Renting an apartment in Tehran can be very difficult for singles. Being single carries a stigma. Landlords don’t want to take you in. They assume single men will turn their property into a party house, and women will use it for prostitution. It’s a messed-up way of thinking. Culturally, it’s also more acceptable to live with one’s parents before marriage, which comes with its own set of challenges.
I remember looking for an apartment near my place of work in Sa’adat Abad. After a few rejections, I finally found a decent one. I went to check it out with my dad. The rental was directly across from the landlord’s own unit. As we were about to leave, he turned to my dad and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her. I’ll make sure there are no suspicious comings and goings.” That didn’t sit right with me. But I went ahead and signed the lease.
A few days later, one of my guy friends came with me to see the apartment one more time before I moved in. After we left, the landlord called my dad and asked if I was going to make a habit of bringing strange men around.
I was furious. So furious. I broke the lease. I absolutely was not going to move there.
My friend’s uncle had an empty apartment in Pounak. He’d seen me a couple of times and we had talked about the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, whom he adored. He was impressed that I knew her music and songs. He liked me, so he said I could live there.
He did not want a deposit, and the rent was about $400 for a two-bedroom two-bathroom apartment. Usually, landlords require large deposits on top of the monthly rent. Ten to fifteen years ago, deposits were around 5 to 10 million tomans. Nowadays, they’ve become astronomical.
I wasn’t really familiar with the area, but growing up, I had always heard from older family members that Pounak used to belong to my grandfather’s family. My grandfather was orphaned very young and when his father died, Farman Farma—a Qajar-era politician—seized their land. Even though there was a deed, the heirs could never reach an agreement among themselves to pursue it legally and reclaim Pounak.
I found it kind of amusing that I was going to be living in an area that was my ancestral land.
The first week I moved into that Pounak apartment, I was coming home one afternoon and had the shock of my life. These old men who lived on the alley where the apartment was located were all sitting outside in their underpants — in pyjama kurdi — with worn-out undershirts. They were sitting on these foldable chairs in front of their homes, drinking tea , chatting with each other, and playing backgammon. One guy was playing the radio. A couple of kids were kicking around a football. Very chaotic and loud. It was just something I’d never experienced before.
Tehran is a big city with big-city behaviors, maybe like New York. Nobody talks to anybody. Everyone ignores each other. That’s how it was in the neighborhoods I’d lived in before. So seeing people out in the alley like that — just hanging out like it was the most normal thing in the world — was completely new to me.
The building I moved into had maybe 20 or 30 units. Apartment buildings usually have a manager. They hold little elections and decide who the modir will be. Even in smaller apartment buildings —the ones with just four units — there’s always one unit that takes on the role. In those cases, the responsibility rotates and every year a different unit becomes the modir.
Every month or every couple of months, the buildings hold a meeting. Tenants, landlords, and homeowners have to show up, and that’s where decisions are made. If, say, they decide to pressure-wash the building, it has to be proposed and approved in that meeting.
The modir’s job is to keep the building clean, pay the communal bills, hire someone if the heating system breaks, handle plumbing issues that affect the whole building, elevator maintenance and upkeep if the building has one, and in the spring have the straw changed in the evaporative coolers on the rooftop for the warm seasons. To cover these expenses, residents pay a monthly fee that he collects.
The modir also sometimes acts as a mediator. If neighbors have a dispute over parking space or someone is making too much noise, they take their grievance to the building manager.
His job also includes hiring a Serayedar (building super) who handles the cleaning and yard work. Most buildings, or at least many of them, have supers, and they’re usually Afghan.This building was the only one I’ve ever lived in that had an Iranian one.
Part of the super’s job is to collect the trash every evening. The city picks up the garbage every night around nine so the trash is collected at 8 pm.
I saw him again and asked, ‘Hey, what happened with those guys?’… And he said, ‘It was probably a family issue.’ A family issue?! Men with knives storming into the building?!
The Iranian super was incredibly lazy. He had no interest in doing his job. You’d leave your trash bag behind your apartment door at night, and it would still be there the next morning. He hadn’t collected it. Sometimes it would sit there for two days.
I remember one time, I was leaving the building, and just as I stepped outside, a few motorcycles pulled up, followed by a Pride car. These big, burly men jumped off the bikes and out of the car, each one holding a ghameh (machete) and rushed into our building. I was completely taken aback. I’d never seen anything like that in my life.
So I rang the super’s bell — he lived in a small unit down in the garage — and told him what had just happened. “I think you need to call the police,” I said. “There are armed men running into the building with big knives.” Then I went about my day.
Later, I saw him again and asked, “Hey, what happened with those guys?”
He just shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t call the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
And he said, “It was probably a family issue.”
A family issue?! Men with knives storming into the building?! It was absurd. I didn’t stay more than six months in that building. Then I moved to a neighborhood in North Tehran, where things were very different.
That building also had a bulletin board where residents posted ads for various services. Someone offered tailoring and alterations. Another girl would come to your home to do haircuts, coloring, and blowouts. I booked her for a blowout once. She came, did the most mediocre job imaginable, and kept complaining, “You have so much hair. This is really hard. I can’t do it.”
Finally, I told her to leave. After she was gone, I flat-ironed my hair myself because the way she’d done it made it too poofy.
There was also a lady who did nails. A guy who handled mechanical work, and if your car broke down, you could call him. And there were even ads for tutors.
That building was the only place I’ve ever lived that had something like that. It was kind of its own little ecosystem — chaotic, dysfunctional, but oddly self-contained.
The next building I moved into was much bigger — with somewhere between 40 and 60 units, divided into two wings: the East Wing and the West Wing. I lived on the first floor of the East Wing.
The building manager was a retired Air Force colonel, and he was so dedicated. They had elections for building manager — I never attended any, but he always won. He was just that effective. He stayed on top of everything. For Nowruz, he would set up haft-seens in the building. For Christmas — maybe because we had Armenians in the building, or maybe just because he felt like it — they’d decorate the two miniature cypress trees in the courtyard with lights and ornaments.
The haft-seen he arranged for Nowruz wasn’t some basic symbolic setup — it had all the proper items: sabzeh, seer, senjed, sonbol (hyacinth), sekkeh, serkeh, Sumac, and beautiful sweets. There’d be one at the entrance of each wing, so when you walked into the lobby, you were greeted with a warm, festive display, just like in a home. It was really tasteful. Not cheap-looking at all.
The super in this building was Afghan — he had been working there since he was 11 years old, which was honestly tragic. He lived in a little room in the garage, and he followed the colonel everywhere. They were very close. The colonel treated him like a son, or at least that’s how it seemed to me.
This super was really on top of everything. From treating the entire building for bugs and planting violets in the front yard for spring, to collecting the trash every night, he handled everything quickly and efficiently. Unlike the previous building, this guy was actually invested. Every night, residents would leave their trash out, and it got collected. If there was no trash outside your door, he’d knock just to make sure you hadn’t forgotten.
The building also had a shared satellite dish — not individual dishes for each unit, but a large one for all the apartments. Since satellite dishes are illegal in Iran, every once in a while, the police would raid neighborhoods to confiscate them. If the building’s front door or gate was left open, or if someone opened it for them, the police would storm inside, dismantle the system, toss it off the roof top and fine the building.
But the modirs on our street had a whole system in place. From the first building to the last one on that block, they all had each other’s numbers. If the police showed up, one of them would immediately alert the others. As soon as they got the call, each building manager would flip the circuit breaker — cutting electricity to the entire building. That way, when the cops rang doorbells, nothing would happen. No one would be disturbed. No one would hear the intercom and accidentally open the door. The super would then quietly go door-to-door, letting residents know what was happening: “The cops are here for the satellite. Don’t open the door. Stay inside.”
Sometimes, the super would even call you directly to warn you. Once, I had a cab waiting outside, and just as I was stepping out, I saw the police standing by the gate, banging on it. They saw me and shouted, “Come on, open up!” I just shook my head, backed up, and went inside. Then I called my workplace and said, “The police are here for our satellite dish, and the building’s on lockdown.” And they were like, “Okay, no problem, stay safe — we’ll see you tomorrow.” It was a completely valid excuse to skip work.
One day — this was some time later — I came home and saw the Afghan super, and I’m blanking on his name now, but he was such a nice guy. He was sitting in the front yard, wearing black, crying. I asked what had happened, but he was too distraught to answer. Later I found out from the family across the hall.
Apparently, the police had come again on one of their satellite raids when I wasn’t home. The colonel was returning home right as the police showed up. He reached for his key to open the front door but saw them and put the key back in his pocket and stood there. The police ordered him to open the door and let them in, but he refused.
Then they started shouting and swearing at him.
You have to understand — this man was a respected retired colonel. He was polite, well-mannered, and dignified. Being treated like that — especially by some young conscript soldier with no rank — was unbearable.
Every man in Iran has to go to military service unless they can get a medical exemption for things like poor eyesight, flat feet, a serious illness, etc, or they are their mom’s guardian or sole provider. Conscripts then get assigned to the army, navy, IRGC, or police. The police often send their conscript soldiers on satellite raids. So here was this colonel — a man who had dedicated his life to the military — being insulted by some nobody without a military rank, just a kid in uniform.
And right there, in the middle of all that humiliation, he had a heart attack, and he died.
It was really sad. I don’t think I ever learned his real name because everyone always called him Colonel.
They put up a framed photo of him with a black ribbon in the lobby — on both sides of the building — along with dates and trays of halva for a few days. It was a very sad story.
I didn’t watch TV. I barely ever turned mine on. But when I told a friend about what happened, she said, “That colonel lost his life so you could have satellite TV. You need to honor him by turning it on. Watch something or leave it on. Even if it’s just an hour a day.”
And I actually did that. Every time I turned it on, I’d say, “This is for you, Sarhang. Rest in Peace”
The colonel’s story didn’t make the news — at least not in Iran — but I did find a brief mention of it. I think it was on one of those websites like Radio Farda. There was a short piece about it. It was sad.
Not long after that, our good-natured super went back to Afghanistan.