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It's official: I survived the historic move of 2014. Having spent ten years in a three-bedroom apartment, I have now moved into a small two-room loft space with about one-third of my former square footage. How did she do it? you may well be asking, and not without good reason. The answer I'm afraid is that I did it by not doing anything else but move-related work since the beginning of February.
The necessity of carrying out the apparently Sisyphean task of sorting through and assessing the value of every single item in my former abode was occasioned by the sale of the house to a couple who decided that they could command rents of $3K for each of the apartments of their newly acquired three-family house. I had been paying a reduced rate of $1K because I served as the landlord's surrogate. (The other apartments were also being rented for significantly less than $3K, and though I was the first to go, I shall not be the last.)
Unfortunately, the former landlord's next of kin (with whom he had however no relationship) crawled out of the woodwork one gray day--like a slimy earthworm slithering along a sidewalk after a heavy rain--upon learning that he had no will in place. (I am omitting names because this is a true story of the "truths stranger than fiction" variety...) She then moved swiftly and aggressively, with dispatch and purpose, as they say, to have him declared incompetent, rendering it legally impossible for him to pen a will. At the same time, she had herself appointed the "conservator" of his estate.
Said relative then proceeded to liquidate her uncle's estate, including the place which I called "home" for a decade of my life. I'm not sure how much of the story to relay here, but suffice it to say that the circumstances of the "incompetence" finding were suspicious, to put it mildly.
A few juicy quotes were relayed to me by the former landlord, including that when he told his newly appointed "guardian" (ha!) that he would contest her effective usurpation of everything he owned, she replied, "If you get a lawyer, I'll get two. If you get two lawyers, I'll get four." In addition to robbing the man blind, she also painted his mental state to all outsiders as vegetative. I know this because in a phone conversation immediately after she had been named the executor of his estate, she said to me (having apparently forgotten with whom she was speaking--a person whose phone records clearly document many hours of lengthy conversations with said "vegetable")--"Now I'll just have to try to figure out what he would have wanted."
When the house where I was living ended up selling to a couple who paid about $300K more than the true value of the property, though they never had it professionally appraised (which I know because only I had a key to the top-floor apartment), then my hunch that the niece was a full-fledged, bona fide (or should that be mala fide?) con artist was confirmed. I am quite certain that the new owners were in a bidding war with a shill.
Naturally, the "winners" of the bidding war needed to increase rents on the place quickly in order to "make good" ( = break even) on their investment. Whether they sunk their entire life's savings into the place or they "secured" a bad mortgage from a friend of the seller's realtor (who was also a friend of the seller, and who remarkably served also as the buyers' broker! ahem--can you say "Long Con"? I thought you could...), I know not.
What I know, having lived in the house over a decade during which NO MAJOR REPAIRS were made to anything, is that it is a disaster waiting to happen. (NB: My role at the place was only to make sure that the minimal stuff needed was done--hot water heaters and appliances were replaced when they ceased functioning--in order to keep the house fully rented.)
There was water damage on my ceiling--indicating the need for a new roof--and one developer who stopped by some years back to inquire about the property confided in me that the entire structure would be better razed than repaired, given the crack in the foundation, the rotted wood inside the ratty aluminum exoskeleton, etc. (The house, which dates from 1920, has not had any awnings for decades.) The building was never even deleaded, except on the second floor when a complaint was filed by a woman who had a child while living there.
My place in the most recent chapter of this story began when I was told near the end of January that I needed to be out by March 1, 2014. When I pointed out to the new landlord that it would be humanly impossible for anyone to do such a thing, he wrote me a combative note indicating, first, that his demand was "nonnegotiable", and then that he "might consider" letting me take an extra month to vacate the place--if I paid about triple my current rent. No, I am not joking.
I originally had a lease which began on June 15, 2004, and automatically renewed. Unfortunately, I was unable to produce any evidence beyond the lease addendum (archived on one of my hard drives), which specified the details of my special arrangement with the former landlord. I could not for the life of me come up with the original signed lease agreement.
Upon learning that I had been ordered out by the new owner, the gentleman with whom I originally signed the agreement called me up and told me that I should "stay put", because my lease--which he said he had a copy of before him--had never been terminated and so was still valid. No, he is not demented--unless of course he was born that way--but that is another story altogether, which would be far more appropriate for a different venue--such as a major motion picture screenplay.
Needless to say, 2014 has not been my most productive year--at least not in terms of writing. In terms of archaeological discoveries and self-knowledge, I must say that I was surprised and amazed at what I learned through this thoroughly exhausting process. In the end, I was not taken to court, and the new owner and I parted ways amicably after I relayed some pieces of the puzzle of which he had been wholly ignorant. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"--or something along those lines.
So now, after this somewhat rambling preamble, I offer you sherapop's Scent of Moving: a perfume-by-perfume history of what I wore. Why I wore what I did while slogging my way through ten years of archived layers of STUFF to arrive where I am today will be discussed in a subsequent post--as will other scents of moving not selected by me.
Pictured here are the perfumes which I wore, in reverse chronological order, throughout the grueling process of apartment hunting in the coldest winter in Boston in my history here, and the subsequent herculean task of vacating the place where I spent more years of my life than anywhere else. I am grateful to the Parfumo.net database for enabling my OCD so meticulously.
Unfortunately, Blogger appears unable to accommodate the complete list, so in the next post, I'll provide the missing month of pictures, and the discussion to follow (Part III of this series) will start from the very beginning, a very good place to start.
33 days ago
17.03.2014 05:51 Uhr
17.03.2014 05:51 Uhr
55 days ago
22.02.2014 16:16 Uhr
22.02.2014 16:16 Uhr
I have a fairly similar story to share. I rented a condo for three years from a very nice man; he and his family lived in California, but he had a condo in Illinois he rented out to others because he was difficulty selling it. It was one bedroom and one bathroom, $795 a month. Comparable to the rest of the area, other tenants were paying a good $1100 a month or more. The neighborhood wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't dangerous either. He told me he wouldn't raise the rent on me because I paid rent ahead of time, always told him when something needed fixing, and we kept very good communication over the phone and email. Things went very well for those three years. For some reason, the property manager who really has nothing to do with my lease other than being a bookkeeper of accounts--she didn't get a dime of my money directly--raised the association fees on several landlords to make up for the rent not being on par with the estimated value of the property. I'm not even sure that's legal. Around this time, I was planning on moving out of state anyway, but the tenant after me had to pay $1100 a month to live there.
ReplyDeleteOh shera...what a shame to be a loyal tenant for so many years to have things end on such a sour note. Granted, the one who made you leave what not your original landlord, but still. Is there no honor in long-term relations anymore? How awful.
~ Hayven
Thanks for sharing your related experience, Hayven. The most difficult part of this story for me was that I was deeply conflicted about the new landlord, believing both that he had been outrageously fleeced by the grifter niece, and that he was treating me abysmally. In fact, I only learned that he had paid ~$900K for the house (offered in the $600K range) because I was basically flailing about attempting to understand the situation and Googled the public documents of the sale.
DeleteBefore finding out what had happened with the house sale, it struck me as utterly preposterous that someone who could actually afford a second home would be threatening me with homelessness within weeks of his purchase! His veritable hysteria became somewhat more comprehensible (though never fully, I must confess...) when I realized that he probably could not really afford his mortgage on the house, and on top of that, the needed repairs were already mounting (a hot-water heater for one floor; the heating for another; plumbing problems all around...).
So rather than simply being angry, I was also afflicted with sympathy for this fellow and his plight, which complicated the issue, since I could not in good conscience simply permit him to take me to court and file counter claims (as one of my lawyers wanted me to do--take him to the cleaners and accelerate his trajectory to bankruptcy...). Instead, I kept trying to reason with him, and in the end I simply told him flat out that under no circumstances would I be paying him $3K, so if he wanted to take me to court (which would have cost him a pretty penny, one which I believe he does not have to spend...), the only thing he stood to gain--if in fact he won--was to ruin my credit rating. I, on the other hand, stood to gain thousands of dollars in damages.
Ultimately, I opted for the conciliatory path, not wanting to have anything whatsoever to do with his likely to be imminent bankruptcy. I found a new place to live as quickly as I could and then moved as soon as I was able. I got out on April 15th, when in theory I could have squatted until the end of the year, as the rental laws in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are quite tenant friendly (I now know, though I did not at the beginning of this traumatic tale...). I am exhausted as a result, but now at least I have washed my hands of the unsavory mess.
I also reported the niece's psychologically abusive treatment of my former landlord to the authorities, so she is no longer able to "mess with" his medications (as he had told me she was doing in January). He was so distraught at the time that he even mentioned suicide, to my utter dismay! My understanding is that there is now a restraining order on her to prevent her from causing him further misery. My advice to him remains as it was last year, when she took over his estate: live to triple digits (he is now in his eighties), the only possible revenge given the Kafkaesque trap in which he has become ensnared. (Every time he attempts to take action against her, it is interpreted as "evidence" of his dementia...) Only if he lives to spend all of his own money can he prevent this witch from benefiting from her wicked, vicious, despicable grifting at the expense of an elderly gentleman who has every right in the world to enjoy his golden years.
I am sad to see this man mistreated. You had the smarts to get out of an unsavory situation. Like bad waves of bad things from one miserably greedy person. Bad Karma will hopefully get her some day. Meanwhile bad situations exist. I am glad you just saved your own sanity and got out. You also reported the niece to the authorities, good girl, Sherapop. Not that it will matter much, because bad people will find sociopathic ways to come to their goals. To enumerate the perfumes you wore, well, that is typical for OCD pleasant temperament of Sherapop. It probably cheered you up while doing the chores of packing and dealing with miserable human creatures. Good luck to you in your smaller space, that may be good for you and simplify things and give you more time and opportunity to spread out in new adventures or avenues. Hopefully (certainly!) all mementos of dear Royal Emperor and photos of his smile and fluffy fur are securely moved and reput in your new (both your) home.
DeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts on this incredible saga, Ursula. That's a good way to put it: "waves of bad things". It's true that it all emanated from one despicable grifter's greed. Perhaps the most preposterous part of all is that the gentleman whose house it was WANTED ME TO STAY THERE, and in fact he vehemently protested the sale of the property. The niece, however, looked at HIS estate as HER estate--as though he were already dead. It is sad and frightening what some people will do for money...
DeleteOn my last day at the house (April 15th), I went out onto the deck and bid farewell to The Emperor, whose final resting place is in the backyard. We had a great life there, and now that he is gone, perhaps it was time for me to leave... Before he developed diabetes, I used to travel a lot, but that became impossible for the last few years (since no cat sitters will give shots, but I was not about to leave him in solitary confinement at an animal hospital), so now I'll be able to travel again. You are right that I'll have more flexibility for new adventures.
May The Emperor rest in peace.