The Saga of the Landlady(epic)

[shankyknitter]

Ah Brenda strikes again. Gather 'round boys and girls as I share the story of my day.

I wake up and what do I see as soon as I get in the living room? A pay or surrender notice. Now a bit of background on this notice-

We'd deducted certain expenses off our rent this month after confirmation with Brenda that she'd accept them. These expenses were the bug bombs for the fleas as well as the re-activation fee for our gas. The gas went out because Brenda had her name on the wrong mailbox and we never received a bill. This all amounted to about $85 USD.

Today, taped to our front door, is a notice from Brenda stating we've got three days to pay this $85 USD or vacate the premises. Should we decide to ignore the notice she'll sue us for the money make us pay her legal fees and have us evicted by a city marshal.

Please, allow me to explain the ways in which this is A. stupid and B. not legally valid.

1. she'd agreed to the rent deductions. Verbally and refused to put them in writing. (I know I know our bad for not having her write them down)
2. in order for her to go after her legal fees it needs to be stated in our lease that any legal fees incurred by her in regards to us are our responsibility. It doesn't.
3. We live in a village. Also there haven't been city marshals where I live since the '70s.

We paid the money however we're taking her to small claims court to get it back, looking for a way out of the lease and filing federal charges for mail tampering because of the mail box. We're getting a notarized statement from the mailman about our mail getting shut off as well as going after her for not having use of the garage or driveway that we're paying for as well as her usage of our patio furniture when her apartment has a porch. And several other things we've got her on that I can't remember at the moment. But according to my I'm-a-pseudo-daughter attorney friends we've got a strong ass case for not only getting out of our lease but getting her sent off to jail and having her owe us money.

[Der Cute]

Shanky, please make sure you can convict this Cnut. She does not deserve to be a landlady. Nor even a hosebeast.

I'm glad your lawyer-parents are helping you, may want to make some supergood cookies and brownies for their firm.

Don't forget about "does the building come up to code" "does it meet fire requirements" etc.

And - when charges are slapped on, most of them are argued/negotiated away &down. You could have her arrested for mail tampering, assholeness and general fraud, but it might boil down to assholeness and misdemeanor fraud. Don't get your hopes up that she'll hang. Bruise and be punished yes, but not hung.

Cutenoob

[shankyknitter]

Don't forget about "does the building come up to code" "does it meet fire requirements" etc.

Nope and nope. The previous tenets took down all the fire alarms and took them with them after painting over the sockets for them. Landlady appraised of situation, has done nada.

light fixture in the dining room has a cord frayed into a fire hazard. She's been told about this too. She told us she was on limited income and we'd have to wait. We've been watching packages come almost every day for her. Including but not limited too: satellite tv receivers, a padded headboard and 10 or so packages from trading companies.

[Peppergirl]

PLEASE keep us posted on this, SK



My landlords are getting divorced. She's cool, he's a dick. Guess which one my property is going to in the settlement.


I feel for you, hon. I'm glad you're standing up to her.

[shankyknitter]

So yesterday's fail-

Brenda decided to entertain her friends in the driveway. This would be fine if not for the facts of:

1. Her apartment has a fracking porch for her to sit outside on. She doesn't need to sit in the driveway
2. In order to do this she screwed us out of parking by parking at the base of the driveway to prevent us from pulling in the driveway and crashing (literally) her party.
3. the patio furniture in the driveway is ours. Not hers. She'd not only used it but moved it on us to continue using it where it would be most comfortable.

How did she react when informed that the furniture was ours and we wished to use it?

"Well I used to have a set just like it."

When reminded about the porch?

"The dog wanted to be in the grass."

When told to pull up because she was screwing us in parking?

"Well the car isn't owned by you and therefore I don't have to let you park in my driveway."


For the record we can't use the garage that we're paying for because her couch is in there and she doesn't want exhaust getting on it. So to prevent us from getting to the garage she moved all the things like the grill and lawnmower on our side. And parks so far down in the driveway we can't get in. yes this is being brought up in court. We've already decided to sue her.

[phantasy]

Sue that b*tch! She's definately the landwhore from hell! (She doesn't fall under the category of landlady)

[Binky]

Oh god this woman is a bitch and a half! Please keep us updated.

[shankyknitter]

well we got a bit of revenge on her last night . We went to take out the trash, and lo and behold she'd filled both cans and we had no where to but our trash for the week. So my uncle took a closer look at what was filling the cans.

Unbundled wood scraps (think big sticks and stuff like that), and grass clippings. Both of which are illegal to put in cans where I live. Wood scraps, the big ones she had in the cans, have to be bundled and left at the curb. Grass clippings need to be in clear bags and also left at the curb for pick up. Just breaking one of these rules is a $25 fine for the first infraction, $50 for the second, $100 for the third, and $500 for the fourth. Lets count the infractions boys and girls!

1. placing rubbish in someone else's can to the point of it being unusable by the designated owner.
2. unbundedled wood
3. grass clippings in open black bag in the can.

All tallied up that's $175 in fines, since its her first, second, and third infraction, and they stack. The other bit we're getting her on when the inspector comes (Oh yes we called a home inspector) is the fact that our apartment isn't up to code. We don't have smoke detectors or monoxide detectors, and there's a fire hazard in the form of a frayed chandelier cord in our dining room. I didn't even look at what the fines were for that.

This is all before we take her to court to get back the $85 we had to pay because of her pay or surrender notice, as well as the $50 a month retroactive from the time my aunt and uncle moved in Upstairs (so a year and a half of $50, that's $900) for not being able to use the garage. So just because she pissed us off enough that we're not taking it anymore and we're pinging her on everything she's going to owe:

$985- to us as outlined above
~$250- estimated fines to the state after fire code violations
? - her lawyer fees.

I'm giggly right now. Our lawyer said after looking at it that she's dead in the water.

[Sliceanddice]

did you call the town and take pictures of the trash? she might try to make it sound like you did it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

did you call the town and take pictures of the trash? she might try to make it sound like you did it.

I'm guessing that was her plan. She put illegal stuff in their cans and it doesn't sound like she tried to hide it (open bag of grass clippings?)...

[shankyknitter]

Called the town last night, inspector came out, and we've got pictures. We covered our asses on that one.

[Eric the Grey]

I'm giggly right now. Our lawyer said after looking at it that she's dead in the water.

Just be aware that if she claims to not have the money to pay you (after the court hearing and she's found in the wrong) you'll (or your lawyer) may have to dig into her finances in order to find out how to get it from her. In CO, you could put a lien on her property and collect the rent being paid to her until it's paid up, or on any other form of income. Just saying it could be a pain in the rear to collect.

Other than that, I can't wait to hear what happens next.


Eric the Grey

[AdminAssistant]

Have you found a new place yet? I mean, getting your money back and sticking it to her would be great, but I'd be focusing on moving out of that hellhole.

[shankyknitter]

yes we've found a new place, my aunt and uncle are moving in after I go back to school so I don't have to move twice over the course of a month.

We're moving into my uncle's father's house. Living there rent free so long as we fix the basement before we move in since the previous tenants didn't tell anyone when it flooded, meaning we need to rip up carpet, replace drywall ect...

But its the house my uncle grew up in so he is more than willing to keep it maintained and do all sorts of yard work and what not. Getting out of here in September.

[paxillated]

Another thing you can do if she won't pay up is sell the award to a collection agency. They'll only pay you a percentage of it, but it might be worth it, just for the thought of her dealing with collections agents. Eric the Gray's idea is probably better.

Ah, crazy landlords... Two tales from the '70s:

I sued one, once. The fool was actually a lawyer, and thought that would keep me from complaining... I had an inspector, too, and in addition to my things - a live wire hanging down in the yard, holes in the bathroom drywall, a broken window in the bedroom (all of which he had promised to fix before I moved in - he didn't even clean the place) and the single trashcan shared by me and the family upstairs - he found 7 more violations!

I had looked up the law, did everything by the book, and the nice lawyer I hired won easily. Poor nice lawyer, he made less than minimum wage for the hours he put in. What a nice and kind man.

Then there was my learning experience about "never rent from family." She was my best friend's mother in law. I knew she was a bit of a loony, but she was nice enough to me. I was renting the basement, and the tenant above me would play the same ugly song over and over, loud enough to hear across the street. And would not respect the fact that I worked late. Yes, I complained.

So LL (loony landlady) came over one day to do some yardwork, and I helped. As we were chatting, upstairs B-yotch thumps over to her stereo, and the ugly song blasts out of the window, drowning our conversation. LL, shocked, says, "Is THIS what you've been putting up with?" I nod my head, and she stomps upstairs and gives B-yotch 30 days notice. Yippee! I get to move upstairs! LL is mad because the nice curtains that had been there were gone. B-yotch loses her security deposit.

Wait for it...

So, I'm happy. With LL's permission, I make some improvements, and knock it off the rent. My bedroom was the former back porch. All that made it a room was windows put in the open bits - not even caulked. It wasn't insulated, and got coooollld in the winter. I caulk the windows. I rent a machine and blow the ceiling full of warm stuff. I find the old curtains (which were nice; no idea why B-yotch stuffed them in one of the kitchen cabinets), get them cleaned, and re-hang them. I paint the kitchen. I get secondhand carpet, and lay it down over the ugly, ancient linoleum. I enjoy the renovated apartment for two or three months.

Then LL comes over one day... she says, "Wow! this place is really nice, now!" - and gives me 30 days notice, so she can move in herself!

Later, my best friend told me that LL had broken out the front window, and the wall below it, to get her hot tub in. She put it on all that carpet I had put down, with predictable results.

Yep, ya can't fix stupid.

Pax

"When you find yourself arguing with an idiot, you might want to reconsider who the idiot is!" -Someone smarter than me.