Reply #16: Morning Marketeers....

[AnneD]

:donut: and lurkers. Julie, I'm with you. Too much Shake and Bake on Wall Street. I think now is the time for tangible assets...and speaking of tangible assets

My Tale of Woe


As many of you know, I have an evil landlord, a slum lord actually. They were doing construction in front of the apartment for most of the time we have been there. It was a a hassle dealing with everything. We developed a leak in the ceiling and complained about it and was ignored (the new building took precedence). The repairman came out and said he could patch it but the roof was under warranty and a patch to the ceiling would not solve the problem. This was in May. I told the landlord that the problem had gotten worse in July and he basically blew me off. In late Oct and early Nov, the plaster peeled off and fell. We had anticipated it and were ok. We now have multiple leaks.

During the month of Nov. I payed rent (he insists on a check under the mat). He had asked me to write a letter stating that I understood the plants around the house and that we only had one parking space (forget that several tenants don't have cars and have given us the ok to use their space). I thought that he wanted the letter in 30 days-Dec).Long story short as I can make it, he refused to take the check sans letter and told me on 12th that he would start eviction. I wrote a cleverly worded letter which stated what he wanted but also said that I had attempted to pay rent, had made arrangement with other tenants about the cars, and had moved plants. I put this under the mat and lo and behold the wind must have blown it away on the 14th :sarcasm:. Well I and Hubby went to talk to him, with a witness. He lied about not picking it up til the 14th, and while we had a bad wind on the 13th, I have never seen wind that picked up just a mat, blew the check and letter away, and replaced the mat totally turned around. He was shocked that I had made copies of the letter and the missing check (guess he didn't see that coming-I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday and I do know my rights). The next day I made made more copies of the letter, canceled the check and handed it to one of his employees in the physical therapy building. Today, I paid rent (less the $25 for the canceled check). I hope I hear nothing more from him. One tenant has left and I overheard him being abusive to another tenant and threaten her with eviction.

What he doesn't know yet is that Hubby and I are so sick of being treated like this that we broke down and started looking and got a fantastic deal on a travel trailer (3K) have found a great place to park it ($400 per month) at a brand spanking new RV resort that is 5 minutes away from our jobs. I will be putting some things in storage, but even with that we will come out ahead. We can tough it out for 18 more months (child support ends so instead of living on my half check-I get the whole check).

It may sound crazy but I am so happy about it. That last move nearly killed me. This will be such a refreshing change. I will begin to pare my things down after Christmas by having garage sales as the weather improves and how nice just to pay lot rent, no slum lord snooping through stuff. I am not looking forward to moving at Christmas time, but this WILL be the last time for a few years.

Happy hunting and watch out for the bears.