After the disappearance of my tenant Robb, (and it was still two years before his skeletal remains would be found in a remote desert area of Utah — see chapter five of this story), things began to go more downhill with Jon, who had been my roommate during part of the sordid drama introduced into my home by the Demented Duo (see chapter four of this story).   It’s now time to tell the story of Jon.

I learned more about how to screen renters

After the departure of Marie, and the disappearance of Robb, I eventually brought in two new roomies, Bridget and Tomasso. Bridget was a biology student at a local college, and Tomasso was here from Italy for a 6 month program at the major university.  I had at this point learned that I had better luck with tenants who were students.   Thanks as well to years of some truly atrocious experiences with roommates, I had learned a little more about how to screen prospective renters, and what to look out for.   Though I was earlier less aware of this quality, I’d developed an “arrogance detector” at last, and now I sought out roommates who had an aura of gentleness, sweetness — even obsequiousness.  Because one of the things I had learned in all my misadventures, was that it was just about completely meaningless for a prospective tenant to say that they had read my house rules and agreed with them and would follow them all. This had been very hard to learn, because I’m an honest person, and you, gentle reader, are doubtless an honest person, and it’s just very  difficult for us honest and sincere people to understand how someone can look us right in the eye and lie to us!   We tend to have that naive and foolish belief, that if someone signs a rental agreement and agrees to abide by it, then they will.

 

Otherwise, if they did not want to abide by it, they would go and look for another place to rent, with rules that they could agree to — right? Wrong.  Many of them will sign on to your rental agreement, never intending to follow the rules they agreed to — why? Because your place is cheap, and conveniently located.  So for many tenants, the fact that they need a place in the price range you are offering, and in the convenient location you offer, makes them feel entitled to have it, regardless of the fact that they dont’ intend to follow your rules.  This is exactly the problem that would develop with Jon, as time would show.

What I had found in my years of experience, is that at the very moment many renters are signing a rental agreement saying they will abide by all the house rules, they actually think that all his paperwork is a meaningless formality, and that you, the landlord, are not going to be so tiresome and boorish that you would actually expect them to follow all these rules!! I mean, there you are, sitting across from them, looking normal and human and pleasant and smiling, so, come off it, they think inwardly, you must be joking, you aren’t really going to  expect all dishes to be put away all the time, or no socializing after 10pm, or whatever the rule is that they dont’ think matches your pleasant face.  So, such liars and cheats are signing on, and blowing off, at the very same time.

Such prospective tenants  dont’ care a fig newton for all your rules, they just want  a place that has the low rent you have, and the proximity to public transit or downtown or other convenient location that you have, and so they will unethically, dishonestly force-fit your offering to themselves, dismissing your needs and emphasizing their own.  And thus when one is screening prospective renters, one has to realize the prevalance of this dishonesty, and this self-centeredness and disrespect for you as the homeowner and the person whose home it is, and seek to screen out these dolts.

Hence, what I had learned to look for in renters, was not the words and promises that came out of their mouths, but to apply my intuition (which I had plenty of, but which I had not sufficiently valued) and look for those renters of whom I assessed, that they would be ashamed of themselves if they did not meet my expectations of them.  Because it is one thing for a landlord to scold a tenant for their misbehavior, but it is quite another thing, and much more effective, when that same tenant’s own conscience is scolding them from within.  Thus, you do well as a person offering rental property, if you learn to select those renters who have the capacity to experience shame and guilt, and to be suitably chastened by their own conscience.

Things go downhill with Jon

So after I brought in Bridget and Tomasso, I congratulated myself on my improved tenant screening skills, because both these individuals were exceptionally polite and sweet.  They followed all the house rules to an absolute tee, and had been very honest about their own habits, the fact that they would not be around much, but would be out attending school and busy with studying.

 

At the same time that the overall level of tenant cooperation in my house improved, things started going downhill with Jon.  This problem actually had started around the time that Marie moved out, but grew worse after the arrival of my stellar tenants Bridget and Tomasso.  I had the intuition (and I think I am right on the money here) that Jon (as an anarchist-empathizing political activist at heart) had a deepseated need to have some sort of anti-authoritarian subversion of my authority going on in my house at all times, in at least a minor way. Once I deprived him of any and all co-conspirators to his need to at least subtly subvert my authority, he found himself enormously frustrated, and had to resort to greater open defiance. I think that Jon’s wishes for my home, were precisely in reverse to my own.  As I gained more control over my home and brought in better tenants, those gentle hearted and truly considerate people who followed my rules without complaint, Jon must have felt more marginalized and alone — poor baby! He no longer had anyone in my house to build anti-authority, anti-landlord alliances with.  It must have just riled him that I had at last learned to divide and conquer, and had divided him out from all the miscreants, haters, bullies and other vermin he could use against me.

For the most part, and for the years since he moved in, I had actually found Jon to be a decent tenant. His anti-authoritarian subversion had generally mostly had at least one other in alliance with him, so he was content to defy my authority in small ways which I didn’t notice much.   Like me he was pretty solitary, and very quiet.  He kept to himself a lot, doing computer work and research in his room.  He had been planning a career change, wanting to do something other than the work he had been involved in with an environmental organization. I guess he realized that as he entered his thirties, that a low salary nonprofit job wasn’t what he wanted for the rest of his life.  He had expressed interest in being an electrician or an ironworker, and I had perked up when I heard about his interest in electrical work, since I did electrical work as part of my home repair profession.  So I gave him some books on electrical work, and offered to take him to one of my jobs where I was installing a new circuit in a house where remodeling was going on (actually the home of a friend of mine), and have him help me there at this house  He came along and helped me the whole day, and I enjoyed the chance to teach him something about electrical work.  Much later, my friend would say that she thought he was pretty arrogant.  I dont’ know why I missed seeing that in him, all the time he was in my house.  Others who met him or heard stories about him, all expressed that they found him exceptionally arrogant, but I didn’t see that in him until things started to go badly, which was actually just around the time when  Marie moved out.

One of the things I had begun doing a few years back, was keeping backyard chickens.  Jon had expressed interest in helping with this, and so for the last couple years,  he and I shared the chores with the keeping of the chickens.  However, I had felt all along that the chores were not  being divided equally.  I noticed too often that I was “picking up the slack” where Jon was slacking off.

The sweet birds needed good care and Jon was slacking off 

He’d forget to fill the chicken waterer, and I would come and find it empty.  He would forget to clean out the coop, and I would have to remind him to do that.  He would get sick with a cold or flu, but instead of asking me to cover for him,  would just flake on feeding the chickens at all that day, supposing I guess that I would be there as usual to pick up the slack.  So Jon’s flaking off became a thorn in my side that was needling at me for several months.

First Butt-Whupping of Jon

After itching with this persistent annoyance of his continual slackage and overall poor attitude about the chicken chores, one day I realized that Jon had brought a second bike to my property without asking me.  The rules were clear: tenants could have one bike and one bike only at my house, which were kept in the backyard in a bike storage area.  When the previous tenant had left, and taken her bike, the new tenant Bridget had not had a bike to put back there, and so I guess Jon had thought that he could simply seize the vacant space and claim it as his.  When I realized that Jon had put two bikes there, I told him that he could not do this, and that he would have to get the other one out of there.  He argued that he had nowhere to put it.  I told him I didnt’ care, but that he couldn’t have it in my bike storage area or anywhere in my yard.  He took it and stored it in my yard anyway, insisting,  “you have to be flexible” – I had to do no such thing.

But in his mind, because he had a need, I was mandated to provide for his need, my own needs and wishes be damned.  He saw I had space in my backyard, and he didn’t care if I didn’t want extra bikes lying around cluttering up my space, and he didnt’ care that I had a house rule that clearly stated that tenants could not leave their belongings in yards or any common area — he felt that I was all but legally mandated to provide for his storage needs.

Jon’s bike finally departed my premises, but not without me threatening to take it to the dump if he didnt’ get his crap out of my yard.  As I started to more firmly plant my foot down now, and assume the full power of my authority in my home and show very little patience with his arrogant bullshit, Jon and I entered into a warpath, which would escalate over the next few months.  I was now standing up to Jon’s nonsense and disrespect, putting him in his place,  and doing with him what I should have done long ago, such as during the second week of his tenancy, when to my disturbed surprise, I heard the distinct sound of a small animal yapping, within his room on my no pets property. Knocking on his door, he opened it, and there he was with a little puppy in his arms.  When I asked what the hell was going on, he couldn’t have a dog in my house, he argued, “it will only be here overnight, I’m taking care of it for someone.”  I should have kicked him to the curb at that time, but as the puppy was cute, I softened and shrugged off this early blatant violation of my house rules. I didnt’ realize it until much later, when previous tenants told me stories about Jon, that he had actually promoted mass defiance against my house rules every time I went on vacation.  I found out he’d had parties in my home (it had always been strictly forbidden for any renter to invite more than 2 guests to my house) whenever I went away for a few days or a week.

After the bike incident and my butt-whupping of Jon, putting him in his place by demonstrating to him that you are my tenant, and I am not your servant, and you follow my rules, I don’t take your commands he became noticably different in his manner in my house.  He was now sullen and hostile looking, and refused to greet or acknowledge me as I passed by him or when I was in the same room with him.  Really I should have just evicted him at that point, delivering him a notice of termination of tenancy and telling him , nothing personal, but I need more space and I’m taking your room.  That would have kept things from escalating and getting worse, and him from feeling that he could only maintain his arrogant pride by putting up a massive fight.  So I’m saying this as a word of advice to all of you out there who find you have a problem with a tenant — particularly one who is a roommate — get them out quickly, before things escalate and get worse.  Early and quick is more painless.

Second Butt-Whupping of Jon

The tension heated up between myself and Jon, and now others could sense it as well.  Jon had become such a slacker with taking care of the backyard chickens, that I finally had to fire him from this task, which he did only out of self-interest in obtaining fresh eggs, because he showed very little love for the hens.  Bridget, took over his chicken care duties, and she reported to me that she’d had a conversation with Jon in which he had spoken about me using foul language.  “She needs to take a fucking chill pill!!“, Jon had apparently said about me, and Bridget said he’d seemed incredibly angry, angrier than she had ever seen him before.

In weeks to follow, there were a couple other things that I needed to talk to Jon about, regarding a couple other small but persistent rule violations regarding the number of guests he was having over.  When I tried to speak to him in person about these things, he refused to listen, and walked away from me. When I wrote him a note and left it in his mailbox, he never responded.  He was blowing me off, but I was not going to be blown off any more. Not with all the crap I’d had to endure, all the rudeness, disrespect and outright persecution from seriously bad tenants.  No, Jon was going to find that he could not blow me off, because I was going to be on his ass. But instead of trying to speak to him more about events now in the past, I waited for a present-time problem to occur so I could confront him.  I did not have to wait long.

Third Butt-Whupping of Jon

Ever since the problems I had had first with the Demented Duo taking over my kitchen for their tawdry sorority drama scenes, and then Marie, inviting over friends and boyfriends nearly every day of the week, I had tightened up my house rules about guests, to try to prevent renters taking over my kitchen with strangers in my house, something that had always made me feel uncomfortable.  So from early days when I allowed renters to have up to two guests at a time three times a week, I now allowed only one guest at a time, 2 days a week, and I no longer allowed the kitchen to be used for “hanging out” — one could only use the kitchen to cook or eat.

One late afternoon in late summer, I heard the sound of laughter in the kitchen below, and went downstairs to find Jon at the kitchen table with two of his friends.  They smiled and politely said hello to me, and I politely said hello to them, and then quietly told Jon that he was only permitted to have one friend at a time at my house.  Jon briefly glanced at me, said “sure”, in a very insincere tone that sounded far too much like “Whut-EVER!!” ,  and continued chatting with both his friends, ignoring me completely.

Not quite sure what to do, I went back upstairs to ponder this issue.  I hoped that in a few minutes I would hear Jon saying goodbye to his friends, and I would not have to press this issue in front of all of them, because I didn’t feel in the mood for more confrontation.  However, as the minute hand wound around the clocks’ face, I did not hear the sound of meals wrapping up, dishes being washed,  goodbyes announced, or doors closing and unwelcome house guests departing the premises.  I only heard the sound of more laughter from below me.

So after about 30 minutes I went right back downstairs, marched up to my kitchen table, looked at Jon, and angrily announced, “You will have to ask your guests to leave right now!!.”  Jon said that I was being ridiculous, and that they were only having a quiet dinner. I told them that they could take their quiet dinner elsewhere, but that he was not permitted to have more than one guest at a time at my house.

He burst out that he had never agreed to that rule, and so I was prohibited from imposing it on him.  In fact, he was 200% wrong in his understanding of state law on this issue (more about this later), but arrogant as he was, he would not allow his complete ignorance of the law to temper his enormous sense of self-righteous entitlement.  I became so angry, that there and then, for the first time in my life that I can recall, I literally yelled at one of my tenants.  As he told me that my rule was ridiculous nonsense, I yelled, “If you don’t like it here,  then get the hell out of my house!!!!” I was shaking and trembling with anger as I yelled that, and I have to say, it felt very good to let my anger out to that extent.  I had finally cut loose with the tension and anger that had built up in me over not just the last few months of Jon’s impudence, rudeness and disrespect, but really over several years of getting trampled by my insolent and bully tenants.  I was massive now — I towered in height over Jon.  Though he was about 6 inches taller than me in physical height, I had now gained several feet in height on him in moral authority and sheer emotional power.  I felt robust, I felt strong, and I felt in charge — and I realized at that point, that this was the way it had to be in my house, from now on.  I was never again going to let this feeling be taken away from me — the feeling that it was actually me, rather than my tenants, who owned my house and who was to have full control of it.

Ironically, I eventually realized something else about Jon that helped me feel more powerful as well as more fortunate than him — as arrogant and insolent as he was, Jon was very uncomfortable with the emotion of anger.  He had a hard time being angry — he tended to repress his anger.  Actually this was likely one of the main reasons he ended up being so vindictive.  (And quite likely also a main reason he is spending his whole life in expressing his anger indirectly, through anti-authoritarian actions) People who are comfortable in their own bodies and anger can have an easier time just letting haul with their upset, and yelling, and this allows a needeed emotional release.

If he could have said what he really thought and felt just one time, perhaps he would not have needed to take such vindictive actions after leaving my home.  Those who are more repressed, and can’t tolerate the feeling of anger, tend to store it up until they have something inside them not too unlike Mt Vesuvius, and about as dangerous to their health.

It can seem new-agey and “lite”, that nice little saying, “If you want to change the world, change your thoughts, and your world will change” — but Carl Jung put it more powerfully, “What is relegated to the unconscious comes to us as fate.”

The Gnostics were even more forceful — I think they glimpsed the Vesuvius within — 

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

So if you find yourself, like Jon, immersed in your computer studying conspiracy theories, blaming and pointing fingers at middle aged women who want to live in peace in their own home , take heed of your projections, and your Vesuvius of repressed emotions, and do some personal growth work.

Fourth Butt-Whupping of Jon

After booting his friends out of my house, I realized now that it was inevitable — Jon was going to have to be evicted.  I had all along hoped that he would realize that my house no longer suited his needs and fit his lifestyle, and that he would just do the right thing and get out.  But, as Jon would later state in his deposition with my attorney,  he stayed at my house, in spite of his dislike of my house rules and in fact his refusal to follow them, because it was cheap and conveniently located.

Since Jon showed no sign that he would willingly leave, I realized I would have to start documenting everything. Owing to my previous experience with the legal system, I knew that it was important to have documentation of all that took place, and to keep notes and a timeline.  So, I began to “cover my ass” by writing up a warning notice to Jon.  In my note to him, I put him on notice that he had not only violated the house rules, both in bringing a second bike to my premises, and then refusing to remove it when asked, but by bringing more guests than permitted, and refusing to cooperate when asked to remove those.  Further, I wrote that  he had been heard verbally stating that he would in fact not follow my house rule about number of guests permitted. I then issued him an official warning, that any further violations of house rules or any further statements that he did not intend to follow my house rules, may result in the immediate termination of his tenancy.

I did invite Jon to talk in person about all this, but he refused, saying “it would be nonproductive” , and then he issued me a note saying that from this point forward all my  communications with him were to be in writing only.  Where had I seen that before? Oh yes, with the Demented Duo, the DooDoo.  So I kind of knew where all this was going, and I was not too surprised to find, later on, that since things had gone sour in my relations with him, he had been again in co-conspiracy with team DooDoo.

Well, since it was totally unacceptable that I would have a tenant in my home whom I was being prohibited to talk with (and in fact I had it in my house rules that tenants may not refuse to communicate with others in the household), Jon was going to have to get his butt out.  I mean, just how did he think things would go from here — did he think he was going to live in my house for another 5 years or so, refusing to permit me to speak to him in my home?

Fifth Butt-Whipping of Jon

So I really had no choice but to finally march up to his bedroom door one day, knock on it, and hand him an eviction notice.  He refused to touch it, I guess thinking that if he did not take hold of it, I could not serve him. I dropped it on the floor in front of his feet – that does as well.  He railed at me, what tyrant I was, what a Nazi, insisted that I had a serious mental disorder.     At this point I had heard so much of this nonsense from tenants that this kind of vomit didn’t phase me any more, so I ignored the gratuitous insults and added, “please note that you have 60 days, and if you aren’t out of here by then you will be sued.”

Jon then stated very forcefully that I was totally in the wrong, and that he would fight me “every step of the way” and that he would ultimately win.  I worried that he would fight the eviction, which can cause it to be a long and costly enterprise, but because he was not a low-income tenant, he would not receive free legal aid to do so, and thus if he wanted to fight the eviction he would have to pay out of his own pocket to do so.  Which I doubted he would try.  Alternatively, I knew that he might leave, and then try to sue me afterwards with some fictional nonsense, as had occurred to me before.

For the next 60 days things were quite awkward.  As I had found before, when 30 days seemed much, much too long to have someone in your home who hates your guts and refuses to talk to you — 60 days is far worse.  Passing someone in the hallway who you have just served eviction papers on, being with them in the kitchen, seeing them emerge from the

bathroom with nothing but a towel on, is all very very awkward.  I knew that if I tried to speak to Jon, after he had given me “official notice” that I was only to communicate with him in writing, he would probably find a scammer attorney  (of which there were many in my area just salivating to have a disgruntled tenant cross their threshhold) and sue me for harassment.  So I had to say nothing to him, and endure extreme awkwardness as we went on living side by side. In fact, as I would later find, reading the trash that his scammer attorney wrote in his lawsuit, it was damned if you do and damned if you don’t.  Since Jon  couldnt’ sue me for harassing him by talking to him when he’d prohibited me to do that, he complained in his whiny lawsuit, that I had sat in stone silence with him in the kitchen, sitting there and looking but not talking.  The nonsense of scammer tenant attorneys is unending!

Given that he had told me to write to him only, I was surprised to get a phone message from him one day, saying that he had “a proposition which I think will save us both a lot of trouble”.  The fact that he was suggesting I would have trouble in any way, was a sign of trouble, and I deduced then that this was a bullying attempt: if I did not cave in to his demands, he would likely be seeking revenge the way bullies so often seem to do now – through the best of all bully tools, the civil legal system.

What did Jon want from me? I made him put it in writing, stating that just as he had told me to put all in writing, I insisted he put all in writing.  (I had intuited that his “proposition” would amount to some form of bullying, and hence, was eager to get proof in writing that he was bullying me with “propositions.” ) He wrote,( attempting to edit out the bullying tone I knew he would have communicated in person) that wanted me to allow him to stay in my house for another 6 months, saying that he “thought” he had a good place to move into then.  Consider what you would do, gentle reader, if you were placed in this situation.

You have a tenant, who has signed a rental agreement and agreed to follow certain rules.  That tenant then not only violates those rules numerous times, but also expresses contempt for them.  Later, when you ask this tenant to leave, because they are not following the agreement that they agreed to, they want to make a new agreement with you, saying that they will agree to follow this agreement this time.  Would you agree?

I hope you will say no, gentle reader.  I hope you will realize that a person who lies one time, cannot be trusted to promise that they will not lie the next time.   You dont’ want to enter a new contract with a person who has just breached their last contract with you.  Perhaps most importantly of all, it’s important for all landlords and homeowners to know, that there are devious means out there, whereby tenants can employ the malicious scamming tactics they are taught by filthy scammer attorneys, such that if you void one eviction notice you have given them, they are then able to manipulate the circumstances, such that they could quite conceivably prevent you from evicting them at all. I had studied up on the law very much by this point, not willingly, but I had come out educated.  I knew exactly what those devious means were by which someone might try to use scams to prevent being evicted.  Besides which, I knew I would rather get another lawsuit in the mail,  than have someone who hated me living in my home for 6 months, bullying me the whole time, who might very well just decide to sue me after they left, as well.

So I said no to Jon’s perverse request to live much longer in the home of someone he hated, whose rules he hated, who he thought was a tyrant Nazi with a mental illness, and whom he refused to speak with, but who he wished to bully into allowing him to stay for oh, I dont’ know, perhaps the rest of his life.

Just a note here, to those who dont’ want to get someone who you find out really doesn’t fit into your house, perversely clinging to it and trying to live there for the rest of their life — it helps a lot if you aren’t the cheapest place to live in your whole city.  If  your rent is too low, bad tenants wont’ let go — they wont’ get out, they will say — “I can’t afford to move” or “I can’t find a place.”  And it may well be true that they can’t find anyplace else in the city they can afford.   In which case you will need a giant crowbar and a whole can of WD-40, or a court order, in order to try to pry them the hell out of your house.  So dont’ do like I did and try to do favors to tenants by keeping their rent low — they will stab you in the back in their gratitude.

Jon moves out and then sues

I was out bike riding at the time, but was elated to get the call from Bridget, when she reported to me that Jon had showed up with a U-Haul truck and was moving his things out, just 3 days before his 60 day notice was expiring.  I was happy, delighted, blissful, never felt so good in a long while, as at this point when I had finally gotten the last bully out of my home.  From all that Jon had said, I fully expected him to try to sue me, but — on what basis? I had been exceptionally careful not to give the slightest reason for him to sue. I had taken caution to look for any traps that he might set for me, and scrupulously avoided all interaction with him during his last weeks in my house.  In fact, there was absolutely, positively no basis whatsoever for any lawsuit.

Yes, Jon had alleged that I was not permitted to change the house rules and limit him to one guest at a time.  His belief was that any house rule changes were invalid without his agreement of them.  This was in fact his major complaint, and doubtless the reason he went to an attorney to try to sue me.  In fact, in my state it is very clear, that Jon was totally and completely wrong on this point.  The law states that in cases where rent control laws do not apply (and whenever a homeowner has tenants in the home where they also live, rent control laws do not apply), the landlord may change the rules or rental agreement at any time, with 30 days’ notice, and those changes go into effect in 30 days.  If the tenant does not agree to the new rules or new rental agreement, he must vacate the premises.  The tenant’s continued presence in the premises, itself implies that he agrees to the changes.  In other words, the only recourse that a tenant has, in a non rent-control situation, when the landlord wishes to change the rules/rental agreement (including raising the rent by any amount) and the tenant doesn’t agree with those, is to vacate the premises, and to leave.  This is why I kept telling Jon that if he did not like it in my house, he should leave.  It was actually illegal, a breach of contract, for him to stay in my house and not follow the new set of rules.

Jon had also kept arguing that he “had a right” to socialize in my house and bring friends over, but tenants have no such rights.  Many landlords who have roommates/renters, actually prohibit their renters from having any guests over whatsoever — which is what I do now.  Particularly with my long experience seeing how bully renters use the occasion to bring visitors over, as a way of bullying the landlord and trying to usurp control of common spaces, I now prohibit renters from bringing any guest into my house at all, for any amount of time.  Many Airbnb hosts have this rule.  Even further, many property owners also prohibit their renters from using the kitchen at all — and I could have done that if I had wanted to.  All those things are legally permissible rules for me to have in my own home, and Jon was ignorant of all of the law on all of this.

But doubtless when Jon strolled into the local scammer tenant attorney’s office, the fact that Jon had the law all wrong, was a moot point to this scammer.  If Jon had received truthful information from an attorney, there would have been no lawsuit, as there was absolutely no basis for a suit.  But Jon found a slimy scammer, and all this sleazeball saw when Jon walked in, were flashing dollar signs. Which was why, when I got the lawsuit in the mail five months later, it had nothing material written in it about the issue Jon had considered central in the matter — his “right” to have his friends come over to my house.  Yes, Jon’s unethical fraud of an attorney did make the idiotic point weakly, (perhaps only as a bone to throw to Jon, who might have otherwise felt a little guilty seeing that everything written in the lawsuit, was fictional) that Jon had a “constitutional right to assembly” in my home, something that prompted smirks and loud guffaws from my attorney.  “This is not a Federal Case!” my attorney laughed, shaking his head at the absurdity of someone to think that he could sue me for federal civil rights violations.  “He does NOT have a constitutional right to assembly in your home!!”

Other ludicrousness from the suit: the allegation that I had perpetrated “Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress” when I yelled at Jon in my kitchen.  No, the impudent and disrespectful Jon had it coming and needed to be scolded.  But his attorney wailed, in hysteria coded into legalese, that Jon had been much damaged by my yelling at him, and in fact had had $50,000 in medical expenses going to doctors for psychological treatment,  based on the harm done by my yelling at him.  Right!  But I mean if you are going to tell lies, why not make them truly massive lies.  Why only $50,000 in damages? Why not $5 million, and claim that Jon had to fly around the world to all sorts of expensive specialty doctors in leading clinics, to have his head examined, after the severe injury of a middle aged woman raising her voice to him?    I could not see how Jon could have signed off on this garbage, which made him look like such a helpless twit.

The entire lawsuit (which cost me not a thin dime, since my insurance company covered all expenses) was another hideous example of the horrendous abuse of the legal system by scammers and fraudsters.  Lacking one single legitimate reason to sue, this particular attorney, who was apparently well known for his unethical, sleazy tactics, simply used a boiler plate template.  Regardless what the tenant complained about, this sleazeball would sue all landlords for the exact same thing. His legal practice was cut and paste — he always sued landlords for the exact same thing, habitability issues. My attorney was quite familiar with this slime — he was well known among defense attorneys working for home insurance companies. He made his rounds there — in fact he was a parasitic growth, a form of human bloodsucking louse attached to the insurance companies.  He made nearly his entire living through these scams, and sadly, it was successful because most insurers just quickly send off a check when their insured is sued.  I pointed out the folly of this approach — it would breed  more parasites and lice, if these vermin found that they could easily get paid for their lies.

This particular scammer  would claim that the premises were “uninhabitable” in various ways.  He would allege cockroaches, or rats, or other vermin.  He would allege there was no heat or a lack of a functioning plumbing system.   This sick scammer knew that in most cases, it didn’t matter what lies he told, because most insurance companies would just quickly cut him a check so that they would not have to spend time and money defending their insured.

So in spite of the fact that there had literally not been a single day in my house in the ten years that I owned it, when the heating system did not function, and in spite of the fact that Jon had never uttered a single complaint about heat in his time in my house (nor in fact had any other tenant ever complained about heat issues), Jon’s sleazy attorney was now suing me primarily over heat issues.  Among his fabrications, was the statement that Jon had complained to me both in person, and in writing, about the lack of heat.  To his credit, when brought in for a deposition, Jon stated that he never had any issues with heat, thus contradicting the lies his own lawyer had written.

Miss Karma will Kick your Butts now

Jon and his scumbag attorney were much disappointed that my insurance company did not simply cut them a check, but chose instead to defend me against their incredibly audacious lies and nonsense.  So Jon’s attorney ended up losing money on this case, because he never got paid for all the time he had to put into a deposition with me (which left him frustrated because I refused to answer so many of his questions, as I simply kept saying “I don’t know” and ” I can’t remember” like the defense attorneys tell you to do), for all the motions he had to file, all the discovery he had to remit, etc etc.

Yes, they got some settlement $ in the end, but it was much much less than they wanted.  During  the process, I hope Jon learned something from the fact that after my attorney filed a Motion to Dismiss,  all the causes of action in the lawsuit were eventually effectively tossed out, except the truly fake ones having to do with claims of no heat.  So, though he got $ from an insurance company, Jon has to live with the fact, and has this karma on his shoulders, that he ended up suing me over something that never happened, and which he knows full well never happened . At the same time,  Jon’s  only real claim against me, the fact that he thought he had to agree to any changes in house rules to make them valid, was tossed out by the Motion to Dismiss,  as being completely meritless.

For their lies and their bullying, and their malicious efforts to harm the innocent – such as a middle aged woman who simply wishes to live in peace in her own home — I trust that Miss Karma will now attend to complete this matter and kick some butt.  Because you can abuse the US legal system, you can fool Blindfolded Lady Justice, but truth will come out in the end.  And those who perpetrate iniquity upon others, will (as is said in the Psalms) fall into the pit they dig for others, and their own evil will return to them.  I am not Christian, but rather Pagan, and I tend to put my energy into love and joy and gratitude — but I do have to say, that after so much experience being bullied and disrespected in my home, I do like to read about what the old prophets said would happen to the evil doers.

Besides, I like to give the power of the wise old prophets a little boost,  with some HooDoo Candle Magic and bags of Mojo. And a little “Return to Sender” Spell might just do the trick as well.  Which is just to say:  Look out, DooDoo, Look out Jon. Look out, Scumbag Tenant Attorneys.  You’ve got a karmic kick comin’ at ya.  

The Crystal ball reveals:

The Magic of the Crystal Ball, also known as “what a little bird told me” or sometimes, “Just Google it”, revealed some interesting news of late.  Pertaining to one of the several previous roommate miscreants, the Magic Ball revealed an eviction process had lately commenced.      Miss Karma is starting to come round.