The Housing Problem

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After signing a standard cohabitation contract, he for the second time and she for the third, Melvin Quax and Myra Spelman honeymooned on the Costa Antarctica, where for eight glorious days they bathed in the solar warmth beamed down from UN Power Station One.

Returning to Toronto-Buffalo they continued their desperate search for a place to live. Temporarily they were crammed into Melvin’s tiny studio apartment in the north end of town, just inside the perimeter of the Godfrey Dome. They needed more space, but space was impossible to find. The vacancy rate was a slim 0.02 per cent that year, well below the 0.05 per cent recommended by housing specialists. New building was at an all-time low in this year of 2080, there being hardly anywhere left to build.

After three months in Melvin’s cramped little apartment, tempers were beginning to fray. Melvin could hardly move without bumping into Myra, and vice versa. Perhaps other people could have lived more peaceably in such close contact. But Melvin, a tree surgeon by profession, had grown accustomed to the vast open spaces of the city’s parks (some as large as a hundred metres square) while Myra needed space for her hobby, which was weaving. Unable to set up her loom and give vent to her creative energies, she found herself picking on Melvin.

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