Responses to "a letter to a heartless landlord"
Tuesday Oct 14 1997
<kkeane@mfi.com>
Wow! I loved your letter, and as I read, it'd struck a familiar chord.
I was supposed to move into 525 Steiner and I put down a $1000 deposit,
which the landlord had cashed "on accident" of course. Three days before
move in, I'm checking my voice-mail at work, while on a business trip in WA,
and what do I hear? A ranting and raving message from my lanlordess to be.
When I'd phoned her, she'd turned from the reasonable person I'd met a
month prior, into a lunatic. She'd claimed that her daughter had all
of a sudden needed a place to live. It was only through your letter
that I'd found out where that hokiest-of-hokey excuses came from.
Things got super-ugly when every interaction had turned into a virtual
screaming match (some right at the office, mind you) about her
returning my $1000 deposit. I'd finally threatened her with my
lawyer, and he'd made a phonecall to her and managed to get my
$1000 back. Thank God.
Perhaps the ugliest and most scarring effects of this were that in our
disagreements I'd brought up the fact that since she'd cashed the check,
she'd legally acknowledged the rental of the apartment. At that time
she'd threatened to tell any and all legal persons that I'd called her a
"black bitch" and "nigger" - which is so far beyond and removed from
my personality I can hardly even type out the words.
Thanks for lisetening to my woes. I agree that they're turning SF
into an elitist city by the second. It's kinda like student loans, in
that if you're rich, you don't need to be concerned and if you're poor
there will be several government aids. What kind of society do we live
in that holds down the Honest Joe trying to scrape by and make a living?
It definitely makes me understand why we've had postal workers
lose their minds for apparently no reason - No reason, huh?
By the way, I think that there should be another law passed in which a
landlord MUST give AND update their current address. Just like FedEx,
there should not be any rent deliverable to a P.O Box. My old landlord at
has a court order which states that she owes me $1,850. I can't collect on
it because she'd made herself untracable though a P.O. Box address and
by living with her relatives (no last names to trace on govt. documents).
She has a phone number which is not in her name, etc, etc. I can't even
track her through the DMV, because that's sealed information. And that's
how it ends up AFTER you've wasted all of the time, energy, and money
actually GOING to court.
Aren't there any decent people renting apartments in this whole city?
One suggestion- Move to the East Bay, like I did. I think that the landlords
there are a lot more reasonable as far as rent, and possess a general
understanding that happy tenants are much more important than
a few more thousand dollars a year.
Good luck.
Kelly
email kevin@whisperdesign.com
home www.whisperdesign.com