Slum Lords

Step one first thing on moving day was to acquire the keys. Jeramie and I awaiting our new landlord outside our new digs. And waited, and waited. Fifteen minutes late is a constant thing for this women. Arriving all flustered, she places the keys in our hand, thrusts a lamp for the bare bulb hanging in our kitchen. I’m going to assume I’m installing this into our vaulted ceilings myself. And causally in passing she mentioned she just didn’t have time to get it professionally cleaned. We stipulated in several emails that it was our expectation that the place be cleaned.

We went up and checked it out. The place was dirty. Gross fridge dirty. Left behind wet carpet on the deck dirty. Abandon computer monitor in the closet dirty. We were pissed.

After trying to get two weeks free of rent, we agree on one. But not without a struggle. She actually said, in an insulted voice, something like - “I even got this nice lamp. It’s very contemporary, so you won’t have a hanging bulb, AND I had the carpets cleaned.”

Great lady. Those are things that are supposed to happen. Along with the rest of the place being clean. Not something you’re doing special, just for us.

Then she bitches about how she has no money to pay the mortgage and she couldn’t afford cleaning until she cashed our check.

Now I feel awesome.

I try to convey that I don’t give a fuck if she can pay the mortgage or not, that knowledge is completely irrelevant. She offers to have it cleaned in a few days. NO crazy. Not after we’ve already moved in. Its around this point I’m looking for the cameras. But, no. This was for real.

Then she pleadfully urges us not to talk to the rest of the tenants about her, windedly explaining that nobody knows her and understands her and we will her people saying bad things about her.

Like I care.

Next we picked up the moving truck and spent hours filling it up. My previous estimate of male help was a little low. Andrew was awesome for helping and we had help from Oliver for an hour. But that wasn’t cutting it. I am so weak. My arms were noodles. There were so many fucking boxes.

Finally the new apartment is all filled up with our lives. And then I go to plug in my macbook. No power.
Broken plug? I don’t think so! There was no electricity in the entire apartment!

Call to the landlord produced a response of if you need electricity, you need to call the electric company.
Last I checked, the electricity was supposed to be turned on before tenants moved in. And when we called PGE? No electricity hook up until Monday. This was Saturday.

So to wrap up so far - dirty apartments, exhaustion from moving, and no electricity for the whole weekend. And it was then we got the bad news.

Another tenant came over and was telling us about the place. And she tells us - The women who we signed a lease with from craigslist isn’t actually the landlord. She has no legal authority over the place. All she is, is the granddaughter of the owner. This owner has been deemed legally incompetent. There is a trustee, and he is the one everyone pays rent too. My lease was invalid. All the money I payed her for deposit and first month rent? Who knows?

And it gets better.

There is no manager. There was one. Turns out he was a convicted sex offender and is now living in a group home. So even though the trustee is probably the rightful rent receiver, there is no one around to fix the plumbing if the toilet floods in this place!

We freak out. Jeramie changes the locks and puts a stop to the check. Neither party seemed to notice. I wrote some letters stating something like we would be perfectly willing to pay as soon as we are shown legal documentation of who to pay. Neither party has responded. So as it stands now we’ve barricaded ourselves into a place we’re not paying for. Awesome... not so such how to continue from here.