As you may remember from a few posts back, i rented out my cottage in michigan to the 50 something forner neighbor italian lady and her 20 year old kid. known them for 10 years.
after but 2 days in the house, there seemed to be some sort of catastrophic plumbing problem, the likes of which had never happened in my nine years of owning the place and having many house guests.
when i instructed the renter woman on what to do, she refused to as instructed. she incurred (at my expense) a hefty bill from a plumber. as it turns out...had she done as i instructed, this bill could have been avoided entirely.
this irked me considerably.
then there was a falling out with her son who moved out. she informed me that without him there, she would not be able to pay the rent and would be moving out at once.
hmm. she seemed to think disregarding not one, but two leases signed was not a problem and that she could just walk out the door. the frist lease was for a month to month per my desire (suspecting some unforeseen circumstance should arise) but she demanded a ONE YEAR lease, which i finally agreed to. after that lease was signed, she once again said she was moving out because she couldn't afford it.
before i left i continued to have windows rebuilt and repair the place. since it was summer i turned off the gas furnace and would have it re-lit and turned on when cold weather arrived.
in the meantime since my return to texas, this renter woman has been talking all over the village and heard stories of the previous renter and how while he was renting my cottage, the furnace was 'broken, didn't stay lit and was dangerous'. she called a furnace re-pair man to look at it.
of course the furnace repairman was an ass hole and scared the renter woman to death and told her it was SO dangerous that she couldn't turn it on at all. she would die from an explosion or monoxide poisoning. sigh.
i had the monoxide levels tested before she moved in. fine. while it is an old furnavce and could be replace, it worked fine when i was there in june. no problems whatsoever.
furthermore i explained to renter woman that she in hysterics based on the word of an actual schizophrenic that has busted out the basement window directly above the furnace causing the pilot light to go out.
my calm, and logical reasoning with her was in vain.
wheni told her i would have someone come to light the pilot light, she told me that she would NOT ALLOW anyone in the hosue to light the furnace and if i insisted on this, she would leave.
i reminded her, that it was MY house after all and the furnace would be lit and needed to be working to maintain the house.
she began to send me about 20 profane laced, hysterical, psycho e-mails a day as well as voice mails and texts. i ignored them all. the furnace works just fine and there is no problem. however, she has created this catastrophic scenario in her head and will not stand to reason.
she then told me she was goign to live in my cottage AND that she was not going to pay rent b/c she 'shouldn't have to'. huh. i have never said such a thing to a land lord.
it was a this point i reminded her that i did not charge a deposit to move in and that i forewent the rent for the first month since she had used all her money to get there.
as per the pumbing thing that was never a problem before she showed up, i told her how to fix that and she wouldn't and called a plumber on her own, she paid for that so i said we could just call that even for the rent for august.
in additon to this, since she couldn't afford to stay there i agreed to let her pay half the rent - pay just $300 a month to live there. and even then she is refusing to pay rent.
This is but a very brief and very sanitized version of her psycho profanity - out of control - unreasonable behavior.
i asked my father to handle it and he stepped in and let her know what was what and that she had violated 2 leases and that she needed to either get with the prgram and knock off the shit or leave.
she seems to ahve gotten the point and shut up for the moment. it will be short lived, i assure you.
i am disappointed that someone who used to be a good person has turned into such an absolute psychotic monster and absolutely free of reason when great efforts were taken (by me) to ensure a nice living situation for her.
and so what used to be a nice, friendly, neighborly relationship has gone very, very awry. this makes me rather sad.
after but 2 days in the house, there seemed to be some sort of catastrophic plumbing problem, the likes of which had never happened in my nine years of owning the place and having many house guests.
when i instructed the renter woman on what to do, she refused to as instructed. she incurred (at my expense) a hefty bill from a plumber. as it turns out...had she done as i instructed, this bill could have been avoided entirely.
this irked me considerably.
then there was a falling out with her son who moved out. she informed me that without him there, she would not be able to pay the rent and would be moving out at once.
hmm. she seemed to think disregarding not one, but two leases signed was not a problem and that she could just walk out the door. the frist lease was for a month to month per my desire (suspecting some unforeseen circumstance should arise) but she demanded a ONE YEAR lease, which i finally agreed to. after that lease was signed, she once again said she was moving out because she couldn't afford it.
before i left i continued to have windows rebuilt and repair the place. since it was summer i turned off the gas furnace and would have it re-lit and turned on when cold weather arrived.
in the meantime since my return to texas, this renter woman has been talking all over the village and heard stories of the previous renter and how while he was renting my cottage, the furnace was 'broken, didn't stay lit and was dangerous'. she called a furnace re-pair man to look at it.
of course the furnace repairman was an ass hole and scared the renter woman to death and told her it was SO dangerous that she couldn't turn it on at all. she would die from an explosion or monoxide poisoning. sigh.
i had the monoxide levels tested before she moved in. fine. while it is an old furnavce and could be replace, it worked fine when i was there in june. no problems whatsoever.
furthermore i explained to renter woman that she in hysterics based on the word of an actual schizophrenic that has busted out the basement window directly above the furnace causing the pilot light to go out.
my calm, and logical reasoning with her was in vain.
wheni told her i would have someone come to light the pilot light, she told me that she would NOT ALLOW anyone in the hosue to light the furnace and if i insisted on this, she would leave.
i reminded her, that it was MY house after all and the furnace would be lit and needed to be working to maintain the house.
she began to send me about 20 profane laced, hysterical, psycho e-mails a day as well as voice mails and texts. i ignored them all. the furnace works just fine and there is no problem. however, she has created this catastrophic scenario in her head and will not stand to reason.
she then told me she was goign to live in my cottage AND that she was not going to pay rent b/c she 'shouldn't have to'. huh. i have never said such a thing to a land lord.
it was a this point i reminded her that i did not charge a deposit to move in and that i forewent the rent for the first month since she had used all her money to get there.
as per the pumbing thing that was never a problem before she showed up, i told her how to fix that and she wouldn't and called a plumber on her own, she paid for that so i said we could just call that even for the rent for august.
in additon to this, since she couldn't afford to stay there i agreed to let her pay half the rent - pay just $300 a month to live there. and even then she is refusing to pay rent.
This is but a very brief and very sanitized version of her psycho profanity - out of control - unreasonable behavior.
i asked my father to handle it and he stepped in and let her know what was what and that she had violated 2 leases and that she needed to either get with the prgram and knock off the shit or leave.
she seems to ahve gotten the point and shut up for the moment. it will be short lived, i assure you.
i am disappointed that someone who used to be a good person has turned into such an absolute psychotic monster and absolutely free of reason when great efforts were taken (by me) to ensure a nice living situation for her.
and so what used to be a nice, friendly, neighborly relationship has gone very, very awry. this makes me rather sad.
