Kill My Landlord

[sabotabby]

Predictably, the substitute-landlord took issue with the figure on my rent cheque. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that he felt the need to call me, express his dissatisfaction, and make a vague threat of eviction, before he had actually opened the cheque and seen the amount on it. Nor, I might add, is he familiar with the amount that I regularly pay, so I do wonder why he never said anything about my payments being $100 per month less than what he thought they should be.

In other words, he is a spectacular douche.

Anyway, by my count, I was without hot water for 10 days. (He took issue with this too -- claiming that for some of those days there was lukewarm water. I can only assume he means the days where we'd have about five minutes of lukewarm water before it reverted to cool, and finally freezing cold water. This is acceptable in a ridiculously overpriced apartment. In a First World country.)

So essentially, Captain Douchebag believes that since he installed the air conditioner (that I bought) for free, he has documentation claiming that he did everything possible to get us hot water (apparently, that doesn't include actually checking to see if the work was done or asking us if it worked), and since I still "had a roof over my head," his duties as a landlord have been fulfilled for the month. Given that he was supposed to call me to discuss this after the hot water was back (he never called) and before the rent was due, he had plenty of opportunity to offer up a fair figure of his own. He didn't. He basically went along assuming everything was business as usual, which in his case involves being surly and inaccessible to the tenants.

Him: "I guess you've never rented from anyone else before, but my father and I do things differently than other landlords. Any other landlord would have written up an eviction notice."

This is obviously an empty threat -- I believe that I'd have to have been in arrears three months before he could legally evict me, besides which there is a board that deals with such matters. I informed him of this, whereupon he backtracked and said that he wouldn't evict me. He's insisting on talking to me in person. Which will be fun, as I'm going out of town on Thursday.

I guess I should probably be more concerned about this whole thing, but I get this feeling that his father wouldn't be very happy to come back from Greece and find out what his son's been up to. Also, I really don't care. I'm not quitting my job until I have a better one, and if I get evicted, I can find a new apartment in a snap.

It's incidents like this, though, that remind me that when we talk about class in brutal and uncompromising terms, we're not being histrionic. No matter how nice a guy he is on the weekends, your boss is still screwing from you. And even if you live in a funky student neighbourhood, your landlord still has the mentality of a slumlord.

In Serious and Scary News: This is from Information Clearing House, so take it with a grain of salt, but it appears that Iraqi children are being imprisoned, raped, and tortured by American soldiers.

Comments

[threeliesforone.livejournal.com]

hey,

i meant to tell you this earlier, but i forgot: a good friend of mine & neighbour is an outreach worker with the federation of metro tenants associations. if you need some advice [which it sounds like you probably don't need...heh], i'm sure i can put you two in touch.

[sabotabby]

Thanks! Well, he just called and said he'd deposit the amount and leave it at that, and his father (who is substantially nicer and saner) could deal with it when he got back from Greece. So I think I'm okay. I'm a bit worried that some of the other people in the building will just let themselves get screwed, but I suppose that's their business, and two of them are moving out this month anyway.

[threeliesforone.livejournal.com]

the landlord/tenant protection act is online...somewheres.

it kinda sounds like he's trying to pocket your money [unless i'm missing something?]. he can't just make up a rent increase, the day rent is due, & then make threatening phone calls. document everything! just in case you feel like taking him to the tribunal if this persists [even after the nicer, saner landlord comes back]. the tribunal likes heavily documented cases, especially seeing as they lean towards the landlord's side.

or you could just move to my 'hood. it's cheap, decent, & best of all: NOT HIP. but usually not nice for those who are used to living nearer/in the core.

[sabotabby]

I think he's just trying to do as little as possible. I can almost sympathize with that, except that one has to do so little to make disgusting amounts of profit as a landlord. He didn't make up a rent increase; he just has no idea of what I'm supposed to pay, and no idea of what I did pay. Of course, had I known he didn't know how much my rent is, I would have given myself a huge discount while my real landlord was gone!

Hmmm...I am quite enamoured of the Annex. My attempts at living in cheaper, non-core locations failed miserably. I'm a bit antisocial, so it's good for me to live in a place where those tendencies are offset a bit. And I prefer walking to biking or taking public transit, not to mention being able to get up for work half an hour before I need to get there.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I thought the post's title was a reference to the Eddie Murphy Saturday Night Live sketch:

Dark and lonely on the summer night.
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking - Do he bite?
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
Slip in his window,
Break his neck!
Then his house
I start to wreck!
Got no reason --
What the heck!
Kill my landlord, kill my landlord.
C-I-L-L ...
My land - lord ...
Def!

[sabotabby]

I utterly missed that cultural reference. Because I am young, and have no sense of humour.

[rote.livejournal.com]

it's going to be interesting to see how this develops. And no, I don't have anything to say about it. :( I just like reading your stories. Sorry if I don't have advice!

[sabotabby]

Ah, well, I think I won this one, actually. Or at least, if I didn't, I probably won't know about it for another few months. Victory for the working (and renting) class!

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness I have a decent landlord (who probably is getting rich off me, but it's less than a mortgage would be for this house) who has put at least $6,000 in repairs here in the past couple of years - new furnace, ducts, hotwater heater, and fixed the back porch roof as soon as possible after leaking. My instructions (if there is a repair to be done) is to call the repair person directly - he'll bill the landloard and I don't have to hassle with things at all.

Oh, my niece might be moving back in - I talked with her yesterday and she asked if the room was available. Aside from the extra money (I would be able to pay off some debt accumulated from last year's major dental excavations), she's just plain a good person to live with.

[sabotabby]

Heh...my landlord (even the good one) would never go for such an arrangement. I would just abuse it, calling the repair person for frivolous things like heat and water.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Yes, Information Clearing House (and Indymedia, and much of that ilk) needs to be taken with considerably more than a grain of salt; but the Glasgow Herald, from which this article is taken, is one of the more sober-sided and pragmatic British newspapers. They're not exactly famed for inventing stories out of whole cloth; to me, this is the kind of story that has the ring of truth about it, and nothing surprises me any more when I hear tales of the Bubbas in Abu Ghraib behaving like the Ku Klux Klan after too many Bud Lights (not that most British tabloids ever cover them, oh no). Hell, even William Calley never committed child rape.

[sabotabby]

I'm afraid that even the initial reports out of Abu Ghraib didn't surprise me. (It is, after all, a prison, and a prison in wartime, no less. Of course people get raped and tortured.)

I just feel like I need to put a disclaimer on whenever I'm too busy or lazy to cross-reference my sources, especially when the source I do have is disreputable.