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Feb. 5th, 2007 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe house is almost seventy! Yay! Outside, it's five and dropping.
Tenant at 349 disappeared into the dark of night over the weekend but fortunately left her keys with whatever relative of hers lives at 216. We are working on that, I guess, for the foreseeable future. Tenant obviously does not get any deposit back because what with disappearing into the dark of night and all, there was a distinct lack of thirty-days-notice as is provided for in the lease. Also, it's past the first of February. February's rent is due and we could take the deposit for that if we weren't already taking it for the no-notice-move action.
Since Pennsylvania has a thirty-days-or-double-your-deposit-back rule about tenant deposits, we generate a deposit letter for all of our ex-Tenants, even the ones who flee in the dark of night. For reasons beyond my ken, we keep track of the damages and present bad ex-Tenants (who don't have any deposit LEFT for their bad tenant behavior, either because they moved with no notice or because they trashed the place that badly or because they fled with unpaid rent and/or water/sewer bills that ate the deposit before we ever got to the damages) with a certified letter of what they owe that we aren't ever going to see. Most of the people getting bad ex-Tenant letters have nothing and never will have anything and there is no point to going after them. They have no money now. They will not ever have any money. We write the letters and send them out anyway.
In a very real sense, there is no money for the two truckloads of cruft that Tenant left in the apartment.
There is no money for the fact that Tenant was keeping a dog in the apartment in violation of her lease. (In reading that last, do use a strict interpretation of in the apartment because it peed and shat all over the floor. I don't believe she ever let it out. You think I am kidding. I am not kidding.)
There isn't any money for the fact that SOMEONE was smearing dog shit all over the walls (Tenant's Toddler, I'm looking at you! [Mostly because the shit smearing is all under 3' off the ground, mind. If it were higher off the ground, I'd be looking at the adults.]).
The black magic marker on the walls, no money for that.
The fact that I could not breathe in the bathroom due to the odor of urine, no money. (Bleach. I love bleach. I wash Tenant-germed things like toilets, linoleum, and bathtubs in a 1:8 of bleach and very hot water. Yay bleach! Die, germs, die!)
Tenant did, helpfully, leave one unopened condom (not a brand I'd ever heard of before), Tenant's Boyfriend's social security number (anyone up for a little identity theft?), and fifty-two cents in change. The fifty-two cents is probably worth more than the Boyfriend's SSN. (All left-behind-in-the-apartments-change goes to me. I am not going to get rich on left-behind Tenant money, but this does not prevent me from picking it up out of the dried-up dogshit and taking it home for my change jar. Truly crufty money gets washed but I'll still pick it up.)
There is a lot of damage (I didn't even go into the state of the oven or fridge, the fact that we have to repaint everywhere despite having repainted in March of 06, or the numerous holes in the walls...) that there isn't any money for.
I am somewhat pissed about all of this and I want to call Children and Youth, the pitbull of my arsenal against Tenants.
Is it legit to call Children and Youth on an ex-tenant because you're mad about having to pick up dog shit off the floor of your suddenly-unoccupied apartment?
How about if Tenant rented the apartment in April of '06 for the express purpose of getting her kids BACK from Children-n-Youth, a governmental agency that strongly resists taking children from any but the most deficient homes?
How about if you're pretty damn sure that Tenant and Boyfriend are on some kind of drugs (though not heroin because that doesn't lead you to pick all the fucking paint off the windowsill trim)? (While not an expert, I am pretty sure that pointless activity is more a meth thing than a heroin thing.)
How about if Tenant and Boyfriend are so fucking inattentive to Toddler that they set same in the sink and allowed Toddler to run the water over the edge of the sink until it flooded the living room of the lady downstairs? We're not talking Mr. and Mrs. Responsible here. This isn't even The Mildly Negligent Couple Living in Sin.
Why on earth would calling Children-n-Youth on an ex-Tenant do any good? Couple of reasons.
1. Tenant was sucking government tit for at least WIC and some kind of freebie healthcare. I expect these things are contingent on having children in the home. If you suddenly do not have children in the home, the healthcare and the WIC and so forth, it all goes away.
2. CnY is not ALLOWED to not-investigate. If I call, they have to investigate. Unlike evicting a Tenant or getting a judgment against a Tenant, calling CnY is easy and free.
3. It's not illegal to call CnY on someone if you have a legitimate reason (Child was living in apartment with dogshit smeared all over the walls? Both adults in the home WERE at home and still managed to leave child unattended in sink until downstairs lady was flooded out?) to suspect that they may be endangering their child.
4. We believe that Tenant got her kids back as a last chance deal. If CnY is re-alerted to the problem, Tenant may lose her children permanently. How cool would *that* be?
5. There is no chance, no chance, sir, that I will ever get any money out of Tenant for what she has done to my apartment. However, operating entirely within the rules, I can see to it that Tenant, who has very little, will have even less as a result of fucking me over.
Yes. I am down with that. :)
Before anyone goes all ballistic in the commenty goodness, note that Tenant is not going to lose her children FOREVER because I'm pissed off about the roughly two grand in damages that she did to my shithole of an apartment (it's the same one Lauren and Tom destroyed this time last year). If Tenant loses her children FOREVER, which is not a certainty in any case, it'll be because she's a fucking unfit druggie mother who is not capable of raising her children according to the slack and forgiving standards of Children and Youth, an institution that works pretty damn hard to keep children with their blood kin. I'm just doing my part to draw their attention towards a deserving soul, is all.
Tenant at 349 disappeared into the dark of night over the weekend but fortunately left her keys with whatever relative of hers lives at 216. We are working on that, I guess, for the foreseeable future. Tenant obviously does not get any deposit back because what with disappearing into the dark of night and all, there was a distinct lack of thirty-days-notice as is provided for in the lease. Also, it's past the first of February. February's rent is due and we could take the deposit for that if we weren't already taking it for the no-notice-move action.
Since Pennsylvania has a thirty-days-or-double-your-deposit-back rule about tenant deposits, we generate a deposit letter for all of our ex-Tenants, even the ones who flee in the dark of night. For reasons beyond my ken, we keep track of the damages and present bad ex-Tenants (who don't have any deposit LEFT for their bad tenant behavior, either because they moved with no notice or because they trashed the place that badly or because they fled with unpaid rent and/or water/sewer bills that ate the deposit before we ever got to the damages) with a certified letter of what they owe that we aren't ever going to see. Most of the people getting bad ex-Tenant letters have nothing and never will have anything and there is no point to going after them. They have no money now. They will not ever have any money. We write the letters and send them out anyway.
In a very real sense, there is no money for the two truckloads of cruft that Tenant left in the apartment.
There is no money for the fact that Tenant was keeping a dog in the apartment in violation of her lease. (In reading that last, do use a strict interpretation of in the apartment because it peed and shat all over the floor. I don't believe she ever let it out. You think I am kidding. I am not kidding.)
There isn't any money for the fact that SOMEONE was smearing dog shit all over the walls (Tenant's Toddler, I'm looking at you! [Mostly because the shit smearing is all under 3' off the ground, mind. If it were higher off the ground, I'd be looking at the adults.]).
The black magic marker on the walls, no money for that.
The fact that I could not breathe in the bathroom due to the odor of urine, no money. (Bleach. I love bleach. I wash Tenant-germed things like toilets, linoleum, and bathtubs in a 1:8 of bleach and very hot water. Yay bleach! Die, germs, die!)
Tenant did, helpfully, leave one unopened condom (not a brand I'd ever heard of before), Tenant's Boyfriend's social security number (anyone up for a little identity theft?), and fifty-two cents in change. The fifty-two cents is probably worth more than the Boyfriend's SSN. (All left-behind-in-the-apartments-change goes to me. I am not going to get rich on left-behind Tenant money, but this does not prevent me from picking it up out of the dried-up dogshit and taking it home for my change jar. Truly crufty money gets washed but I'll still pick it up.)
There is a lot of damage (I didn't even go into the state of the oven or fridge, the fact that we have to repaint everywhere despite having repainted in March of 06, or the numerous holes in the walls...) that there isn't any money for.
I am somewhat pissed about all of this and I want to call Children and Youth, the pitbull of my arsenal against Tenants.
Is it legit to call Children and Youth on an ex-tenant because you're mad about having to pick up dog shit off the floor of your suddenly-unoccupied apartment?
How about if Tenant rented the apartment in April of '06 for the express purpose of getting her kids BACK from Children-n-Youth, a governmental agency that strongly resists taking children from any but the most deficient homes?
How about if you're pretty damn sure that Tenant and Boyfriend are on some kind of drugs (though not heroin because that doesn't lead you to pick all the fucking paint off the windowsill trim)? (While not an expert, I am pretty sure that pointless activity is more a meth thing than a heroin thing.)
How about if Tenant and Boyfriend are so fucking inattentive to Toddler that they set same in the sink and allowed Toddler to run the water over the edge of the sink until it flooded the living room of the lady downstairs? We're not talking Mr. and Mrs. Responsible here. This isn't even The Mildly Negligent Couple Living in Sin.
Why on earth would calling Children-n-Youth on an ex-Tenant do any good? Couple of reasons.
1. Tenant was sucking government tit for at least WIC and some kind of freebie healthcare. I expect these things are contingent on having children in the home. If you suddenly do not have children in the home, the healthcare and the WIC and so forth, it all goes away.
2. CnY is not ALLOWED to not-investigate. If I call, they have to investigate. Unlike evicting a Tenant or getting a judgment against a Tenant, calling CnY is easy and free.
3. It's not illegal to call CnY on someone if you have a legitimate reason (Child was living in apartment with dogshit smeared all over the walls? Both adults in the home WERE at home and still managed to leave child unattended in sink until downstairs lady was flooded out?) to suspect that they may be endangering their child.
4. We believe that Tenant got her kids back as a last chance deal. If CnY is re-alerted to the problem, Tenant may lose her children permanently. How cool would *that* be?
5. There is no chance, no chance, sir, that I will ever get any money out of Tenant for what she has done to my apartment. However, operating entirely within the rules, I can see to it that Tenant, who has very little, will have even less as a result of fucking me over.
Yes. I am down with that. :)
Before anyone goes all ballistic in the commenty goodness, note that Tenant is not going to lose her children FOREVER because I'm pissed off about the roughly two grand in damages that she did to my shithole of an apartment (it's the same one Lauren and Tom destroyed this time last year). If Tenant loses her children FOREVER, which is not a certainty in any case, it'll be because she's a fucking unfit druggie mother who is not capable of raising her children according to the slack and forgiving standards of Children and Youth, an institution that works pretty damn hard to keep children with their blood kin. I'm just doing my part to draw their attention towards a deserving soul, is all.
