Having recently moved, 27-year old Loni Bancroft inquiries at a small urban apartment building about an advertised vacancy. The landlord and building superintendent Karl Gunther, an older German man, hospitably gives her a tour of the apartment, telling her that its last tenant was a young woman who disappeared without paying rent. During the tour, Gunther secretly performs a wikt:masochistic ritual, holding his hand over an open stove-top flame.