SOME LANDLORDS (Long one)

As many of you know we spent most of the summer as displaced people. Due to a poorly placed tarp during re-roofing, a monsoon, tons of rain, we ended up in a motel for three weeks, dogs (except Cooper) in boarding while our real house was gutted due to the rain rot. (No pony with rain rot ever looked as bad as our living room....)

Anyway eventually a placement company found us a house not far from where we really live. The Landlord who shall at least at this point remain nameless, had a no-pet clause in the contract but, let's face-- he was going to make a BUCKET of money off our insurance company if he allowed the dogs in. So he did. And we had them bathed and cleaned and nails trimmed before we took them to the "new" (read: Rental) house.

Now we did notice on moving in that the last tennants, who I believe were forcibly evicted, had kicked in both front and back doors, splitting the door jambs which had not been fixed altho the doors had new locks. For the most part the house was clean altho there were crumbs inthe drawers, no towel rods in either bathroom... but this was the house. See? Clean. No piles of poop on the floor, no puddles of pee...

Ok. SO. Sept 9th OUR house was done and we were ready to move out. I called the Landlord for several days ahead of time--- we are leaving on the 9th we are going to be gone on the 9th if you want a walk-through we will be leaving the house on the 9th and we got no response. On the 9th the guys came and took the rented furniture. I swept and swiffered the laminate floors, I vacuumed the carpets. We had picked the backyard perfectly clean-- the dogs were back at the kennel, and we went over it and over it, getting every bit of poop.

While we were there, we had raccoons in the ceiling, mice in the cupboards which I trapped with old fashioned, kill'emnow traps. The sewer backed up and the pipe had to be replaced in the front yard  and when they laid sod, we watered it.
We trimmed the bushes, cut the grass, planted flowers, kept the yard picked up, bathed the dogs, threw sheets over the rented furniture (not the Landlord's) and kept the dogs downstairs.
Nobody puked in the house, nobody pooped on the floor, nobody peed on the walls.

***********************************************************

So Now the Landlord starts calling. It seems the "pet smell" from our "five dogs" was overhwhelming.
It is strange that the Insurance company people, the re-habbers, the movers, the guests we had never mentioned the overwhelming pet smell. (Nor have we been able to locate the mysterious 5th dog.)

Well anyway they never showed up for the walk through when I left. We called them maybe 5 times after that asking for a walk through and were never able to get one scheduled in fact at one point I was told "Oh we're not worried about YOU". This guy rents to Section 8. We were NOT section 8, our insurance people almost doubled his usual usurers rent.

Now they are saying that they cleaned the carpet twice to get rid of the "pet smell". This would be a living room and one bedroom where the dogs were allowed. Then because it was still there they cleaned again with a deodorant. (Yes, are you, too wondering why they didn't do that to begin with, if the smell was so bad? I have been wondering that myself.)
And then
AND THEN!! It was still soooooooooo bad, that they RIPPED OUT THE CARPETING and put in new and you know what it STILL STINKS IN THERE!!!!

Here are our dogs stinking up the rental house. See the urine and poop everywhere? See the mud on them? Disgraceful! Owners should be whipped.

So now, of course, the Landlord wants MORE MONEY. $2000 more. He tried to collect from the company that paid the rent for us while we were there, and they paid what they thought was reasonable, called us, and when I hit the ceiling they refused to pay him more.

He had his secretary call me. Oops. Maybe not a good thing, since I was already furious. Maybe his secretary got in three words or maybe not. I reminded them that we did not kick in the front and side doors and split the door jambs like the people before us, or put the dings in the metal door to the fridge. I reminded her that we took care of the lawn and the house and called about raccoons and trapped mice and had they checked to see if something dead was in the house (maybe that 5th dog). I told her we were better tennants than the last 10 people they rented to (I had this on good authority from the neighbors) and that I wasn't going to roll over and whine just because they were trying to rip us off. She said
"But you had that SICK dog"--- referring to Cooper, whose only problem is a missing limb and the fact that yes, he probably does have cancer crawling around his body someplace, but we haven't found it and besides today is his 11th Birthday.

When the call ended I told the secretary to tell Mr.__________ what I had said and also to tell him to "Take a hike". She laughed. She said she would.

There we are except now he is still trying to collect $2000. I am not even sure he replaced the carpet, because he declined all walk-throughs, even from the placement company. I asked them to pass the word that Mr._________'s office is not to contact me again or they would be contacting my lawyer.

This guy owns another house on that street with broken gutters and a guy who yells and screams and smacks his wife andkids around, who threw his wife through their window right after we moved into the rental. This is who he usually rents to. The neighbors we had all said they were glad to see us and sorry we left. I still talk with them. The house behind us had tennants evicted by the Village 3 times in a row. Not for non-payment: for criminal activity.


Sure wish I knew where that 5th dog was, though. I wonder if they counted the neighbor's beagle, Maddie.

                   Nigel at the rental house, looking for the 5th dog.