Birnam Wood
A substitute teacher and his girlfriend reside as caretakers in a large, lakeside house for the winter, in this short story from 2012.
T.C. Boyle on being young and broke: cooking Chef Boyardee by candlelight after the landlord cut the electricity, drinking Burgundy from a gallon jug, the house "crepitating" around them. The summer had been swimming naked in lakes nobody else knew existed. Now it was rain drooling from the eaves into pots.