Please don't put a price on my soul
This one's for my Hammond landlord Kenny Dean. I lived for a year in a building he owned behind the O'Reilly's parts store. About a week before I moved out, the septic tank servicing half the building exploded. It sent raw sewage UP pipes and UP drains in six apartments. In mine, a pipe leaked so that the sewage built up and built up in the kitchen ceiling.
The resulting explosion of filth and black mold and ceiling debris meant I had to put a move on on my move on. I couldn't clean the apartment out. I just had to load up and get out. Kenny said it was okay, the sooner I got out the better.
I write to him a month ago for my deposit back or for an accounting of it and he responds by sending me a bill for $888. He wants to keep the $400 and he tells me I'll hear from his lawyer if I don't pay the $888 more for a long list of repairs he made including replacement of the carpet in two rooms. He said the carpet was saturated with cat urine and shit right down to the pad. Nope. Sorry. My cats are meticulous. With two or three historic exceptions they go in litter pans only.
Here is the letter Kenny WON'T get from me. He'll only see paragraph one. But if you're thinking of moving into an apartment this guy owns (Country Manor is the big complex he has), take heed:
Dear . . . former landlord
Kenny Dean is a guy I rented a shithole from in Hammond, Louisiana. He finally answered my request for my deposit or an accounting of expenses deducted from it. He answered it with a long list of things he was charging me for, which included a $700 replacement of carpet. He told me if I didn't pay him $888 I'd hear from his lawyer. Here is my answer:
Kenny, Oct 5, 2006
You will of course not receive a single dime from me. I don't even have to bother getting an attorney to know that is certain. You are delusional, and your demands are preposterous.
I suppose it's a character flaw in me that I actually enjoy the effort of stubbing cow pasture grub worms like you deeper into the dried out filth you live in. But I will take pleasure in defending myself should you actually spend the thousand or more dollars to bring a court case against me.
I will take especial pleasure in knowing you'll be spending hours and hours trying to line up faked receipts for the fiction your letter concocts. But the primary pleasure will be in you spending the thousands necessary to see the first penny from any garnishment of my meager teaching salary. Even if you win, you will not get a dime till you have spent many times the amount you suppose I owe.
The Louisiana Attorney General will get as much paper (including this admittedly smart-ass one) and photography as has been generated already by this foolishness. As will the Better Business Bureau, the Hammond Daily Star and the Department of Environmental Quality. It's the least I can do. It will take maybe half an hour. Twenty minutes longer than it took to write this. Maybe they blow me off. Maybe they don't.
I mention the DEQ for this reason: I got the hell out of your stench-ridden slum so quickly--yes leaving a cleaning job but nothing on the scale of what you allege--because your kitchen ceiling exploded with a sewer leak. The explosion left shards of black mold covered debris all over the floor. I worked around that for 3 days. But I took pictures and I filed a report with the city of Hammond Code Enforcement Office.
The report and the photos have already been sent to the DEQ. The tenants living in 2 now are already informed of the biohazard you likely did a band-aid job on. They're also informed they're paying nearly twice what I did. So is the rest of the building. Enjoy that, Kenny. You chose that.
The only expenses I could understand a deduction from the deposit for are the replacements of the blinds and some customary cleaning. You hardly spent $95 to replace those blinds. I have been to that apartment recently to try to pick up some unforwarded mail (you hadn't changed either lock either, by the way). Those are the same $4 Fred's dollar store blinds you stuck me with which fall apart at the merest disturbance. The front blinds fell off the window one week after I signed the lease. I would have spent the $8 to replace them, but I simply ran out of time in my rush to get out of a sewage/black mold health risk
You had your chance to be a human being capable of some measure of shame. But you had to try to keep that $400 and you HAD to threaten me. Something about me, the life I lead, the respect I am accorded really GALLS you, Kenny. But I think you'd need ten lifetimes to learn that to actually be respected, you have to be worthy of it.
When people lay eyes on you, when they hear you try to speak, when you exude your Kenny Dean odor, you make it clear what kind of bottom feeding swamp slime you are. Letting septic tanks fill up and explode because you're cheap and lazy is NOT a way to fix your problem. Bringing professors to court so you can have your go at somebody you've deceived yourself into thinking is some kind of elitist is NOT the way to help yourself.
Enjoy yourself Kenny and the sewage you'll always wallow in. I pity you. I get to get up in the morning and teach the great works of American Literature. You get up and see if you can scare somebody into letting you keep their damn deposit or fool somebody into thinking the toilet doesn't flush because women are flushing tampons.
Sic that lawyer on me, Kenny. I can't wait!
With gratitude for livening up my week,
Jeffie
Note to friends: The keeper of this livejournal is moving to a new one he is calling DeltaLitProf.
The resulting explosion of filth and black mold and ceiling debris meant I had to put a move on on my move on. I couldn't clean the apartment out. I just had to load up and get out. Kenny said it was okay, the sooner I got out the better.
I write to him a month ago for my deposit back or for an accounting of it and he responds by sending me a bill for $888. He wants to keep the $400 and he tells me I'll hear from his lawyer if I don't pay the $888 more for a long list of repairs he made including replacement of the carpet in two rooms. He said the carpet was saturated with cat urine and shit right down to the pad. Nope. Sorry. My cats are meticulous. With two or three historic exceptions they go in litter pans only.
Here is the letter Kenny WON'T get from me. He'll only see paragraph one. But if you're thinking of moving into an apartment this guy owns (Country Manor is the big complex he has), take heed:
Dear . . . former landlord
Kenny Dean is a guy I rented a shithole from in Hammond, Louisiana. He finally answered my request for my deposit or an accounting of expenses deducted from it. He answered it with a long list of things he was charging me for, which included a $700 replacement of carpet. He told me if I didn't pay him $888 I'd hear from his lawyer. Here is my answer:
Kenny, Oct 5, 2006
You will of course not receive a single dime from me. I don't even have to bother getting an attorney to know that is certain. You are delusional, and your demands are preposterous.
I suppose it's a character flaw in me that I actually enjoy the effort of stubbing cow pasture grub worms like you deeper into the dried out filth you live in. But I will take pleasure in defending myself should you actually spend the thousand or more dollars to bring a court case against me.
I will take especial pleasure in knowing you'll be spending hours and hours trying to line up faked receipts for the fiction your letter concocts. But the primary pleasure will be in you spending the thousands necessary to see the first penny from any garnishment of my meager teaching salary. Even if you win, you will not get a dime till you have spent many times the amount you suppose I owe.
The Louisiana Attorney General will get as much paper (including this admittedly smart-ass one) and photography as has been generated already by this foolishness. As will the Better Business Bureau, the Hammond Daily Star and the Department of Environmental Quality. It's the least I can do. It will take maybe half an hour. Twenty minutes longer than it took to write this. Maybe they blow me off. Maybe they don't.
I mention the DEQ for this reason: I got the hell out of your stench-ridden slum so quickly--yes leaving a cleaning job but nothing on the scale of what you allege--because your kitchen ceiling exploded with a sewer leak. The explosion left shards of black mold covered debris all over the floor. I worked around that for 3 days. But I took pictures and I filed a report with the city of Hammond Code Enforcement Office.
The report and the photos have already been sent to the DEQ. The tenants living in 2 now are already informed of the biohazard you likely did a band-aid job on. They're also informed they're paying nearly twice what I did. So is the rest of the building. Enjoy that, Kenny. You chose that.
The only expenses I could understand a deduction from the deposit for are the replacements of the blinds and some customary cleaning. You hardly spent $95 to replace those blinds. I have been to that apartment recently to try to pick up some unforwarded mail (you hadn't changed either lock either, by the way). Those are the same $4 Fred's dollar store blinds you stuck me with which fall apart at the merest disturbance. The front blinds fell off the window one week after I signed the lease. I would have spent the $8 to replace them, but I simply ran out of time in my rush to get out of a sewage/black mold health risk
You had your chance to be a human being capable of some measure of shame. But you had to try to keep that $400 and you HAD to threaten me. Something about me, the life I lead, the respect I am accorded really GALLS you, Kenny. But I think you'd need ten lifetimes to learn that to actually be respected, you have to be worthy of it.
When people lay eyes on you, when they hear you try to speak, when you exude your Kenny Dean odor, you make it clear what kind of bottom feeding swamp slime you are. Letting septic tanks fill up and explode because you're cheap and lazy is NOT a way to fix your problem. Bringing professors to court so you can have your go at somebody you've deceived yourself into thinking is some kind of elitist is NOT the way to help yourself.
Enjoy yourself Kenny and the sewage you'll always wallow in. I pity you. I get to get up in the morning and teach the great works of American Literature. You get up and see if you can scare somebody into letting you keep their damn deposit or fool somebody into thinking the toilet doesn't flush because women are flushing tampons.
Sic that lawyer on me, Kenny. I can't wait!
With gratitude for livening up my week,
Jeffie
Note to friends: The keeper of this livejournal is moving to a new one he is calling DeltaLitProf.