Landlords and Court Cases

It’s been a long time; I shouldn’t have left you without a dope rhyme to step to. But really, it has been a minute since I last graced you with some pseudo-ratchet motivation. I am sorry I was gibe so long but I told you I had a story that I had to tell but I couldn’t tell it all right then. Had to let it unfold. So here it goes.

Now this is the story all about how... I took my crazy behind landlady to court behind some foolishness.

So, I moved into this apartment, pretty much sight-unseen because I got a new job and had to move to a new city like really quickly. It was a great apartment as far as I could tell. I was in an alright neighborhood and could walk to work. I was walking distance from two grocery stores and could easily access public transit. I didn’t have a car at that point to it worked out wonderfully. The landlady was able to work with me and my challenging credit. I was gucci.

Alright, boom. So, I move in. Things are going smoothly. There was a little problem with one of the light switches and I let landlady know. She was responsive and had ol’ dude in quickly to get the light working in no time.

Well... Maybe two months in I am in my room, sleep. Out cold. Dead to the world and I something on my balcony. The door to the balcony is the bedroom. I am in the city and the sliding glass door at the back of the place leads into the bedroom. This was cool because I was over a restaurant and you couldn’t really tell how to access the balcony area from the street. But there I was, pulled out of my dead behind sleep to see a shadow of a person walking around on my balcony.

Now I know you are asking, was it one of the neighbors? NO! All of the occupants of the building were women. Each unit. No, it wasn’t none of they men. Each of the women upstairs was a lesbian or not into men the shape of them dude who’s silhouette I saw. I promise. So here I am, feeling like helpless single white female and don’t have the manchette I had stolen from my mother as a pre-teen that she was pissed about when she found it in my room one day. I had nothing but the grace of God, the power of prayer and the hope that he heard me as I was holding my breath, trying not to make noise as this dude tried to open my sliding glass door only feet from my face.

With my heart pounding out of my chest I reach for my phone, text the ladies in the building letting them know there was someone there and call the police. Po-po show up after what seems like an eternity and goes to the restaurant. Meanwhile I am shaking, and begin to call to them out my window. I learn from the restaurant cooks (who are Jamaican- Jamaican so you know they are hella protective, trying to hit this, and want to make sure I have eaten well tonight, all at the same time) make the lame behind cops come up and check my place because they didn’t want to.

Now that’s a story in itself isn’t it? I did not end up filing a police report. I didn’t see the person and it became more of a hassle than was worth but, of course, did let landlady know what was up.

Sis, when I tell you I couldn’t even sleep in my bed for like a month. I made some reallllll poor choices with my life for the sake of comfort. I did... Just to feel “safe” for a few days. Everyone had suggestions of me purchasing security cameras or a ring or whatever so I could feel better. All except for the landlady.

I had told shawdy that I didn’t feel safe. I was uncomfortable and not even staying at home most nights. I did not feel comfortable. She was like, you can move out if you find someone to take over your lease. Lil’ mamma was even helping me to post the place because she said she didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable like that because I was a single woman and all and she wouldn’t have wanted her daughter to have to live like that either. Well, nobody came through. Eventually we gave up on the search. Chick was like she was going to put in some extra security measures at the restaurant and all to make us all feel better. Okay, bet.

Well, fast-forward about 2 months. It’s December. I am in the northeast US. It's getting cold. I get up one morning and begin to ready for work. I get in the shower and only turn on the light to the bathroom because I am adult and pay bills and nobody got time for a high power bill. I mean I turn off lights in houses that ain't even mine now. But I digress. I get out the shower, begin to dry off and put on my robe. POP! The power goes off. Step one, check to see if this is another of those rolling blackouts scheduled that I didn’t read the email for. No. Step two, check the breaker. No. Now I call ol’ girl, landlady and she asks me if I have done steps one and two. At that point I am annoyed because I am not stupid and would not have called you for something I can deal with on my own.

So, I call out of work because I have no power, and it’s December, so it’s cold. She says she is going to call an electrician to come out. She does. The dude gets there rather quickly, goes down to the basement (where she told me to go and I refused) to the other, larger, breaker panel and turns it back on. No sooner than he left, fired up his truck and gets to the corner, my power flicks off again.

This saga continues most of the day. The dude gets the power back on, we wait a few minutes and it knocks off again. He puts in a new breaker panel in my unit and ol’ landlady is pissed because she has to pay for it. As it turns out, the problem ended up being with the whole building’s breaker panel and the one in my unit was replaced for no reason. After a long day of me with intermittent power and being wrapped in a robe and a blanket, and rocking Uggs all day, I finally had power and could warm up.

So everything is copasetic for the next few months. All is going smoothly and then I come home one night in February to no working heat. I call Ms. Landlady and she asks me what I did... Umm Ma’am??!!?? No! Then she tells me that she can’t get ahold of the handyman and when she finally does, he is not coming until the morning.

Now, it’s February, the coldest month of the year in the northeast quadrant of the good ol’ US of A. ‘Merica! It’s cold and a storm is on the way the next day. Whatchumeeennn not coming until tomorrow!?! It’s cold! You really want me to stay in this house through this storm with no heat? AND this woman told me to use the stove for heat... Ummm... lady... UNSAFE!

So now I am texting back and forth with this woman who has decided to turn rude on me. The next morning the handyman comes in and finds that there were wires that were sparking every time power went to the furnace box. Like I have video of all this! I sent it to ol landlady and she changes he tone from accusatory to apologetic.

It turns out that the unit will need a new converter box or something. Which makes sense as the week prior I had complained about the heat not cycling off when I turned the unit on “auto”. She did have the thermostat replaced but that was clearly not the problem.

Well back to the story at hand.... She has Mr. Handyman figure out what needs to happen and tells me he will have it fixed by the next day. That means day 3 of me not having heat, in winter. At this point I ask, whether she will be putting me up in a hotel for the night and she responds that I am not homeless. Now, I do have a small space heater that I had been using to counter the draft from my large window in the living room and had been using it to keep me warm enough. I did not, however, have a space heater that was large enough to keep my entire apartment heated for what ended up being 3 weeks. So after 2 weeks of going back and forth with this lady and not living my best life, I decided to begin the process of taking Ms. Slumlord to court.

At some point within the two weeks before I started the court process I did ask for my rent the following month to be prorated to account for what would be an increase in my power bill as I was running a space heater and being hood-rich running the oven to keep warm in the mornings and evenings. This person tells me no, because I had a roof over my head.

Let me take this moment to say, in all of my interactions with ol’ Landlady I have charged myself to lead with love. I had made it my intention to be kind, considerate, and gracious. I made it my purpose to be the representation of God’s love as shown through his son, my Lord, Yeshua (Jesus). I refused to go off on the human.

So... as time went on, I communicated with this person via text messages only. And baby! If I share with you what she sent me! The threats, and the craziness she sent me and then other tenants of the building you would be hyping me up to read this person. You would have to sent me a script and been behind me to as I whooped... NOPE! Not gonna go there.

I finally get working heat, almost a month after I lost heat. I came home after work one day and found it warm. Surprise! That day I send ol’ Landlady a text telling her that the heat is working again. Her response was “Thank God”. I again ask if my rent can be prorated and I am pretty much laughed at. Well I had somethin’ for your girl! The previous week I gone and filed a case in rent court. Guess who received the notification that very day? Yeah! She shoots me a text and tells me that I am going to “get what’s coming for me”. -Girl, bye!

During the time I had no heat and after having file in rent court I had two inspections by the county and the space had been deemed too cold to live in. When we appeared in court a week later the county the judge had the documentation of this and asked what I was looking get out of the court (escrow) process. I responded that I would like to have my rent for that month prorated and if possible, to be released from my lease. Good ol’ Landlady announces that she did not understand why I did not want to pay my rent. At that point the true MVP, the judge asks shawdy if I had been paying my rent before this to which she responded yes. MVP Judge then asks if I consistently paid my rent on time. The answer, yes. So... why then did ol’ Landlady not want to work with me she questioned?

As you may have guessed, I was awarded the escrow account and the judgement was to evenly split that month’s rent between me and Mz. Lady. This was a GODSEND because it helped supplement the skyrocketed power bill I had to pay.

You’d think the story was over now, wouldn’t you? You would think all is well and things were in order. Well for the most part they were. Except for the crazy threats lady started making to me and the other tenants in the in my building. We were unprofessional, we were not clean, and we were not being responsive to the certified mail she sent us (all young professionals who work during the day and can’t be home to receive and sign for mail). She began telling us we were unprofessional and dirty. She would try and show our apartments without giving us reasonable (24 hours) notice. Then want to get mad when we wouldn’t let her. And please, don’t get me started about that stuff she was doing with the restaurant. There was a hole in the floor for three weeks causing them to close at that location permanently. (it has been a few months now and I am not sure if they were able to open at a new location or not.)

So I moved out at the end of my lease. Hell! I started moving out before the end of my lease! (Praises be to Jah for giving me great friends and ingenuity because, BABY!) She shoots me a text and asks me, the day before, if she needs to order a cleaning crew to come in when I left. Of course, my response was no because I cleaned that place within an inch of its life. I mean I almost hotboxed with Clorox. Well when it came time to get me my deposit back, she texted me talkum bout I left the space a mess and she had to hire two people for eight hours and $138 dollars to clean the place. -Now, this basically two room place is a celebrated efficiency that takes 22.8 minutes to clean when full of furniture, I left it empty so it took 12.3 minutes to clean- No Ma’am! I expect my entire deposit returned to I will see you in court. She persists and my refrain continues. I expect my entire deposit returned or I will see you in court. To which she accuses me of stealing from the company (she and her siblings own the building and she manages it) and then tells me how I have cost them way too much over the year that I lived there and karma will come back to me. I didn’t say this but I wanted to. Lady, I saved your building, you’re welcome!

I finally receive my deposit back, in full. I am through with this lady forever. After months of craziness, feeling unsafe, losses of power and heat, and a (short) court battle, I am done with that kind of insanity. My life is quieter now. I feel like I can so do thing again. I am a regular person. But you should know, all of my conversations with ol’lady were via text and I keeps receipts so if she wants to get froggy again I got her.