Take the money and run

Viewing the lies landlord/owner posted online about the great amenities of this house in order to sell it, it is clear he has learned nothing from his deceit and is still deluded by his own greed. If any of these things are actually true would be miraculous.

Overuse of the word “custom” throughout the description is indicative of the simple fact that he most likely did the hackjob work himself — as he did in “replumbing” the place — which is why there was never any hot water in winter nor cold water in summer.

The fact is that as tenants we arranged and withstood the installation of the new air conditioning unit during a week in August of 2010,  when landlord/owner refused to have it done, even in February 2010 upon our advice that it would be less expensive.

The fact is that the installers noted the fire hazards in the attic due to landlord/owner’s faulty wiring near his plumbing handiwork.

The fact is that the new bath tubs, particularly the one in the smaller bathroom, was replaced while we were tenants as the old one was scratched to the point of being unusable. That installation entailed replacement by owner’s cohort in crime, someone who was inept at doing such work but who would do it for a bottle of vodka. His first attempt was merely a smathering of glaze to cover the scratches. The chemical odors filled the house for two weeks. When that did not work, owner’s friend installed a new tub improperly which resulted in a complete flooding of the nearby bedroom, requiring replacement of the carpet.

Owner took credit for appliances that we purchased when he went AWOL that five years.

The fact remains that he cannot look into his own reflection to know the horrible things he perpetrated on us as we withstood five years upgrading his appliances, withstanding his lies about the pool pump destruction by his own hand, my husband trimming trees and scaling the roof to clean gutters, without remuneration, done only in accordance with his promise that the house would be ours someday. No consideration, no remuneration for us trying to keep his dung heap from stinking up the neighborhood after he abandoned it for those years. Just lies, abuse, assault and theft of security deposit.

Hopefully, at least, he did some true, actual repairs by a PROFESSIONAL to this money pit before trying to unload it on an unsuspecting, gullible buyer.

Did owner reveal the fire hazard in the attic, pointed out by professional air conditioning installers?

Did owner reveal the fact that by his own hand the “custom” electrical work he did is faulty, with many outlets and light switches not grounded properly, as any professional electrician had told us when we were forced to have electrical work done on the property.

Did owner reveal that there was no insulation?

Did owner reveal the crack in the slab that he had told my husband about?

These are crimes he can live with apparently, in his signature take-the-money-and-run mode of operation without remorse or restitution.

It is clear that more than one life lesson for him will be necessary and is inevitable.

Use Money, Love People – Not Love Money, Use People

If this web presence prevented landlord/owner from abusing another person, taking advantage of another family while he chased money, then it served its purpose.

To Landlord/Owner – We saw you at Chick-fil-a recently. The terrible feelings that were stirred as we stood and watched you go from your cheep into the store cannot be described. With your hauling lumber for another hackjob project, we could only imagine the house cringing again when you pulled into the driveway that day.

Please don’t do what you did to us to any other.

Finally, ask yourself at least, at last:

“Do I own this property, or does this property own me”?

Beware the Ides of March

I’ve always been apprehensive on March 15. Today gave good reason to continue that sensibility. Landlord comes on property to play with his pool pump still. He persists in stating that “someone” broke it. Yet, after looking him in the eyes, standing my ground, averring that no one, neither me, husband or our pool man did so, he finally admitted, “Well, come to think of it, a man I had here five or six years ago broke a piece off.” In utter disbelief and disgust, not just at hearing another lie but in that he wholeheartedly committed himself to that lie for years, I proceeded to close the door. He then took his whole body and forcibly barreled through the front door, bending the metal closure on the door frame, and his force had the door send me sailing backward into a stack of boxes. After recovering myself, I went to the telephone to call the police. Landlord taunted me, “Call the police, go ahead. This is my property.” We had been subject to landlord’s bad temper for years, which culminated in this incident, documented as police report of battery against tenant.

December 7 — A date which will live in infamy

December 4, 2011: Landlord proffers a lease renewal at the end of the current lease arrangement of January 31, 2013. Tenant and her daughters are relieved and plan to put up a Christmas tree after all.

December 7, 2011: Landlord launches a sneak attack, and we are barraged with harassing telephone messages and bombed with threatening emails, rescinding lease renewal. Landlord’s axis of evil recruits current live-in woman as double-agent to provoke and agitate.

Amid confusion, tenant’s husband aka daughters’ father, goes AWOL in cowardly retreat, leaving mother to assess damage, quell internal upheaval, attend to casualties, including, but not limited to, youngest daughter breaking into hives from emotional and cardiac distress.

Delusions of grandeur

I’ve been asked by many why we withstood so much for so long.

After looking over the property in January 2007, I had made it clear to landlord that this was not something I wished to rent at his exorbitant price of $1550 per month plus lawn care. I was too old to be without a house and just continue renting. His promise that day — if we stayed at least three years, the lease would be converted to a rent to own.

This was the prime reason we withstood so much abuse from this man. When we moved in, we began thoroughly cleaning and replacing fixtures — particularly closet hardware. He had left furniture of all kinds that we had to sell for him. When all of the appliances eventually needed replaced, landlord was too lazy to perform his property management duties so we ended up running around town time and again buying those appliances on our credit cards, waiting, and hoping, for reimbursement. We made sensible purchases of those keeping in mind that some day this would be our house, and, therefore, we would not want to have cheap or scratch-and-dent preferred by owner to “cut his costs” — a phrase engraved in my mind by him at any circumstance that involved him opening his wallet in performance of his rightful duties.

But after that three years elapsed, no such arrangement materialized. He informed us that “a millionaire had bought his estate.” It was his terrible  joke. But it indicated to us that he was clearly deluded. He informed us shortly thereafter that he wanted approximately $45,000 more than the property value. And that was that.

It was at that point we ended his days of “landlord enrichment.” And we watched our investments — financial, emotional and physical, go straight down the proverbial drain in one instant.

Everyone has their delusion of grandeur. He based his on lies. And that crushed ours, which was based on misplaced trust. And when I left, I told him:

— Your word is worthless. Your word is not your bond. —

It is, thus, no wonder that he had two failed businesses in two years, PLUS this one. Three strikes you’re out! Hopefully, he will stay away from entrepreneurial endeavors that debilitate so many.

A foundation mortared with lies and greed will not support a strong business relationship.

THEM!

At 10:00 one night, we were horrified to find thousands of bugs coming up through every opening in the master bathroom!

We’re being INVADED!

Not until nearly 4:00 am did the cluster become contained.

It was like a late night sci-fi thriller:

Noah — You’re going to want to hurry up on that ark!

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Recently, we drove by the Eagles Crossing property.

Had our eyes deceived us?

Parts of the lawn were as high as an elephant’s eye, and other parts were dried to a tumbleweed. Now that landlord has to pay for the water to keep the lawn green, this is what has happened.

Landlord required my husband to cut the grass TWICE A WEEK in the summer. Yet, here I am staring at a pasture that would take a flock of sheep a month to eat enough grass to be in compliance with the Hunters Creek Homeogres Association.

While we resided here, my husband, daughters and I spent hours weekly cutting the grass, pulling weeds, gathering fallen palm tree leaves, raking, etc., on top of manually watering the lawn with our hose. The lawn watering system didn’t work upon move-in 2007. Many, many, many months later, when it was replaced by landlord’s friend who was not proficient in doing such work, the system stopped working again, and landlord never had it repaired. Though we bought a sprinkler to move around the lawn to get it watered in all of the dry spots, often times my husband or I would be standing around with the hoses we purchased to water the lawn.

And here, parts of the lawn — dead in large pockets! While we resided here, he was tyrannical about HIS cost and forcing us to pay for his negligence on all levels. Landlord was relentless in using the water we paid to water the lawn, let leaky pipes go without repair, adding water every week to the green swamp of a pool he created, or he would just stand with a hose and let the water run against the house in more of his despicable ways.

In 2007, landlord/owner promised he would be back every quarter, at least three or four times a year, to do landscaping, take care of the gutters, etc. Except for one time around 2010, when he brought the woman he was currently living with to show off his “Florida estate,” he never did any of the tree maintenance, nor sent any lawn care maintenance from February 2007 through June 2011.

Over the years, we did the lawn care and tree maintenance, from climbing tall palm trees, to cutting down a tree that was struck by lightning; from my husband having to climb onto the roof to clean the gutters, to trimming dead trees that landlord planted because he liked the look of them in a shopping mall!

Landlord/owner does have an arsenal of excuses for not cutting his own lawn I am certain, though any excuse from us would have been completely unacceptable.

97% of people lie 97% of the time

But 100% of landlords lie 100% of the time:

LIE: “That pipe isn’t leaking.”
TRUTH: It IS leaking but since landlord/owner doesn’t pay the water bill, landlord will lie about it to save his own penny or his five minutes of time to properly repair it. Not until pressed for months, costing me a lot of money on my water bill, would landlord admit that it was leaking and then made attempt to fix it.

LIE: “Somebody broke that.”
TRUTH: Landlord broke it but is too prideful and cowardly to admit it; plus, it’s easier just to blame tenant or a phantom repairman from six years ago. (Article forthcoming.)

LIE: “The refrigerator came with the house.”
TRUTH: See article: The Brotherhood of the Traveling Refrigerator

LIE: “I’ll replace the refrigerator with the same model.”
TRUTH: See article: The Brotherhood of the Traveling Refrigerator

LIE: “The washer’s only a few years old. It works great; you just have to jiggle it occasionally. It works best on permanent press cycle.”
TRUTH: The washer won’t spin or empty the water, even if you “jiggle” it constantly. And it only will wash occasionally on permanent press cycle, and not at all on any other cycle. Oh, and a “few years” translates from “lying-landlord-speak” to factual “discontinued about 15+ years ago.” (Article forthcoming.)

More to come — I can only withstand a rehash of all this negativity in small chunks. So why rehash it, you may ask? The next unsuspecting tenant, or heaven forbid, person looking to purchase this owner-created MONEY PIT needs to be aware of the lies and coverups from owner’s attempt to “FLIP THIS FLOP” because owner certainly will LIE about it before he opens his moth-infested coin purse to HIRE someone to fix it right.

And, apparently from all of the positive comments received regarding these articles, many people are well past being tired of the rampant lying that is considered normal operating practice in any level of business and personal relationship.

Too many people remain silent today, coerced by the tyrants to “just get along,” “don’t sweat the small stuff,” etc., while the tyrants take over.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. – Thomas Jefferson

“Tyranny comes in all forms. And it usually starts with a LIE.” – me

Dear Mr. Villa: How often should one water his house?

As long as tenant is paying for the water, take full advantage of them and water your house frequently at their expense, most especially when it is raining.

~ Only through humor shall I not cry again. ~

Hell’s Kitchen

When we moved in, the kitchen was filthy. Of course, the refrigerator was a disaster, as already posted in the article “The Brotherhood of the Traveling Refrigerator.” Sides of cabinets were unsightly, with warping and peeling. The “pantry” doors were missing a knob, and they did not close without falling off the track. Every wire shelf was so caked with grimy dirt that they had to be violently scrubbed or replaced, along with replacing all of the broken wall fasteners.

Moving on to the kitchen sink, the faucet handle was just placed on top, not fastened. The owner had attempted all kinds of “plumbing” in the house, which caused leaks everywhere — under the kitchen sink, behind the refrigerator, along the dishwasher. As can be seen, there was so much leaking over the years that the fiberboard countertops were warped and flaking. Two of the cabinets in the kitchen could not be used — the warping was so bad that my bowls would just slide from the left or right down to the middle of the cabinet, and the smell of mold and mildew was onerous.

The bottom of the cabinets had make-shift boards that were crudely cut, and thus they were uneven. It can be seen that merely a squirt of glue was drawn across in a failed attempt to cover an unfinished and unsightly cabinet base; they were constantly falling off as seen here.

And don’t go under the kitchen sink!

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Refrigerator

When we rented this house, owner told us, “The refrigerator came with the house when I bought it. It works great except the front water and ice dispenser don’t work but I’m going to replace the refrigerator before you move in.” My husband asked, “Well when you do, please replace it with a side-by-side like this one.” Owner agreed.

But, a week or two before we were to move in, owner said he had a hernia. Thus, many things were left undone. Owner left the house in a filthy mess, left us with rooms full of furniture he asked us to sell for him, and he had not replaced the refrigerator.

It wasn’t long before we noticed that food was not cold on the refrigerator side. The freezer side seemed okay. But food spoiled very fast, despite our turning the control to the coolest setting. At this point, the cost of spoiled food was shameful. My husband had to work with owner for well over a year to get him to finally replace the refrigerator. He did not replace it with the side-by-side model he promised. Owner, being somewhere up north, asked us to run around to Sears, Home Depot, Lowes and other stores to get him best price and select a model. We invested a great deal of time and gas in doing so and selected a low priced side-by-side. Shocked, delivery came by one day with  a model nowhere close to being a side-by-side. It was the least expensive refrigerator on the market, which had a freezer at the top and was so much smaller, that the food we did have in the old one couldn’t fit into the new one. All that waiting, and time and gas we wasted running around to do his property management to be slapped in the face with this.

Upon installation of the new refrigerator, installer tells us that there is an icemaker in the freezer that we will not be able to use because the line behind the refrigerator looks to have been rusted for years and is completely broken off! My husband tells owner, and, of course, it is never repaired because owner cannot come down to attempt repair himself and don’t even suggest having a repairman come because that would be out of the question.

Now, what to do with the old refrigerator?

Owner did not take care of the old refrigerator removal. And, of course, no charity wanted it because the icemaker did not work. Since the new one was too small for some of our freezer items, my husband and I decided to keep the old one in the garage temporarily and use the freezer side since that still seemed to work.  We were able to get a few months out of the freezer side until Hunters Creek had its community garage sale when we rolled it out onto the driveway and put a big “FREE” sign on it.

The guy next door comes over laughing, “I see you’re finally getting rid of my old refrigerator. That thing hasn’t worked for years, since I hauled it out to the curb and your landlord pushed it over here!”

With our jaws on the ground, the journey of the traveling refrigerator was unveiled to us. Years and years ago, the guy next door was getting rid of this refrigerator because it did not work. Our landlord pushed it from this guy’s house to his house, despite this guy telling him that the thing did not work.

Now, all the pieces of landlord’s lying puzzle fit. That’s why there were only a few condiment jars in it when landlord first showed us the refrigerator, and he had laughed it off as, “Well, you know how it is with single guys in the house.”

The wasted time, the wasted food and the wasted money we endured!

When I finally brought this incident up to landlord this year, his response was, “Okay! So I lied! So I’m a bad person. So what!”

Where’s Tom Sawyer when you need him

Hurricane Katrina had greatly damaged the fence that offered privacy between the property we were renting and the property behind. After years of coaxing with owner, little did we know that when finally the fence would be removed that it would be several more years before landlord/owner would replace it. So here is a photograph of what we lived with interim to getting that new fence. After years of waiting, battling with owner, and my husband negotiating with neighbors on behalf of lazy landlord who clearly had zero negotiating skills, the new fence was finally in place.

Now the month-to-month battle to paint it. I offered on several instances to paint the fence as I had experience working on a farm in doing such work. Owner wanted it done for nothing apparently, because he repeatedly declined. Instead, he enlisted, or coerced, his inexperienced and indifferent twin to take a stab at it

What a disaster!

These represent just a small sampling of photographs of the slapdash hack job that was done by owner’s twin.

As with everything else over the years, owner knew it all, never taking one word of advice on how to do anything properly. In short, after nearly a year, the fence remains half-painted on one side, and not painted at all on the other. The one side that was attempted is so badly painted, a blind one-armed monkey would have done a finer job. I don’t know how the Hunters Creek Homeowners (or Homeogres, as many residents term it) Association allows this to slide so long, without fine or action.

Strangle a Penny

A chain of pool supply/repair stores in Florida is called “Pinch a Penny.” Owner of this house should open his own pool DIS-repair establishment called “Strangle a Penny.” His modus operandi is to meddle, interfere, delay and in any way negatively impact until his “penny wise, pound foolish” methodology turns his penny backwards, forwards, upside down and inside out, making someone spend quite a penny for his negligence.

I engaged several professionals, all of whom, after trying to stop from laughing, gave great insight into the many problems. Aside from the pump leaking, and tape of some sort holding the apparatus together, the meter reading between 50-60 instead of between 10-15, all professionals agreed that the owner had no knowledge or ability to appropriately repair the pump. One serviceman relayed, “The part to fix this is actually inexpensive. It’s a real shame, but I see this all the time with cheap landlords who think they can do it themselves.”

I don’t have a problem if someone is incapable of doing repairs. I don’t even have a problem if someone is more than parsimonious. But I do have a problem when that person makes me pay, and pay much, much more than should be, due to his lying and negligence.

After eight weeks of lies, delays, and his being unable to fix it, he finally admits partial responsibility that he didn’t seal it properly and that he broke something on it. But that did not stop him during or even thereafter from badgering me to have costly pool maintenance done, now that the pool is a swamp, while he continues to delay and play. In his attempt to still cover up his mistakes, landlord took it upon himself to padlock the pool timer box and run the pool filter 24 hours a day on my electricity dollars.

One man’s journey from miser to liar to thief.

A House with a Pool

I recall my parents looking at new homes, and their dreams of buying one with a built-in pool.  But it was never meant to be then.

When an opportunity arose for my husband and I to rent a Florida house with an in-ground pool, it was exciting.  That must have overshadowed our judgment when we entered into a lease with the house owner.

The pool was a dream when we first saw it.  After signing the lease, we brought our daughters to look at the house to find that the pool was filled with paint chips from the owner and his friend trying to repair the deck and porch surface.

As part of the lease, owner was responsible for the pool maintenance.  For the first year, the pool was barely useable.  Owner had left the state and had engaged from afar some of the worst, and cheapest, pool maintenance people available in the Hunters Creek, Orlando area.  The pump did not operate properly.  The filter was never cleaned.  One service put in so many chemicals, my daughters were nearly hospitalized from skin rashes.  Another service put in hardly any chemicals so the pool was either green from algae or cloudy from dead algae.

Finally, we told owner we were going to engage our own service.  For the first time in over a year, we had a beautiful, crystal clear pool where no one got rashes and even our little dog could swim without getting abscesses on her little paws!

Then in January 2012, owner relocated back to Florida, after two other of his businesses and several of his personal relationships failed.

On February 11, 2012, I told owner there was a problem with the pool pump.  Wrong move on my part.  Owner, as usual, decided to try to fix it himself.  To make a long and painful story short, pump was broken for weeks, due to owner’s lack of knowledge in not only operating but in fixing pool pumps.  But that did not stop him from blaming all but himself and holding me responsible for having it cleaned due to his gross negligence.

This painful story will be dealt with in more details in other posts, but as of the date of this post, April 22, 2012, this is what the pool looks like after owner’s meddling and failure.  It should be noted that the pool pump is still not operating properly.  I have had several professional pool services assess the problems, of which owner has refused to acknowledge their expert remedies.