My first blog entry would be about the Landlord & Tenant Board because that’s just fate. I did get there late because you are officially supposed to be there at 9:00 am to sign in. No one who goes there regularly ever arrives on time because it’s just a whack of extra time to wait, they don’t even take the sign in sheets up to the adjudicator until 9:30. Anyways I got there at 9:35 and the security guard had already taken the sign in sheets up to the adjudicator.
The Oshawa Landlord & Tenant Board seems to start on time, which is nice because the ones in Toronto hardly ever do. Its not the end of the world, even if you don’t sign in, they read out your file number and address and then you can say “I’m here” if you were late. No one ever makes a big deal of this because they are late, we are late and the whole thing is very slow and irritating. For the first time ever the adjudicator chastised this guy for being late. It was quite a dressing down, he even asked the guy what his excuse was. It kind of felt like high school again.
Anyhow the scene there is pretty weird usually and today was no different. You can usually tell who the landlords are and who the tenants are and then of course there are the paralegals. One of the paralegals showed up today carrying all his files in a couple LCBO bags which I thought was funny and a little telling.
The Landlord and Tenant Board makes the parking ticket office look like fun. There were no crazies today to add interest to the whole procedure. My case was one of the first called so I went up and told them my tenant had moved this Saturday. They gave me a judgment for $3000 or so bucks which is worth nothing because we won’t get a cent from this character. The adjudicator got me to sign in and then asked me what time it was in Oshawa and I replied absolutely straight faced that it was 10:00 o’clock in Oshawa. He just shook his head. Then he gave me a lecture because the landlord had not mailed a check to her for last month’s rent interest. I didn’t say anything to the adjudicator of course but in head I’m thinking that’s it’s a great thing the owner didn’t mail her a check for last month’s rent interest because then she’d owe rent plus last month’s rent interest.
So then I went to see if she had moved out completely or what the status was. The place was wrecked of course and there is tons of garbage just left in there. Disgusting pig is what I have to say about it. She had three little girls too that were very sweet and I got tons of complaints all the time because the neighbours could hear her screaming at the kids. I heard it myself all the time, as a mother it made me feel like punching her in the face. I mean anyone who addresses their kids a little fucker or bitch and blames their own kids for everything deserves everything they get. One time I went there and both her kids had gotten a hold of some scissors and cut all their hair off. She spent like 30 minutes telling me that her kids were awful and brats. All the time I was thinking…. where the hell were you?
Anyways…
Next I got a phone call from the city of Oshawa… asking about the garbage pick up. There is this crazy lady that lives across the road from our complex who should be charged with harassment, every time a garbage bag is out of sorts she calls the city. She screams and yells and cusses. Last time she called I told her that we would allow her to pay for our garbage removal if it bothered her that much.
This month we had two people move out so the garbage area was absolutely full, but garbage pick up is at around 1 or so and then the garbage truck comes back for another load. So I told the city guy this information and to come back at 4:00 and it will be all better. I wish the property inspector had showed up at 2:00 then the garbage would have been gone. Curiously we have an application into the City of Oshawa for garbage pick up and they are slower than molasses and have sent the plans back several times. For this kind of service we pay $54,000 per year in property taxes.
So it goes…
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