On
June 1st, I received a call from Giselle. "I'm
sorry to do this to you, Stace, but I hafta move out."
I
couldn't think of anything to say, except, "Why?"
"It's
not you," Giselle hastened to assure me.
"It's Wim. The walls in my
daughter's bedroom are cracking like crazy now, there's no insulation, and I
just can't afford to pay the heating bills next winter like I did last winter. I've told Wim over and over, but he don't do
nutt'n about it."
"I
didn't know about the walls in your daughter's bedroom," I said.
"You
see? There you go. Wim don't tell you nothin'. He's supposed to look after this place, an' he
doesn't. I tell you, it's because of Wim
I'm movin' out, not you."
Giselle proceeded to rant and rave in my ear
about Wim this and Wim that. I could see
there was no point in trying to talk her out of it. She had made up her mind to go, and that was
that. I would be kind of sorry to lose
her. She was basically a good #tenant, albeit giving me a few hassles now and then.
Compared to the succession of upstairs tenants, however, she was an
angel!
I
sank onto my couch in utter despair.
The
next day, I called her back. "Giselle,
I've been thinking. I never told you
this because I didn’t want to alarm you, but I’ve had the #house on the market
for some time. I was wondering … would you
be interested in buying it?"
There
was an astonished silence from Giselle.
"Uh, I couldn't afford it," she said after a
moment. "I mean, how could I pay
the down-payment, to start with? I ain't
got money like that."
"Well, if
you assumed my #mortgage, you wouldn't have to pay any money down," I told
her. "Except maybe some
miscellaneous #assumption costs. You'd
also be making a few hundred dollars a month in rent from the upstairs #apartment because the
mortgage isn’t much more than the rent you’re paying now."
Giselle
was silent for another moment. “This is, like, a shock, you know?" she said finally. "You've really caught me by surprise with this
one. Umm ... No. I really don't think I'm in a position to buy a house right now."
"Well," I said, "It's something to think about, at least. Why don't you talk it over with Marvin and let me
know if you change your mind?"
The
next day, Giselle called me back.
"We did think about it, Marvin and me, and we would like to
try and buy the house, so long as we wouldn't have to make any down-payment or
nutt'n. What do we have to do?"
"I'll
call the mortgage company and get back to you," I told her eagerly.
I
put down the phone and skipped into my parents’ living room in gay
abandon. "Giselle wants to buy the
house!" I yelled, dancing around the furniture. Mummy and Wim looked
on in amusement.
I
got right on to the mortgage company. They told me Giselle and I both needed to
sign a letter requesting an assumption packet.
I sat down at my computer, there and then, and dashed off a short
request for an assumption packet, with an extra signature line for Giselle. I mailed it to her the next day with instructions
to sign it and send it back to me as soon as possible. When she returned the letter a few days
later, I dated it and sent it off to the mortgage company.
*
* * * * * * *
June
4th rolled around and, not surprisingly, Charmayne didn’t show up for #Court. I was rather pleased at this because her absence meant she couldn’t complain to the #judge that I had served the information #subpoena
on her via her mother, which the judge might deem invalid service.
My
case was fourth in line that morning. Judge
Grazziano dispatched the first two matters quite quickly, but the third one dragged on
and on. After much watch-glancing and
biting of nails, I was relieved when the judge called for a break.
"This
is going to take a while," he said to the room at large, then glanced at
his clerk. "Let's go through a
couple of quick cases and get some of these people out of here.”
The
court clerk intoned the name of my case.
I
stood up and smiled at Judge Grazziano.
"It’s me again, Judge. You
must be getting sick of seeing me in your court room every other minute."
He crinkled his luxuriant moustache at me in return. "Hello, Ms. Scuttlebutt. I’m glad to be
of help to you. That's what we’re here
for." He frowned at the motion
papers lying before him. "Is the
respondent here? Charmayne Brown?"
"Nope,"
I answered. "Can I get a
default?"
"Not yet. I'm
afraid we have to wait til the hour’s up to give her a chance to appear," the judge said.
"Oh." I sat down again, resigned to wait another
half-hour or so and worrying about how much longer my employer was going to put up with my frequent absences.
Judge Grazziano dispensed a few more quickies before turning his attention back to the
interrupted third case, whose parties appeared to be growing slightly restless.
Another
half-hour passed. Okay, this was long
enough; the hour was up. The court clerk seemed to think so too
because she loudly cleared her throat during an appropriate pause. Judge Grazziano took the hint and had the
third case take another break while he granted a judgment for default on my
case.
I
left the court room with a spring in my step.
Now we were getting somewhere.
Back at the office, yet another Friendly Lawyer helped me draft an Order for the judge to sign. It stated that if Charmayne failed to respond to the information subpoena within
thirty days, a #warrant would be issued for her #arrest.
Surely, when faced with arrest, she would pay
up, rather than go to jail.
*
* * * * * * *
A
week later, I received a large packet of forms from the mortgage company for Giselle and Marvin to fill
out as prospective co-purchasers. I made
an extra copy for my file and sent the originals to Giselle.
Not
surprisingly, Diane did not pay her rent for June, nor did she seem to be making any
plans for moving out. I wrote her a
letter demanding rent and threatening to have the #Sheriff evict her. I also hadn’t received any word or rent from
Giselle, so I sent her a letter too, asking her to pay the rent and to contact
me about filling out the forms I'd just sent her.
She called a few days later and informed me in a dull-sounding voice that she couldn’t
even think about filling them out right now.
“My
mother's real sick,” she went on to explain. “She lives an hour-and-a-half away, and she’s
actually in the hospital there, dyin'.
I'm gonna be spending most of my time theah, so I can't be thinkin' about
buying no house."
"Jeez,
I'm sorry," I told her. "Keep me posted, okay? I’ll be thinking of you."
I put down the phone. Damn, I’d forgotten to ask Giselle about the
overdue rent! I couldn’t very well do
that now, could I? Not after she'd told
me her mother was dying.
The
threat of imminent eviction prompted one of Diane's rare phone calls.
"I
sorted things out with Social Services," she announced. "If you write to my #caseworker, tell
her how much rent I owe, they'll pay you the whole amount. They’re gonna start paying my rent from now
on too."
"You're
kidding!" I exclaimed. "Are you sure? Why would they start paying now?"
"
‘cause they wasn't s'posed to drop me in the first place," Diane said. "They only dropped me
‘cause they thought I had a second job. But I don't. So they're gonna take me
back again.”
"Hm." I was still dubious. "Okay, I'll write to your caseworker and
see what happens."
I
wrote to Diane’s caseworker the next day, telling her that Diane owed $1,250.00
in back-rent and enclosing a copy of the eviction petition to verify my
claim. How did I ever let Diane
get so deep into debt, I mused as I penned the letter. Intermittent reinforcement ... that was
it: promises and little payments every
now and then to keep me pacified and hopeful.
Meanwhile, her debt to me had grown and grown. Had I also felt obliged to be more lenient with her because she was Giselle’s cousin? Maybe.
A
week later, I received a standard form from the Department of Social Services.
In big, bold letters, it stated baldly that Diane Tanner was not eligible for
shelter assistance.
What
a surprise.
I
called Diane at her job. "What's
going on, Diane? I just got a notice
from your caseworker that you are not
eligible for any assistance."
"Er,
I din't get my mail yet," Diane said.
"I'll look into it and find out what's goin' on."
"You'd
better,” I told her. “I'm getting sick of this. If you don't come up with some rent soon, I'm going to have to tell the Sheriff to throw your ass out on the street."
"Yeah ... uh," Diane stammered, sounding flustered. “I'll go see my caseworker tomorrow
an' call you back."
For
once, she stayed true to her word and called me back a couple days later. I took the receiver from my mother, who’d answered
the phone, and waited to hear what the excuse was now.
"I
saw my caseworker," Diane began, "but she said D.S.S. can't help me
after all. She told me to go see the Division of Human Rights. Maybe they can help. I went down there and got an appointment for
the twenty-fourth."
"Hm,"
I muttered suspiciously. I'd never heard of the Division of Human Rights helping
people pay their rent.
"What's
the name of the person you're going to see there?" I asked. "I want to call them, myself and find
out what's going on."
"Uh,
I have to look it up and call you back."
A
few hours later, Diane called back with the name and phone number of the Human
Rights caseworker. I called the number
the next day, but the worker was on vacation.
The woman who answered the phone, however, verified that Diane had indeed made an appointment.
"While I have you on the phone, could I get me some information?" I asked her.
"Sure."
"Does
the Division of Human Rights really help people pay their #rent? I never heard of that before."
"We
do, but only a limited amount," the woman answered.
"What's
the maximum you will pay?"
"Up
to one month's rent, but only if the person shows us a check or money order for
the balance of the overdue rent."
"Jeepers!"
I exclaimed. "One month's rent is four
hundred and seventy-five dollars. As of
July first, my tenant will owe me two thousand and twenty-five dollars. She's never going to come up with
the balance!"
After hanging up from the Division
of Human Rights, I typed out yet another #eviction notice, ordering Diane to move out by July 31st.
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