CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: Plain Jane and the Lengthy Lunch

We waited and waited, but no judge appeared.  Eventually, at about twenty minutes past ten o’clock, a side door opened and two official-looking women entered the court room. They conducted a hasty discussion in hushed tones just inside the door, and then one of them, a plain specimen with long, gray hair and ugly spectacles, came over to stand before the motley assemblage of petitioners, respondents, children, and counsel.

"Sorry," she began, pushing her glasses further up her nose and looking faintly apologetic. "Judge Grazziano has been delayed at another hearing.  He'll probably be here by eleven if you want to wait.  For those of you with #evictions, if the other party hasn’t shown up, default judgments can be issued, or you can reschedule for another day.  I'll read out the cases in order, and you can decide what you want to do."          

I looked at Diane.  "I know you say you're going to pay me more on May first, but I still have to reschedule for my own protection.  You understand, don’t you?"

Diane tut-tutted and heaved a hefty sigh. "Agh. We took time off work for nothin', and now we have to come back?” She shook her head in disgust. 

At that moment, our case was announced, and we went up to the front of the court room. 

"Eviction for non-payment of #rent?" Plain Jane asked. 

"Yes," I answered.  "We might be able to work something out, but I still want to go ahead and reschedule.  I'm going on vacation May second, so …"

"How long will you be gone?"

"Til May seventh."

"Okay."  The woman leafed through a large diary and pounced on a page.  "May ninth?"

"Fine," I said.  Diane looked on, but didn’t disagree.

"See you on the ninth, then."   Plain Jane made an entry in her diary and began reading out the name of the next case.

In the lofty, echoing marble hallway outside the court room, Diane patted me on the arm.  "I'll get right on that money order," she told me cheerfully.  "And I'll have four hundred ready for you, May first."

I looked doubtful. “I'm going on vacation the next day, so  . . ."

". . . so you need the money," Diane finished.  "That's why I'll make sure to have it ready for you."

"Okay," I said.  "And when you hear about the job, we need to work out a payment schedule for the overdue rent.  You owe me thirteen hundred now, for January through this month.”

"I know.  It’s a lot."

"I'll be busy packing, so Wim’ll pick up the rent.”

"Mommy, Mommy."  Diane’s little girl was tugging on her mother’s arm. 

Diane shook her off in practiced fashion and glanced at her watch.  "I gotta git back to work."

"Me too."  We headed toward the stairs.  "May first, don't forget?  If you make an effort to pay  me more in the next two weeks, we'll see, but for now, we 're back in Court May ninth, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Diane gave me a wave, and we went our separate ways.

I had planned to deal with the information subpoenas after court but my office was short-handed that day, so it would have to wait until tomorrow. 

When the clock struck noon the next day, I was out of the office like a shot and racing over to Schemmerhorn. It took twenty minutes to get there and twenty minutes to get back, which meant I only had twenty minutes to spare at the Clerk's Office.  I arrived, out of breath, weighed down with restraining notices, already-addressed envelopes, and stamped-addressed envelopes for return of the subpoenas. 

The Clerk’s counter was unmanned, but at the sound of my whirlwind arrival, a large lady breezed into the room from a side office.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes.  I've come to collect an information #subpoena."

The woman looked at me with a blank expression on her face.  "A what?"

"An information subpoena.  I spoke to the Clerk.  Apparently Small Claims have their own information subpoenas for service on banks in the area.  I have to pay, like, a dollar for it?"

"I don't know."  The woman began to look harassed.  "Um, maybe they're in this drawer?  The Clerk's out to lunch right now.  Can you come back?"

"No.  I'm on my lunch hour too. I drove over from St. Albans, and it takes twenty minutes to get here, so I can't come back."

The woman halfheartedly shuffled through some forms in the drawer.  "I don’t see anything like that in here."

I glanced at the clock."What time does the Clerk get back from lunch?"

The woman also looked at the clock.  "Around twelve forty-five.  It's twelve-thirty now."

"Okay. I'll go over to the post office and get some stamps on these?" I said, motioning to my armful of envelopes. "Then I'll be back."

The woman smiled, obviously relieved that she could stop looking for the elusive forms.  "All right. The post office is just across the street."

Faced with four entrances on each point of the compass by which to exit City Hall, it took me a few minutes to find said post office.  Luckily there was no line, and I walked right up to the counter.  I bought stamps for twelve certified letters and twelve return envelopes and returned to the Clerk's Office, loaded down with green return receipts and tracking slips.

I had to wait a few minutes for the Clerk to return from lunch, so I occupied myself in filling out the tracking slips and corresponding green postcards and sticking stamps on the envelopes.  I had just finished the last one, when the Clerk bustled in.

"Hello," she said, remembering me.  "You're here for the information subpoena?"

"Yes."

Rummaging in the very same drawer the other woman had searched, she produced a form with ease.  "Here it is.  I'll give you one, and you can make copies and fill them out. Then bring them back to me to stamp.  It's safer to stamp them all because you can't be certain which banks require it."

"I'll go to the library and make copies and fill them out right now," I told her.  "I just need to get this done.  My office will have to put up with me getting back a bit late."

I took all my paperwork out another entrance, across another street, and into the public library.  After making copies of the subpoena, I sat down at a table and proceeded to fill them out.  It didn’t take long. The forms were really basic -- much simpler than the information subpoenas I’d used before for Supreme Court.

When I’d finished, I hauled the papers back to City Hall, and the Clerk stamped them for me.  I sat in my car, stuffing and licking the envelopes.  The glue tasted very nasty and was probably toxic. I hoped I wasn’t going to keel over and die from envelope-glue poisoning like George Costanza’s fiancée did in “Seinfeld.”  When I was finished, I shoved the envelopes though the slot at the post office with heartfelt relief.  Phew, that was over with.  Now I just had to wait.

The next day -- surprise, surprise -- the mailman delivered a money order for $300.00.  Diane actually phoned me that night to check that I received it.

The mail also included a note from my realtor, Wally. Fifty-one Manson Street was now listed for sale at $45,000.00.  Big whoop.

Wim went over to Schemmerhorn on May 1st to collect the additional $400.00 Diane had promised.  Upon his arrival, he was treated to an earful from Giselle because one of the beams that supported the porch had a crack in it.  According to her, it was shameful that it was cracking already, since Wim had only recently replaced it.  In Giselle’s expert opinion, he must have used inferior materials and done a shitty job as usual.

He came home, quite shaken from the barrage of verbal abuse Giselle had subjected him to. She must have hopped straight on the phone to me after he left because she was still complaining in my ear when Wim returned home twenty minutes later.

"Phew!" I sighed, as I eventually hung up the phone.  "What's the story, Wim?  Giselle's been bending my ear about the porch and going on and on about the shitty work you do.  She said you refused to listen to her and just stood there, shaking your head."

Wim exploded in a rare display of fury.  "Agh, that woman just has to have something to complain about!  Yah, the beam is a little cracked, but I told her it's normal.  It's just surface-cracking.  That porch is solid.  I laid cement under it and it's not going anywhere.  I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn't listen, yelling and screaming and cursing at me like some mad woman! I told her I wasn't going to listen anymore, and just got in my car and drove away."

Fortunately, despite the earful, Wim had remembered to collect the $400.00 money order from Diane.  Her #debt to me now stood at $1,250.00.  

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: Service and Subpoenas

YEAR FIVE

House Account:  $1,970.95

#Mortgage: $565.26

Why was I not surprised when Diane ignored my #eviction notice? At the beginning of April, I drew up a #petition, got a court date assigned for April 22nd, and had a process server serve the petition upon Diane.  To Diane's surprise, the process server went to her place of employment, talked his way into the inner sanctum of the office, and duly served the petition on her.

Over the next two weeks, I continued to stew over what to do about my previous non-paying tenant, Charmayne.  Should I just give up and forget about getting any money out of her?  Before I even finished that thought, however, I sternly told myself, “No! Stick to your guns. Charmayne should be made to face the consequences of her actions . . . or lack thereof.” I filled in the restraining notices to garnishee.

During lunch, I drove to the Clerk’s Office in Schemmerhorn to look in Charmayne's personal injury court case file.  To my dismay, the folder now contained a Release and Stipulation of Discontinuance.  Charmayne and her pal had settled their case for $25,000.00 each!  I was too late.

In disgust, I tore up the restraining notices. Because of my hesitation to serve my own law firm employer with a restraining notice, I'd lost out.  Now I couldn’t serve the defendant, either. What a bummer!

Time for Plan B?

If I had $25,000.00, what would I do with it?  Maybe I could send information #subpoenas and restraining notices to all the banks in Schemmerhorn in the hope that Charmayne had deposited her settlement money in one of them.  She may not have had a bank account in the past but now with $25,000.00 burning a hole in her pocket, she had to put it somewhere.  I didn’t know then that the Department of Social Services would likely take a large chunk of it.  Public assistance is actually considered a loan, and #D.S.S. is always the first to be reimbursed, should one of their recipients receive a large settlement.  Come to think of it, that was probably what had happened to the $14,000.00 paid to my previous #tenant, Mamie.

I still had some restraining notices left over that I could use, and I bought some information subpoenas from the legal supply store. They only sold triplicates, and I made more copies at the office.  After dinner, I paged through the Yellow Pages and found twelve banks that had branches in Schemmerhorn.  I set to at once, filling out the information subpoenas and restraining notices in my best handwriting. My typewriter was still broken, and Rita's old typewriter, which I'd kept from my previous job, wasn't the most reliable of machines.

At the office the next day, I told another friendly lawyer about Plan B.  She agreed it was a good idea to explore the banks but suggested I call the Clerk’s office to check whether or not the information subpoenas had to be stamped by the Clerk before mailing them out.  I was glad for this advice because when I called the Clerk’s Office, they advised me that the Small Claims Department had its own information subpoenas, and some banks did require the Clerk's stamp.  As it happened,  my eviction proceeding with Diane was the next day.  I could kill two birds with one stone. 

I arrived at City Hall a little early and sat down in the court room to await the morning's proceedings.  To my amazement, Diane actually showed up a few minutes later.  I don’t think she recognized me because she herded two young children over to where I was sitting and sat down right next to me.

"Diane," I said.  She jumped and turned to look at me, surprised.

"Do you have any #rent for me?" I asked bluntly.

She looked a little sheepish and began rummaging in the depths of her capacious purse.  "I sent you a money order a few weeks ago,” she said. “Three hunnerd dollars.  Din't you get it?"

“No. I only got the one for February."

"Oh, gawd. I got the receipt here somewhere."  She rummaged some more and finally produced a grubby yellow carbon copy of a money order.  She peered at it shortsightedly.  "If this bin lost, what can ah do?"

"Aren't there instructions in the small print?"  I joined her in peering at the smudged form.  "Yes, there."  I pointed at the appropriate phrase.

"Oh, yeah," Diane said.  "Okay, I'm gonna git down theah fust thing in the mornin' and complain.”

"Okay."

Diane's dark face took on an earnest expression.  "I can give you another four hunnerd on May first.  I'm workin' extra hours, an' I'm going on a interview next week.  Gawd, ah hope ah git da job.  Then I'll be able to pay you some more."

"You have to do something, Diane," I said. “I can't wait forever, and you never answer my letters or phone calls.  What am I supposed to think?  It seems the only way I can communicate with you is by taking you to Court.  It’s a waste of my time and yours, but it's the only way I can actually talk to you."

"Yeah, yeah.  I know," My errant tenant flashed a sheepish grin.  "I had to take time off work to come ‘ere today too.  Is hard, you know?

"Tell me about it!"

She patted my knee, conspiratorially.  "I sure hope I get dat job.  I really wanna pay you what I owe you."

I stifled a dubious grunt.  "Hm, well, our case is the first on the list this morning, so as soon as the judge shows up, we can get started."

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: Chasin' Charmayne

About a month later, I decided it was time to take Charmayne to #Court to try and #collect the #rent she still owed me from October through February.  The total sum only amounted to $116.02, but I'd also spent about $500.00 in repairs, so I was determined to get what I could. Charmayne had been ignoring all my letters and phone calls, so I went ahead and filed a #petition in Small Claims Court. The City Clerk mailed it to Charmayne's mother's house on Knife Street, which was the only Charmayne-related address I had. I soon received a frantic phone call from said mother.

"What's this petition thing come in the mail?" she demanded.

"Overdue rent,” I told her. “It's all explained in the petition."

"Why's my name on it, though?” she practically screamed in my ear. “I have to go to court too?  I don't owe you no rent. You ain’t gett'n nutt'n from me. I've never even met you."

"Don't worry," I assured her. "Your name's only included on the petition because you're the ‘care of’ address. You don't have to go to court. Just Charmayne."

"Humph," Ma grunted and slammed the phone down in my ear.

Charmayne called soon afterwards.  "Why're you taking me to Court?  I said I'd pay you when I can."

"You did say that,” I agreed, “but that was ages ago and nothing's happened. You've been ignoring all my letters and phone calls. The only option I have is to take you to court."

"I never got no letters from you," Charmayne protested.

"Oh yes you did," I told her. "I sent it certified mail, care of your mother, and she signed for it."

"Oh."

"lf you want, I can send you a copy of the return receipt," I offered. "If you pay me before the tenth of the month, you won't have to to go court. But if you don't pay me, then I have to go to court to protect my interests."

Charmayne spluttered loudly into the phone, then, like her parent before her, hung up loudly in my ear.

I sent her a copy of the return receipt, signed by her mother. As expected, no payment was forthcoming.  I kind of hoped Charmayne wouldn't show up in Court so I could get a default judgment against her, but when the day arrived, the #Judge was delayed, and Charmayne slipped into the courtroom a minute later.

After sitting through the first few cases, it was my turn to be heard. Charmayne and her Ma, a hard-bitten, young-old woman, followed me up the aisle to the front of the courtroom to stand before none other than the mustachioed Judge Grazziano.

He recited my petition out loud. Then, eyeing Charmayne over the tops of his spectacles, her asked her if, in her opinion, the dollar amount stated in the petition was accurate.

"I guess," she reluctantly conceded.

"And do you intend to pay this amount?" 

"I told her I'll pay her when I can," Charmayne answered.

"Your Honor," I broke in. "She's been promising that for months but it never materializes."

Judge Grazziano looked back at Charmayne.  "Do you have a job?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Fun World."

"She's been there since last November," I put in.

"Address?" the Judge asked. Charmayne remained stoically silent.

"Worthington Street Extension," I answered in her stead. "I've tried contacting them but they won't take my calls and they return all my letters."

Judge Grazziano frowned.  "Where do you live now, Charmayne?"

"Main Street."

"Number?"

"One one one one."

"Apartment number?"

"Two."

The Judge raised his gavel.  "Judgment for the #claimant."

"Your Honor," I said quickly.  "She's got a lawsuit pending for personal injury.  Can I at least get her social security number?"

"Very well," the jurist agreed. "What's your social security number, Charmayne?"

"It's on the lease," was her answer.

"No it's not," I said.

"What is your social security number?" Judge Grazziano repeated, a little testily.

Charmayne gabbled something and was made to repeat her answer, which she did in slightly slower gabbles.

I scribbled the social security number down on my file folder next to where I'd written her equally-garbled response as to her current address.

The Judge looked at me. "We done here?"

I nodded.

"Rule for the #petitioner."  Bang went the gavel.

Driving back to my office, I felt emboldened by my small victory and decided to stop by 51 Manson Street to see if Giselle could pay me the two months' rent I was also owed by her.  The background to this circumstance was as follows: 

Claiming that Social Services was late in paying her check to her, Giselle had promised to send me a money order as soon as the check arrived. Some days later, she apparently mailed me the money order but when it failed to arrive, opined that the post office must have lost it and that she would investigate. Two days later, she called to say that she’d erroneously mailed the money order to her sister in Florida instead of to me, but that her sister was returning it by return post, and as soon as it arrived, Giselle would mail it on to me. A week later, when it still failed to materialize, I called Giselle to find out what was going on. She apologized profusely for forgetting to mail it and assured me that she would mail it the next day. To date, no money order. 

Marvin opened the door to my knock and asked me to wait whilst he rummaged through Giselle's dresser for the money order.  To my relief, he came back with two money orders for two months' rent.

As I turned to leave, Marvin called me back. "You see what Shirley and Jerry put up?" he asked, indicating a tall wooden fence separating the neighbors' #property from mine. "Giselle was wonderin' if you could put a fence up on the other side of the yard? The fence we have now is all loose an' everything, and the dog can get out. Giselle wants to let him run loose in the back yard."

"Let's take a look," I offered.  We tramped up the alley to the back yard where the chain-link fence was indeed looking very sorry for itself.

"Jerry got his wood real cheap," Marvin continued.  "If you buy the wood, I can put the fence up for you.  No charge."

I thought for a moment.  "The thing is, even though I just got two months' worth of back rent from Giselle, she still owes me three hundred and seventy-five dollars from last August. I really don't want to spend any more of my own money til that's paid that off too."

"I don't know about that," Marvin said.  "I’m jes tellin' you about the fence, and the labor will be free."

"Why don't you get me an estimate?" I suggested, "and I'll think about it."

Marvin nodded. "Okay, an’ there's another thing.  We need recycle bins. The City's changed the rules. They're not going to pick up bags no more. We need a container."

"You don’t have your own garbage cans?"

"Yeah, but we need another one for recyclin'.  The landlord's supposed to provide those."

I sighed. "Anything else?"

Marvin pointed to a hole at the edge of the sidewalk in front of the house. "That there needs fixin'. I tried fillin’ it wit’ rocks and stuff, but the kids from upstairs ... they keep pickin' at it an' makin' it bigger."

"All right,” I said. “I'll find out about that, too.” 

At that moment, Diane popped her head over the balcony above our heads. “Diane?" I yelled to her. "You keep your kids away from that hole, you hear? I don't want someone suing me because they've broken their ankle." She giggled and disappeared back inside.

When I got back to the office, I called the City and learned that, yes, fixing the #sidewalk in front of the #house was indeed my responsibility. They also told me I could purchase any kind of garbage can for recyclables, so long as I put stickers on it, which the City would send to me.

I wrote to Giselle to let her know I'd be delivering a #recycling bin as soon as the stickers arrived.  As an afterthought, I added that she was welcome to pay off her debt to me by purchasing the wood.
No stickers arrived, but my father did, accompanied by his fourth wife, Brenda. She was a six-foot-tall Amazon-of-a-woman, with a weather-beaten face and a no-nonsense manner, but she had a fun, kind personality. Following Frederica's death, our family was drawing together.

They stayed with us for two weeks, and Daddy was barely moody at all. He particularly enjoyed getting reacquainted with Andrea and Bronwyn, who had grown quite a bit since he'd seen them last.  Bronwyn kept him entertained for hours with her endless chatter and funny impressions, while Andrea demonstrated the gymnastics prowess she'd undoubtedly inherited from her athletic grandpa. “These granddaughters of mine are quite delightful,” Daddy was heard to declare one day in a proud voice.  

In between Daddy and Brenda's sightseeing trips, I also enjoyed spending some quality time with my father. He was into New Age music, and one night we sat together in the living room watching my new Yanni video.  I remember sharing a glance of silent appreciation with him as the music surged to a crescendo at the end of a track. We both had tears in our eyes at the beauty of the soaring violins.  It was a special moment.  Mummy, Wim, and Brenda were outside on the back deck, no doubt wincing at the noise but they managed to endure the whole length of the music video without making any snide comments, which was very public-spirited of them.

Toward the end of Daddy’s stay, I asked him if he knew what time it was that Frederica had woken up from her semi-comatose state and spoken to Janie for the last time. I was amazed to learn that it was just about the exact moment that I’d been trying to connect with her via ESP, holding her hand in my mind and sending her my strength. I looked down at my sister's favorite cameo ring that Daddy had brought me from South Africa, and my heart swelled as I twisted it around on my finger.

I was having such a nice time with my father, that I forgot all about buying the recycling bin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Shocked by the Sheriff

Several cases were scheduled to be heard ahead of my case, so I decided that, while I was waiting, I would try to get the police report for last week's disturbance, in case Natasha tried to deny it all.

I slipped out the back door of the court room where a heated discussion was raging between the opposing parties as to whether a certain carpet had or had not been properly laid. 

The city court clerk let me use the phone in an adjacent office-cum-junk-room.  Perched amidst dusty, discarded file cabinets and unidentifiable pieces of dismantled office furniture, I called the police station.  When I eventually reached the appropriate department, the woman at the other end was at first reluctant to help me.

"We don’t give out incident reports over the phone," she told me.  "You will need to file a Freedom of Information request."

I explained the situation to her. 

"I'm at city court right now, waiting for my case to be heard.  If you could just give me the names of the #police officers who responded to the call, that would be something.  You see, my #tenant is probably going to deny everything, and I thought I should get some ammunition to prove my case to the #judge.”

The woman unbent a little as she sympathized with my plight. 

"I'd like to help," she said, "but . . .

"Oh well, seeing as you're about to go into court, I'll read the incident report to you over the phone." 

She proceeded to read the names of the officers who had responded and related that they had arrived at the #apartment and removed seven people from the #premises.  The name of the person allegedly responsible for holding the party meant nothing to me.  Natasha wasn’t even  mentioned.

I scribbled down the details on a scrap of paper and thanked the woman profusely.

When I returned to the courtroom, I didn’t have long to wait until the clerk was sonorously intoning the name of my case.

"Scuttlebutt v. Fluff?"

I walked sprightly up the aisle to stand before the judge by a table on the left of the aisle.  Natasha shuffled along behind and came to rest, lounging against a table on the right.

Judge Grazziano read aloud the clerk’s report and fixed Natasha with a disapproving frown. 

"I understand you have violated my Order," he said in a grave voice.

Natasha scowled. 

"I dunno what you talkin' about.  Theah was nutt'n goin' on.  I weren't even home."

"Your Honor," I ventured politely.  "I just got off the phone with the police station." 

I waved my scrap of paper at him. 

"It says that Officers Smith and Jones were called to fifty-one Manson Street at eleven p.m.  A loud party was in progress, and the police removed seven people from the premises.  My downstairs tenant says that shortly after the police left, the people all came back again and continued the party, though they did reduce the noise level somewhat.”

I shook my head in exasperation. 

“Judge, last week you told Natasha not to cause any more disturbances, and that very same night . . .

I gave a heavy sigh.

"I just want her out of my house, your Honor."

Judge Grazziano directed his gaze at the sullen Natasha. 

"I must say, I was hoping not to see you back in court again so soon."

"S’not fair!" Natasha protested.  "I weren't even there!"

"Whether you were or were not present at the time," said the judge, "is not important.  There were unauthorized persons in your apartment creating a disturbance.  This case is referred to the #Sheriff for a three-day #eviction of the respondent."

Bang went the gavel.

Natasha stormed out of the court room, muttering obscenities under her breath. 

"What do I do now?" I whispered to the judge's clerk, an ancient old biddy with a full head of white hair.

"You must prepare an order and warrant for the judge's signature.  Once he's signed them, you must deliver them to the Sheriff for service," the old biddy whispered back obligingly.

The Sheriff's office was located in the Schemmerhorn County Jail.  As I’d never had cause to visit a jail before, it was with some trepidation that a few days later, armed with a warrant signed by the judge, I pushed open the huge glass door and entered that lofty establishment.  I didn’t know quite what to expect – maybe rows of cells, with prisoners gazing despondently out through the bars, as in the movies?

The reality was disappointing.  Not one prisoner in sight.  The glass door simply opened onto a large, empty waiting room with a small glassed-in office to one side, labeled "Sheriff."

A woman with a blond rinse wrinkled plump, powdered cheeks at me through the glass above the counter.  Her disembodied voice floated hollowly from a speaker on my side of the glass.

"Can I help you?" she asked pleasantly.

"Yes," I answered.  "I have here a #warrant for eviction for the Sheriff to serve on my tenant." 

I pushed the form under the glass.

The woman checked that it had been signed by the judge. 

"There's a seventy-one dollar fee for the service of the warrant," she told me.

I gulped at the news.

"Will the warrant be served today or tomorrow?  There’s only ten days until the end of the month, and the warrant gives my tenant three days to move out.  I want her out by the end of this month."

"Oh, it'll probably be served tomorrow," the woman said with a nod, "but the Sheriff is very busy.  He won't be able to schedule the physical eviction until about the second week of December." 

She appeared to take pity at the sight of my crestfallen face. 

"Usually the tenant doesn't know the Sheriff is too busy to actually throw them out at the three-day point.  It'll probably be all right."

I sighed. 

"Well, assuming the worst, what happens if she isn't gone by the time the Sheriff comes to evict her?  I mean, do you put all her furniture out on the street, or something?”

"If she hasn’t moved out, the landlord is responsible for transporting the tenant's furniture to a storage facility, where it can be stored for up to two months," came the reply.

"What!" I gasped.  "It's my responsibility?  And who pays for this?"

"You do."

"Let me check I've got this right," I said.  "Because I’m evicting my tenant for creating disturbances, infesting the house with cockroaches, and generally making my life and the neighbors' lives hell, I have to pay the Sheriff seventy-one dollars to serve the eviction papers? 

"And then, if she doesn't move out, I have to pay for her furniture to be removed and stored for two months?"

The woman shrugged.  "That's how it is."

"That's so unfair!" I exclaimed.  "Why should I have to pay to store her furniture if she refuses to obey the judge's Order and not move?  I mean, it looks as if she's got all the rights.  Where are my rights in all this?"

The woman just looked at me with pursed lips, and delicately nibbled on a red-painted fingernail.

I took a deep breath.  "Can I store the furniture myself?"

The woman paused mid-nibble.

"No, it has to be at an official storage facility.  We can't have angry #landlords storing their evicted tenants' furniture.  They might take their frustrations out on the furniture." 

Her voice began to sound a little impatient.  I’d had my moan.  She'd dispensed a modicum of sympathy.  There was nothing more she could do for me.  I must now get out of her face. 

She began patting at her blond rinse and looking over her shoulder, as if someone were calling her from a back room. 

I took the hint and left. 

After writing out a check, of course.

The $71.00 I paid to the Sheriff turned out to be a waste of money because Natasha moved out at the end of the month, and I called the Sheriff’s office to advise them of this fact.

I placed an advertisement in the Schemmerhorn Gazette -- #rent listed at $475.00 -- and implored Miz James to tell me if she knew of any friend or relative who might be looking to rent an apartment any time soon.

During the week, Mr. Catcher from #Social #Services came to inspect the upstairs apartment for my #damage #claim.  Wim and I had written up a list of the painting and repairs that needed to be done, and I was very happy to learn that I would be receiving the maximum amount allowed in the #security #agreement: two months rent! 

My happiness was short-lived, however, when I discovered that this would barely cover all of the #repair items and #labor fees.  Though greatly discounted, Wim needed to charge me for his labor.  For all the time he spent working at 51 Manson Street, he could be earning more money working for his own customers.

The next weekend, a man called about the apartment.