If You Have Any Spare Positive Karma To Send...part 1 of 2
Okay, so there's been a couple of issues going on in my life that I haven't mentioned...
I moved this past May, accepting a house-share situation where the homeowner was not only elderly, but in infirm health. One of the main points I insisted on when discussing the rental with the homeowner's daughter, who had Power of Attorney, was what would happen if her father died. She insisted that I wouldn't have to worry, that she'd just get a second renter into the place to share the rent with me.
Well, the homeowner died at the end of August.
Beginning of September, Landlady/Daughter tells me that if I water the plants, she'll take $40/month off my rent. They have LOTS of plants. Place looks like a jungle. But I agree.
End of September, Landlady/Daughter tells me that if I just keep current with October's rent, and "pay a little something" every week towards June's rent that I couldn't pay at the time, having just incurred significant expense in moving in May, and still not having a job and collecting unemployment, that everything would be fine. I agreed. She also alludes to how high the electric bill is, letting slip that she hasn't paid it since June.
First week of October, Landlady/Daughter calls me and tells me that the electricity is about to be cut off any day at my place, because she owes 3 months and now can't pay the bill because her father's estate is in probate and she now is a trustee and not Power of Attorney and needs her estranged sister to cosign all checks. Landlady/Daughter suggests that instead of paying rent, that I just pay the monthly electric bill plus whatever the monthly house insurance amount is. I am noncomittal at this suggestion, as Landlady/Daughter never mentions any actual dollar amounts.
Before hanging up she suggest that I might want to start looking for a new place to live.
She made this call at 7:30 at night, too late for me to call around for information, but the next day I get on the phone to legal aid, who informed me that state law states that the electric company can't turn off power to a residence where a tenant is living if the homeowner-landlord hasn't paid the bill.
I next got on the wire to the electric company and explained the situation to them; the first person I spoke to let slip that there actually was NOT a shut-off notice currently in effect for my address, because my name's not on the bill apparently that info wasn't supposed to be imparted to me.
But they made a note in the file that there is currently a tenant living at the address -- something Landlady/Daughter neglected to tell them. I was told that shut-off notices are created via computer, and that there was a chance that a shut-off may still occur, but in that case all I would have to do is call the electric company and tell them that I am the tenant living at the address and that the power needs to be turned back on, and it would be.
To this date, the power hasn't been shut off. I suspect Landlady/Daughter was bullshitting me about the electricity being shut off in a couple of days, she's never mentioned anything about my phone call to the electric company and I never mentioned it to her, but her subsequent actions suggest that she got subsequently somehow got schooled on the law in the matter.
Mid-October she pops up at my place, unannounced -- another violation of state law, BTW. She drags in from outside many of the plants I'm supposed to subsequently water. This is in addition to the plants and actual TREES in the house which are too big to move outside in the summer. I help her with the plants. Half of them are still outside when she leaves.
This place looks like a jungle when all of the plants/trees are inside.
While she was here, Landlady/Daughter brings up the "pay the electric bill instead of rent" deal, I again do not commit myself to the arrangement because she again does not discuss any actual monetary amounts.
What she DOES now mention is that all of the rent money I've paid her since the end of September she has decided to apply to June's rent and not to October's. This is a sudden game change. But she vigorously assures me that she doesn't want me to leave, that she knows how difficult it would be to find a new place with the holidays coming on.
My rent is $400/month which, because of only getting unemployment, I've been paying on a weekly basis since I moved in.
As of this day in mid-October that I'm talking about the rent for May, July, August, and September had been paid. I gave her $50 the last week of September towards June's rent, as that was the agreement we had come to at the time.
The following week I gave her $150 -- $100 for October's rent, another $50 toward's June's.
The second week of October I gave her $130 -- again, $100 towards October, $30 toward's June's.
The third week of October I gave her $100, all for October. So keeping to our agreement, that was $300 towards October's rent, $130 towards June's.
I never got to pay her the final $100 for October's rent; she didn't show up when she usually does that week, she DID come storming in with her husband, her sister, and her brother-in-law like a herd of elephants -- again with no prior notice -- the last Friday of the month to desperately drag in the last (and heaviest) of the tropical plants, before the blizzard hit the next day.
She didn't ask for the final $100; instead, she kept asking me if I was feeling okay, alluding to "how sick" I'd been. I hadn't been sick at all, so I had no idea what she was going on about. She then brought up the electric bill thing again, this time mentioning that the bill was $800.
I flipped. No way I used $800 worth of electricity in October, it had been unseasonably warm, not enough to crank up the heat (my end of the house is all electric heat), but not hot enough to have the a/c going. In fact I'd packed up the a/c unit the first week of October.
So I demanded to know what time period this $800 bill was for, and she stated that it was for THE PAST THREE MONTHS!!!
That means the bill was for August, September, and October.
Her father died August 28th; he had 24/7 live-in health aids, both of whom brought family members with them when it was their stint. Said family members parked themselves in the livingroom -- which, according to my lease, *I* was supposed to have use of -- and watched/slept to TV 24/7.
One of the HHAs fancied herself the next Julia Child, and when she was here she had all burners of the stove, the oven, food processors, blender, etc. going from morning to night.
Both HHAs constantly did laundry (it was necessary); the infirm homeowner also needed oxygen 24/7.
IOW, a good portion of the alleged $800 bill was incurred when I wasn't the only resident in the building, ergo I wasn't the only one using electricity.
Also, my lease clearly states that utilities are included in my rent; I paid rent for both August and September, and until Landlady/Daughter was willing to sit down and discuss actually changing our lease, legally I'm only obliged to pay the agreed-upon rent.
OTOH, I figured that even with someone else living here in August, if THREE MONTHS worth of electricity only came to $800, I just might be better agreeing to paying electricity instead of rent. But only if it was put in writing.
But on this last Friday of October Landlady/Daughter is still not discussing rewriting the lease, she's not showing me the actual electric bill so it's only her word for it...so again I remained noncomittal.
As it turned out, it didn't matter if I made a commitment or not. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd given her the last $100 or not. Because on October 31st I was served with a Notice To Quit, demanding that I leave the premises by November 30 for nonpayment of October's rent.
(continued in part 2)
I moved this past May, accepting a house-share situation where the homeowner was not only elderly, but in infirm health. One of the main points I insisted on when discussing the rental with the homeowner's daughter, who had Power of Attorney, was what would happen if her father died. She insisted that I wouldn't have to worry, that she'd just get a second renter into the place to share the rent with me.
Well, the homeowner died at the end of August.
Beginning of September, Landlady/Daughter tells me that if I water the plants, she'll take $40/month off my rent. They have LOTS of plants. Place looks like a jungle. But I agree.
End of September, Landlady/Daughter tells me that if I just keep current with October's rent, and "pay a little something" every week towards June's rent that I couldn't pay at the time, having just incurred significant expense in moving in May, and still not having a job and collecting unemployment, that everything would be fine. I agreed. She also alludes to how high the electric bill is, letting slip that she hasn't paid it since June.
First week of October, Landlady/Daughter calls me and tells me that the electricity is about to be cut off any day at my place, because she owes 3 months and now can't pay the bill because her father's estate is in probate and she now is a trustee and not Power of Attorney and needs her estranged sister to cosign all checks. Landlady/Daughter suggests that instead of paying rent, that I just pay the monthly electric bill plus whatever the monthly house insurance amount is. I am noncomittal at this suggestion, as Landlady/Daughter never mentions any actual dollar amounts.
Before hanging up she suggest that I might want to start looking for a new place to live.
She made this call at 7:30 at night, too late for me to call around for information, but the next day I get on the phone to legal aid, who informed me that state law states that the electric company can't turn off power to a residence where a tenant is living if the homeowner-landlord hasn't paid the bill.
I next got on the wire to the electric company and explained the situation to them; the first person I spoke to let slip that there actually was NOT a shut-off notice currently in effect for my address, because my name's not on the bill apparently that info wasn't supposed to be imparted to me.
But they made a note in the file that there is currently a tenant living at the address -- something Landlady/Daughter neglected to tell them. I was told that shut-off notices are created via computer, and that there was a chance that a shut-off may still occur, but in that case all I would have to do is call the electric company and tell them that I am the tenant living at the address and that the power needs to be turned back on, and it would be.
To this date, the power hasn't been shut off. I suspect Landlady/Daughter was bullshitting me about the electricity being shut off in a couple of days, she's never mentioned anything about my phone call to the electric company and I never mentioned it to her, but her subsequent actions suggest that she got subsequently somehow got schooled on the law in the matter.
Mid-October she pops up at my place, unannounced -- another violation of state law, BTW. She drags in from outside many of the plants I'm supposed to subsequently water. This is in addition to the plants and actual TREES in the house which are too big to move outside in the summer. I help her with the plants. Half of them are still outside when she leaves.
This place looks like a jungle when all of the plants/trees are inside.
While she was here, Landlady/Daughter brings up the "pay the electric bill instead of rent" deal, I again do not commit myself to the arrangement because she again does not discuss any actual monetary amounts.
What she DOES now mention is that all of the rent money I've paid her since the end of September she has decided to apply to June's rent and not to October's. This is a sudden game change. But she vigorously assures me that she doesn't want me to leave, that she knows how difficult it would be to find a new place with the holidays coming on.
My rent is $400/month which, because of only getting unemployment, I've been paying on a weekly basis since I moved in.
As of this day in mid-October that I'm talking about the rent for May, July, August, and September had been paid. I gave her $50 the last week of September towards June's rent, as that was the agreement we had come to at the time.
The following week I gave her $150 -- $100 for October's rent, another $50 toward's June's.
The second week of October I gave her $130 -- again, $100 towards October, $30 toward's June's.
The third week of October I gave her $100, all for October. So keeping to our agreement, that was $300 towards October's rent, $130 towards June's.
I never got to pay her the final $100 for October's rent; she didn't show up when she usually does that week, she DID come storming in with her husband, her sister, and her brother-in-law like a herd of elephants -- again with no prior notice -- the last Friday of the month to desperately drag in the last (and heaviest) of the tropical plants, before the blizzard hit the next day.
She didn't ask for the final $100; instead, she kept asking me if I was feeling okay, alluding to "how sick" I'd been. I hadn't been sick at all, so I had no idea what she was going on about. She then brought up the electric bill thing again, this time mentioning that the bill was $800.
I flipped. No way I used $800 worth of electricity in October, it had been unseasonably warm, not enough to crank up the heat (my end of the house is all electric heat), but not hot enough to have the a/c going. In fact I'd packed up the a/c unit the first week of October.
So I demanded to know what time period this $800 bill was for, and she stated that it was for THE PAST THREE MONTHS!!!
That means the bill was for August, September, and October.
Her father died August 28th; he had 24/7 live-in health aids, both of whom brought family members with them when it was their stint. Said family members parked themselves in the livingroom -- which, according to my lease, *I* was supposed to have use of -- and watched/slept to TV 24/7.
One of the HHAs fancied herself the next Julia Child, and when she was here she had all burners of the stove, the oven, food processors, blender, etc. going from morning to night.
Both HHAs constantly did laundry (it was necessary); the infirm homeowner also needed oxygen 24/7.
IOW, a good portion of the alleged $800 bill was incurred when I wasn't the only resident in the building, ergo I wasn't the only one using electricity.
Also, my lease clearly states that utilities are included in my rent; I paid rent for both August and September, and until Landlady/Daughter was willing to sit down and discuss actually changing our lease, legally I'm only obliged to pay the agreed-upon rent.
OTOH, I figured that even with someone else living here in August, if THREE MONTHS worth of electricity only came to $800, I just might be better agreeing to paying electricity instead of rent. But only if it was put in writing.
But on this last Friday of October Landlady/Daughter is still not discussing rewriting the lease, she's not showing me the actual electric bill so it's only her word for it...so again I remained noncomittal.
As it turned out, it didn't matter if I made a commitment or not. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd given her the last $100 or not. Because on October 31st I was served with a Notice To Quit, demanding that I leave the premises by November 30 for nonpayment of October's rent.
(continued in part 2)