2005-07-25

Where Would I Go?


My landlord is super-mad at me and I find the whole thing laughable.
I wanted to move to a bigger place.
He called and asked me to have my current crib clean to the point where he can "just come in and paint".
Ha!
Not possible.
I've been there for 2.5 years and the place needs to be deep cleaned. I neither have the time to do that, nor the inclination. I have, however, paid over $10,000 in rent and deposits and I don't understand why he wouldn't put out the $40 it would cost to have it cleaned.
Not only do I not understand the theory behind his stubborn inability to take care of my place but I am being threatened with eviction, illegally, because he's angry with me for pointing out the obvious.
He asked me to be blunt and so I was. Here's the quote that killed the relationship:
"As your friend, I am very empathetic to everything that's gone on at the property lately; as your tenant, my inclination is to say that it's not my problem." He got so mad after I was blunt at his own bidding.
Spoiled little man.... you may not like it but it's true. It's not my problem and I have been an exemplary tenant for you, not to mention your longest tenant.

Here's the list of things that I've done for him or endured over the years:
** Paid for the property to be sprayed,
** Laid tile in the bathroom per his instruction,
** Found years-old food in the crawlspace that probably contributed to the roach situation which is now non-existent,
** Spent 1.5 to 2 hours per day watering the property on two separate occasions for longer than a week each while you were abroad,
** Replaced two tires that were damaged by the driveway,
** Have lived with no over-head light in my bedroom since it broke when I tried to change the light bulb (a bulb which had never been replaced by me and which must have been at least three years old),
** Can't clean the fridge thoroughly because the kitchen sink is held up by a broom stick on top of the fridge,
** Have a kitchen sink that stops up for no apparent reason and taken the blame for it (I have always used a paper towel to wipe out pans before washing them, just like my mother did) and once, I waited almost 7 days for repair and had to do dishes in the bathroom sink,
** Have had the mail-lady threaten to cease delivery (After the second notice, she verbally informed us that she would not be delivering the mail so Mr. Capable fixed it) because the mailbox was falling off of its anchor,
** Discovered cats murdered and buried in a shallow driveway grave by a former tenant's crazy ex-girlfriend,
** Watched the hole in the living room ceiling (that I showed to him last summer) grow,
** Was advised to tape over the hole that has always been in the bathroom window,
** Listened sympathetically as he vented about Mark H. ripping up the carpet that was making his child ill and devaluing the apartment, about Avi filling the nail holes and not painting with a matching color, about having to re-paint Matt's apartment after he offered to do it for you, about Robert's converting the closet space to a useful, full-sized refrigerator which probably gave that apartment more appeal to future renters.

In the latest email, he's trying to apply a clause in my lease that says you have to have permission to have a pet and that because I didn't get explicit permission for Rosie, I can be evicted. Actually, I do have permission because I got permission when a friend dumped a cat off at my door 2.5 years ago. The lease does not specify the type of pet, nor does it specify that you have to have permission for each pet.
If he evicts me based on that clause, he'll need to evict at least three other tenants to avoid a discrimination lawsuit. He has one tenant who is blatantly in violation of the Act and if I continue to endure intimidation tactics and threats, I will go legal on his ass.
And I'm not even kidding.
I pulled out the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act and Revised Statutes Title 33 and Chapter 10 and quoted two sections from it regarding discrimination and retaliation.

You can't put someone in danger of losing housing because she doesn't think it's her responsibility to be concerned about your burn-out. You chose to be a property manager. I chose to work in insurance. Not only do you have rights as a property manager, you have responsibilities as such. I've had to do this with landlords in the past - it comes with the territory of being poor. You get lazy or advantageous people renting to you and they get angry with you, in the former case for not renewing a lease and in the current case, for saying what you are thinking.
You have to be prepared and know your rights. If your landlord wants to get technical, then he has to do so to all tenants.
If your landlord wants to get picky, you better be ready.
This particular landlord seems to have thrown out the window all of the work that I recently did for him, all of the times I have been exceedingly patient while waiting for repairs, all of the crap I've had to hear him complain about, and all of the times I fixed something myself.

If I could move, I would move but right now, I am in the midst of paying for my crimes against the city and I have nothing to fall back on.

Although I am miserable, the blackness in my heart is kind of powering me to new levels of confidence and success. I am full of hate and at the same time, not even close to backing down from what I believe.
That's so new to me. I used to be so big into flight rather than fight and now I am so sick of running away and hiding. I just want to show what I know about my rights as a tenant and I want to move on and have this be over with. There's no reason to perpetuate bad feelings here.
He got mad about something that he asked me to say. I got mad at his reaction.
He's threatening me with eviction and I'm threatening him with the realities of the law regarding eviction.

I'm so tired of poor tenants being screwed over by their landlords. How many phone calls does it take for poor people to get something fixed in their dwelling? How many times do poor people come home to find repairs that are not so much repairs as rigged-up solutions? Why can't poor people be unlikable? I pay my rent every month. I paid all requested deposits. He may not like me right now but he can't use that to find a reason to evict me because that's called discrimination. I live in a neighborhood where there is regular gunfire, where my sink is held in place by a broomstick on the mini-fridge, where even when you're walking the dog a junkie comes up and asks you for money, where the city leaves police tape and barricades behind after an electrical disastor for a week after the disastor has been fixed.
If I lived in a different neighborhood, would I be taken more seriously as a tenant.
Fuck yeah I would.
The landlords behind me complained to Joseph about Rosie, which is why this is even coming up. Joseph dropped off a letter for me about the comlaint and included the wrong phone number and incorrect details of the complaint. I spoke to the complaintant today and have agreed to try a couple of things. The complaintant had the nerve to ask me to get rid of Rosie.
The thing is, Rosie is not violating any city ordinances. I am slightly agoraphobic and 97% of the time, if I'm not at home, I'm on the property and she's with me, not barking. In the year I've owned my car, I've put 5,000 miles on it and that includes a trip to Northern, AZ before these weird feelings of not going out of the house set in. My point?
That dog isn't barking her head off at night or on the weekends and she's better monitored and cared for than a ridiculous amount of junk-yard animals chained behind fences, waiting for their chance to get out and rip your flesh open. My dog is sweet and safe and she's helping me soften a little and assume responsibility for being consistently available in a relationship.
She helps me feel balanced and capable, considering that way too often, I have BIG problem leaving the house.

And this total stranger wants me to get rid of her because she has a barking fit at 1:15 in the afternoon?
Does he call the skin-heads across the street and ask them to please keep the gun-fire to a minimum?
Fuck you, you fucking fuck.

There's no way that all things equal, someone would make the same ludicrous request if I lived in a more upscale environment. Of course there are complaints in those environments but if all things were equal - my hours, the dog's barking schedule, etc... there's no way that someone would make an unreasonable request like the one I got today. Nor would I have gotten the not-too-subtle hint that my landlord is looking for a reason to evict me now that I have hurt his feelings.

I've helped the dude out a million and one times and the first time I am both unable and unwilling to help out he gets pissy and threatens eviction? I don't think words can describe how I feel about that.
I'll be spending the afternoon metaphysically draping myself in an invisible cloak of invisibility.
God I hate that punk.
I wonder if we could figure out how to harness hating slum lords and power vehicles with that hatred. I would never have to buy gasoline again.

arizonasarah at 11:47 a.m.

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