My current landlord…is making it VERY difficult for me to move.

I do not want to speak to him and have no reason to do so. I wrote him a three page letter explaining everything, and told him to respect my privacy. I had one phone message since, hours after he got the letter. Last Wednesday.

On that message he changed his tone, NOW he needs June rent because we caused “major damage” to his apartment. The house does have major damage, but none from our tenancy. A few months ago he told Erin he needed us to pay last month rent because “we are not in a financial position to allow you to do this at this time.” We hypothesize that he spent our $900 security deposit, because otherwise he could JUST USE THE DEPOSIT TO COVER LAST MONTH RENT. Not until I sent him the letter explaining all the things we asked him to fix, that never got fixed…and all the times we could have withheld rent or made these repairs and deduct them from the rent…did he suddenly bring up major damage. Laughable, really.

Oh yeah, I know someone who was friends with the girl who lived here before we did (I found her after we already moved in) who called our landlord a slumlord who never repaired anything AND didn’t give her friend all of her deposit back. I see a trend.

I don’t feel comfortable in this house alone, between the messages he left on the cell phone (crazy man) and the fact my friend Katie and I saw him on my front step looking in my window when I wasn’t home…he claims he was PICKING weeds on HIS property WHICH HE IS ALLOWED TO DO. THIS is the front of my house, note the WOOD CHIPS and no weeds.

Now if you carefully follow the right side of this photo you will see where the garden area ends AND MY CEMENT stairs to the front of the house begins. Note the window on the left, there is a matching one on the right. When we pulled up in Katie’s vehicle, the landlord was ON THE SECOND CEMENT STEP LOOKING IN MY WINDOW.

I put up HUGE dark navy blue bedsheets in the front windows to make sure this doesn’t happen again. All signs of life are from the front room, because I MOVED EVERYTHING IN THERE (computer, futon bed) so HE WOULD NOT SEE THE LIGHTS IN THE BACK AND SIDE OF THE HOUSE. Erin and I have not used the back entrance or parked in the back in MONTHS…in order to avoid him. I guess that worked well, eh? Instead, he just comes up to my front window when I am not home and looks inside!

Anyhow…Mark is in San Fran and I need to move stuff, but I can’t alone. So my mom came up Friday and I did get packing accomplished, and most of the kitchen too. But I could not move boxes since my landlord was cleaning out his garage…and was ALL over the property yesterday. Which of course he has the right to do, however, if he tries to speak to me I want a witness, cause the words out of my mouth will be “tell me through a lawyer I have nothing to say to you.”

So here I am today and can I move anything to the truck? No…why? Because for some reason LANDLORD has been in and out of the front yard. The computer is set up by the one window, I was on the email and heard him outside the window. NO IDEA WHAT he is doing in the front yard…but…ok, fine. An hour or two later, thunderstorms subside and I open the front door to start moving boxes. EXCEPT, 30 seconds after I prop the inside front door open, THE LANDLORD IS STANDING OUTSIDE THE FRONT LAWN (coming from the right side of my house where there is NOTHING except the neighbors house) I assume he was at the neighbors. THANKFULLY he did not come up to the door, and I quickly shut and locked it behind me. Again.

The sight of this man makes me ill. One would think with the way he has treated us, that we haven’t paid rent for an entire year instead of our last month, KNOWING HE HOLDS A $900 security deposit that he can use towards the last month. I almost feel like I am really doing something seriously wrong, because I feel like a prisoner in my $700 a month apartment. ALL I WANT IS OUT. And I can’t even freaking do that right now. FURIOUS!!!

And yet, I still sit here and feel bad for the man. He is asking at least $200,000 too much for his home, because he didn’t do one thing to repair and upkeep the place for 10 years. I know he depends on our hefty rent check to pay his refinanced mortgage. And I know he was *selling* his fabulous tenants with the house when he first started showing! It wasn’t until about 4 months ago when we explained we both wanted out that he started getting really creepy. And annoying. And hostile. And accusing. And trust me, I would be freaking out too. So although I cannot STAND the man and how he has acted lately, I still feel badly about the whole situation.

So, I feel better after writing this post. Thank you Blog! But dammit, I still want to load boxes. I guess I will wait until nighttime when I assume he will not be roaming around the yard in the rain…