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”?

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. ~

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.