered, there was nothing at all and even the garden was bare. But thanks to her green fingers, the woman was able to breathe new life into even that patch of land, now full of colorful plants and flowers.
John Perrett, the elderly homeowner, had also realized how fond Jane was of the property – it was easy to understand how well she looked after the house and how meticulously she looked after it. So one day he called the woman and told her something totally unexpected: he would leave her the house forever and at no extra cost.
“One day I got a call from him, he said, ‘I want you to talk to my lawyer, he’s here now, you can give him your full name, because I’m leaving you the whole house,’” Jane recalled. The man, now old, had lived in a retirement home for some time and when he saw how much Jane cared about his property, he decided to give it to her.After all these years of renting it was a bit like cashing in on the house and for Jane it was an incredible gift: she can finally enjoy her retirement.Much later it was discovered that that kind and generous pharmacist, John Perrett, had become a millionaire and never stopped doing good to others.Without children or close relatives, he had the house to Mrs. Sayner and several million dollars to a local hospital.