Landlords are Vermin
Oct. 12th, 2000 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupI received a rude shock last night. Finally called at a time my former landlady in Baltimore would pick up the damn phone. Where's the $625 security deposit that's been due since we moved out at the end of July? Oh, she had to fumigate for fleas and pay a cleaning service to clean the house. Hm. So how much did this all cost? She really couldn't say. She was, y'know, looking for the receipts.
It makes me so angry when you can hear someone lie and you have to stay civil, you can't be like, "You are a fucking LIAR, how can you say that??" This woman spent the past 5 years telling us what great god damn tenants we were. I don't doubt that when you take THREE WEEKS to inspect a house and the fridge has been at room temperature it's a little dirty. But she's all like, "we had to clean the oven." A) I clean the oven every year at Passover, so what's up with that, and B) I wasn't aware that oven cleaning was on the usual list of "damages" to the property.
And on it went. The more I was like, "you were here a month before we moved out and didn't say a thing," the more she tried to make stuff up out of thin air, this was dirty, that was dirty. Unfuckingbelievable. The best joke is that you should have seen the place when it was moved into. She left her god damn Worstershire sauce and half of her food there. And this woman NEVER lifted a finger to fix things that were wrong with the place. We had a leaky bathtub and it took her 6 months to call a plumber, by which time the leak had destroyed the living room ceiling.
So I hang up and I'm pretty upset. Nothing in this whole world gets to me like being cheated out of money. It stems from being told by my mom for years that I was a babe in the woods without any street smarts who could not look out for myself. And it's true enough. I intrinsically trust people. I once gave a guy a ride in my car to the train station, and he asked me for money, and I gave it to him. He got out and I started to shake after realizing he could have murdered me for my car or whatever and I'd be totally defenseless. I have no brains. I should have had her inspect the house, because there was no flea infestation and no moldy fridge when we left. So I literally could not sleep all night being upset by this kind of thing.
But I look on the ole Internet today, and it would seem that under the LAW the landlord must provide a list of damages within 30 days of the end of the tenancy, and the deposit within 45 days, or you can sue THEM for 3 times the amount of the deposit. There was all kinds of other crap in there too, like how she's supposed to give us 4% interest per year and list our rights in the lease. So I'm thinking I'm gonna get me that money after all, because for once her laziness is going to hurt her. So I feel better.
What is it about landlords? The previous place I lived in Baltimore was a former drug house, needles and all, that the owner let me stay there for free rent. Then he got pissed because he thought I was going to BUY the place. The place before that, the landlady once gave me a whole bizarre song and dance about strange women living in my apartment and me damaging the stairs because I cracked the ice on them in the middle of a blizzard, so I could get food. The place before THAT, was another lady who didn't feel like fixing anything.
I'm sure they all have stories about tenants to justify this. But they act completely to prompt this behavior. If I knew the landlady would keep the $625, I really WOULD have left the place a sty, and all the furniture and junk I moved out (cost of over $130 to hire a guy), and whacked some holes in the wall to boot. You take a look at Baltimore, the whole city is a hole because of idiot landlords with no money who don't feel like fixing their property. They just want the money machine that comes with being the rentier class. All of the benefit, none of the expense.
Absolute bastards.
It makes me so angry when you can hear someone lie and you have to stay civil, you can't be like, "You are a fucking LIAR, how can you say that??" This woman spent the past 5 years telling us what great god damn tenants we were. I don't doubt that when you take THREE WEEKS to inspect a house and the fridge has been at room temperature it's a little dirty. But she's all like, "we had to clean the oven." A) I clean the oven every year at Passover, so what's up with that, and B) I wasn't aware that oven cleaning was on the usual list of "damages" to the property.
And on it went. The more I was like, "you were here a month before we moved out and didn't say a thing," the more she tried to make stuff up out of thin air, this was dirty, that was dirty. Unfuckingbelievable. The best joke is that you should have seen the place when it was moved into. She left her god damn Worstershire sauce and half of her food there. And this woman NEVER lifted a finger to fix things that were wrong with the place. We had a leaky bathtub and it took her 6 months to call a plumber, by which time the leak had destroyed the living room ceiling.
So I hang up and I'm pretty upset. Nothing in this whole world gets to me like being cheated out of money. It stems from being told by my mom for years that I was a babe in the woods without any street smarts who could not look out for myself. And it's true enough. I intrinsically trust people. I once gave a guy a ride in my car to the train station, and he asked me for money, and I gave it to him. He got out and I started to shake after realizing he could have murdered me for my car or whatever and I'd be totally defenseless. I have no brains. I should have had her inspect the house, because there was no flea infestation and no moldy fridge when we left. So I literally could not sleep all night being upset by this kind of thing.
But I look on the ole Internet today, and it would seem that under the LAW the landlord must provide a list of damages within 30 days of the end of the tenancy, and the deposit within 45 days, or you can sue THEM for 3 times the amount of the deposit. There was all kinds of other crap in there too, like how she's supposed to give us 4% interest per year and list our rights in the lease. So I'm thinking I'm gonna get me that money after all, because for once her laziness is going to hurt her. So I feel better.
What is it about landlords? The previous place I lived in Baltimore was a former drug house, needles and all, that the owner let me stay there for free rent. Then he got pissed because he thought I was going to BUY the place. The place before that, the landlady once gave me a whole bizarre song and dance about strange women living in my apartment and me damaging the stairs because I cracked the ice on them in the middle of a blizzard, so I could get food. The place before THAT, was another lady who didn't feel like fixing anything.
I'm sure they all have stories about tenants to justify this. But they act completely to prompt this behavior. If I knew the landlady would keep the $625, I really WOULD have left the place a sty, and all the furniture and junk I moved out (cost of over $130 to hire a guy), and whacked some holes in the wall to boot. You take a look at Baltimore, the whole city is a hole because of idiot landlords with no money who don't feel like fixing their property. They just want the money machine that comes with being the rentier class. All of the benefit, none of the expense.
Absolute bastards.
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no subject
Date: 2000-10-14 12:39 pm (UTC)At least yours was kind of shy and guilty about it. "Umm no, because we had to ummm, uhh fumigate and clean. How much did it cost? I have the bills somewhere ... So, please go fuck yourself and if you want the money, sue me."
Now, she honestly believes that it is her money and her thinking is, "If he wants the money, he can drive down to Baltimore three times and hire a lawyer to do the same and take me to small claims court where the case will get bumped and I will lie and lie and lie and lie and lie."