I just want you all to know that I have not abandoned this blog nor have I forgotten any of you.
Right now I am putting in 50 hours per week preparing for a legal case: deadbeat tenants who damaged an expensive rental property. We have to put thousands into fixing the property (everything from replacing the kitchen stove they destroyed and the doorbells they stole to putting turf down where they smothered one lawn with paving stones and killed another one completely--nothing but bare sand left), and thousands more to pay an attorney to represent us in court. (These tenants have the audacity to want us to pay them R31000--$3100 USD--for "maintenance" on the property: it is costing us many times that to fix the damage they caused). Because we are expending money on two fronts, I am having to take on the responsibility of preparing the visuals for the trial so I don't have to pay for the lawyer's time to do it: so far I have 52 pages averaging 4 photos per page (plus explanatory captions) and am only about half finished. In addition to all of that, I have caught a bad chest cold and am on meds for it lest it turn into pneumonia.
So, I am just on a brief hiatus until such time as I have the prep work done for the lawyers and can have some time to myself again. When I return, I'll tell you all about it--it will not surprise you to learn the (former) tenant is most likely an N--and spiteful as all hell--and her husband a gold-medal quality enabler and flying monkey...
Hugs to you all...
Violet
Oh Violet, so sorry this tenant crap is turning into such a full-on nightmare. Man, the stress of that will lower your resistance to infection, so yeah, you need to make sure it doesn't develop into pneumonia. That's all you need, that and a painful back. Such legal stresses aggravate everything. I hope you get everything back from the deadbeats including court costs....
ReplyDeleteDitto, CS, and best of luck - perhaps this will color their record with the ability to rent elsewhere, and your personal education will make it easier to combat them.
ReplyDeleteWe have this wonderful thing in this country called "blacklisting." If you leave a bad debt, you can be blacklisted by the company you owe money to and the blacklisting will not be lifted until the debt is paid.
ReplyDeleteA person who is blacklisted cannot obtain credit...and that means if you go looking for a new place to rent, you will be on the blacklist and can't pass a credit check. We have blacklisted them, so they will not have access to the better rentals (because those always go through a credit and background check). And if we are ever called on a reference check, you can probably guess what we'll have to say.
Some good news, though--the person from whom we bought the property was also a nasty N...after she signed the sales paperwork she changed her mind about some of the things she agreed to leave on the property, specifically a pair of rustic wood garden sheds worth about R20,000 each (about $2000 USD). She called us and wanted us to GIVE her those garden sheds and when my husband declined (the house has no garage so they were necessary as a place to store garden equipment and personal goods) she got spiteful: she took cupboards off the walls and stole a lot of plants from the garden (including a freaking wild banana tree!!) and cut down a lot of plants. We engaged a garden service to fix it back up and restore the irrigation system (which the previous owner cut the pipes to).
The good news is, I found the owner of that garden service, she remembers the garden and even has photos of what it looked like when she was finished with it! And, she is coming back to fix it and even bringing the same assistants who worked on it last time. Best of all, not only does she have those photos, she is willing to go see our attorney to do an affidavit with respect to the condition of the garden!!
Sometimes serendipity happens...
I got the bulk of my documents completed and off to the lawyers last night. I have had the most awful cold for the last two weeks...the first chest cold I have had in a decade...and it is killing me. It is not the flu...no aches, no fever...just congestion in my head and chest and now a new symptom...nausea. If I was a younger woman, I would suspect I was pregnant because it feels just like morning sickness, but I had a hysterectomy years ago, so I know that is not the cause.
ReplyDeleteI would love to sit down and write, but right now, this case still has more demands on me. And, being sick, I don't have any ideas....hmmm...that gives me an idea...