Monday, April 4, 2011

Who are you?

I don't have any good storiest to share this week, so I'm going to borrow one from my wonderful property manager.  She got a call from a tenant who lived in a house with a vacant basement apartment.  The tenant wanted to know who had moved in downstairs.  The answer was "no one.  It's still for rent."  Ha!  That's what she thought.  It turns out that there was someone living in the basement.  Here's my paraphrase of the conversation.

Jana:  Who are you?
Squatter: I'm Lisa 
J: Why are you here?
S:  I needed a place to live.
J:  How did you get in?
S:  The door was open so I moved in.
J:  But you can't live here.
S:  Why?
J:  Because you aren't a tenant.  You haven't paid any rent, you haven't signed a lease, you haven't done anything.
S:  But I am living here.
J:  But you can't  just move in without signing a lease.  I don't even know who you are!
S:  Why, I'm Lisa! 

of course ... It's Lisa!  That makes everything okay.  And the conversation went downhill from there. 

Jana called the police who said they couldn't/wouldn't do anything.  This woman is living in a parallel universe where it's okay to just move into any vacant space.  It wasn't breaking and entering, since she hadn't done any damage.  They suggested that Jana would have to go through the eviction process.  I kid you not!  They have to go through the expensive eviction process to throw out the person who just moved into an apartment because the door was open.

So, Jana posted a 3-day Eviction Notice on her door and, fortunately, Lisa left ... presumably to find another unlocked vacant apartment. 

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