The Background
I signed a one year lease in March of 2006 for a nice sized house, but it was pretty expensive. A few months later, my girlfriend became pregnant. I decided to get serious with life and went to a radio school. I graduated and needed to move closer to Tampa, which is a top 20 radio market. I gave my notice 30 days notice, as stated in my lease.
With that being said, I need to explain my landlords; Josh and Michelle. Josh and Michelle are one of these new age couples. They drink beer together, work at the same job together, etc. Josh seems to be a nerd and Michelle seems a lot more manly than Josh. But that's neither here nor there.
Josh and Michelle live in Rhode Island. They bought a house in Beverly Hills, Florida. Right around the block from her. They live there for 3 months out of the year. For the rest of the time, they live up north. This was their first lease. And I was their first tenant. They were my first landord. Already, you can tell this situation will not be good.
We happily lived in the home for 10 months. The house layout sucked. The house was way cooler on the outside. I put a few holes in various walls and doors, but I fixed them all long before the day I left. What turned out to be a major problems were my girlfriend's two male cats, who were not neutered. We kept them in the spare bedroom. There was a bed in that spare bed room. They pissed everywhere in the room, including all over the bedroom.
They pissed everywhere. We had no clue. We knew they had pissed a couple times because it smelled, but I figured they just pissed once or twice. I had absolutely no fucking idea that they literally pissed so badly that they ruined a mattress and possibly the carpet. We had already gotten rid of these disaster cats due to their carnage. After using a scientific blacklight to see the horrible damage, I vowed I would clean the room. I am a man who loves challenges. I am a man who does the impossible. I will clean that fucking carpet, is what I said.
So after I give the notice to Michelle, the landlord, that I was moving closer to Tampa, she sends over The Antichrist. The Antichrist has a name, and it's Joyce. Joyce is Michelle's mother, who lives right around the corner. I will describe Joyce more... But my initial opinion of Joyce was that she was a nice older lady who was a bit forward.
Joyce comes over a couple days after I gave my notice on November 1st. She says the house looks great, and she goes into the spare bed room. She smells the cat piss. It's pretty bad. She's worried about it. I promise to clean it. She was leaving for a week and asked me if I could have it done by then, and I said yes. I'm fucking Matt, woman. I do the impossible.
On this same day, as we are talking about things, I explain to her that I don't have a lot of money right now and I will need my security deposit back on the day that I leave. I explain I don't have a lot of money saved due to me just finishing school and having to reduce my work hours in order to attend school. She tells me that she understands, and promises that we will work something out. "I'm sure we can work something out. It won't be a problem as long as there are no problems." I know the house has no problems, so I'm set and ready to look for the new place.
The next day I went out to a speciality cleaner store and bought Live Enzyme. It costs 20 bucks a gallon. It's just about the only remedy for cat piss. I bought about 10 dollars worth of carpet cleaner, rags, and I rented a steam cleaner. I was cleaning this fucking room. I then put about 25 hours of work into this carpet to get it cleaned. I spent an ungodly amount of time. I was determined. When I finished that room, I was confident enough to lick the carpet from corner to corner. That's how clean this carpet was.
Joyce The Cunt comes back. She comes in and smells the room. She says it's good. But then she leaves the room, and suddenly... the rest of the house smells. She smells it "somewhere over there." She claims "the cat" must've peed over there too. I politely explain to her the cats were never out of the spare bedroom. We talk more about the carpet, I explain to her that the carpet was 20 years old and has been there since the house was built since only one man lived in the house according to my property records on the home.
She makes another comment about cat odor and how difficult it can be to get out. I again inform her that the cars were never out of the spare room. She leaves and I tell her I'll get the smell out of what is the computer area. But wait! She comes right back up and says she forgot something. She wants to use my computer to send a picture from her digital camera to some possible new tenant. I let her, begrudgingly. It was rude and forward to randomly ask someone to use their computer when they are doing important work on it.
I let her though, I let her come in the house whenever to take pictures and stuff. I let her make repairs to the outside, I didn't care. I let her put a fucking For Rent sign up. I did everything for this scum bag, and so did my girlfriend. Tons of weird random phone calls, asking what the color of this or that was. All kinds of shit. We did it all, just so we could get our security back so we could move on with out future and build this shit.
So I wait for night and I use my blacklight. I clean puppy pee spots. After we got rid of the cats we got our puppy, Nala. When she was a puppy she had bladder control problems. Puppy pee and cat piss are quite different. This woman was smelling puppy piss. I cleaned it, easily. End of story. The house is now in perfect condition. Except for that mattress, which I planned on cleaning later.
Everything is good and rolling smoothly. I put a deposit down on a nice smaller house in Spring Hill, Florida. It's a beautiful town half way between home and Tampa. We're happy and excited. My girlfriend is 7 months pregnant and out future is bright and looking great. Everything is falling into place.
Now it's a few days later, and Joyce The Antichrist calls me while I'm in Spring Hill job hunting. She calls me once, I chuck her to the voicemail. Then she calls again, and I answer. She tells me she things I should clean the carpet. I tell her it's expensive and I'd rather her get it done and to just take it out of my security. She tells me that if I clean the carpets myself, I can probably get it done for cheaper and she won't take it out of my security. She then tells me she is bringing someone with her tomorrow to measure the carpets and to look at them. I ask why. She dodges. I ask why, she says I need the dimensions if I want to get them cleaned. I tell her I've never heard of anything like that. She then settles with just in case it needs to be replaced, but he's mostly there as a friend of mine checking out the carpet. I said fine.
These fucking fuckers come to my house 35 minutes late, holding me the fuck up, and show their true colors at the house. This guy does nothing but measure and diagram the house. I'm started to get very suspicious of Joyce. It is on this day, somewhere around the 20th, that I start suspecting that Joyce may in fact be a scumbag. And I was absolutely fucking right.
On this day, I started getting very suspicious. So I asked her how we were going to work out the security. What was once "It won't be a problem" and "we'll work something out" has turned into "Well... I don't have access to anyone's bank account so you'll have to talk to Michelle." I literally walk away from her in the middle of talking, get my cell phone, and call Michelle, the landlord. I leave her a message telling her its urgent and to call me back. This was somewhere around November 22nd. I wouldn't hear from Michelle until November 29th, the night I was moving.
I leave a message for the landlord everyday. I can't get a fucking call back. Meanwhile, my whole move is based upon this deposit. I'm panicking and I'm in a mess now. Fucking stupid, I know. But I wouldn't have done it if she didn't assure me that I could have it the day we left at the very fucking beginning. Not to mention the fact that I've already given notice at my job and I was in the middle of finding a job where I was moving this whole week. I was being fucked when I was vulnerable nonetheless.
On Thursday the 24th, I found a job at a charity call center. They needed me now, so they said they would hire me if I could start Monday the 27th. I said fine terrific, I just had to leave on short notice at my other job and drive an hour to work every day until I moved on Thursday. No biggie. I'm Matt, I can handle it. Once Joyce found this out, she really turned up her bullshit.
She came over on Saturday or Sunday - She just wanted to check something or other, I forget. There were no less than a dozen of these "I just need to check this" visits. I let her come over there so many times. I was beyond generous. It was during this visit that somehow, she convinced me to get the carpets cleaned. She had someone coming on on Tuesday to see the house, a possible tenant. She had concerns about the carpet, the carpet that looked like shit the day we moved in, the carpet that is 20 years old, the carpet that has been there since the house was built.
She was concerned about it, and I know that it is standard to have the carpets cleaned when you leave a rented apartment or house. She told me that if I had the carpets cleaned before the tenant came in, that she wouldn't take it out of my deposit. She inferred, with her sneaky little ways, that everything I could do to get a new tenant in would increase my chances of getting the deposit back.
So First thing Monday, my girlfriend made phone calls they came out and cleaned the carpets on Tuesday. They came and they cleaned. The landlord comes over when I'm at work to show the house to the first person. Next thing I know, my girlfriend calls me crying. She's walking around the house and she keeps making these comments saying it smells and she keeps saying she smells cat urine. Saying various things smell when they've never even been sat on. Saying a mattress smells that was never peed on. We've worked so fucking hard on that house to make it perfect for this day, and this scumbag isn't satisfied. She hurt her feelings. She lied to her. There was no first tenant. She lied in order to gain access to the house before the actual potential was came.
So I call her from work, and I tell her she needs to not disrespect my girlfriend and she needs to be careful with what she says. I explain that she is a sensitive girl who, along with me, has put a lot of hard work into making the house presentable for new tenants. She actually has the fucking gall to deny the fact that my girlfriend is upset, claims she was "jovial" and has no idea what I'm talking about. I plainly and bluntly tell her she is wrong, and she was upset, and to please watch what you say to her. Conversation ends.
I'm an hour away now, so I need to play things differently. I call my Mom and ask her to go over there and make sure that my girlfriend isn't walked over again. Now things get interesting. Joyce returns, but keeps on driving once she sees another car is here. She knew my Mom was coming over to take out the mattress that didn't smell and move it into the garage, but she wouldn't come back. She calls my girlfriend and leaves an absolutely rude message, saying that she can't bring people in the house when guests are there and says we need to do this another day if people are going to be there. She will not deal with my girlfriend when my Mom is there. My Mom stayed for over an hour before she called Joyce and had a little conversation with her.
So Joyce leaves an absolutely rude, cunty message. I give her one right back, explaining that I will involve whoever the fuck I want in the lease and if she doesn't like it, then Michelle can fly down from Rhode Island to deal with me. I use nice, polite words though. I never lose my cool with her. I'm polite yet stern. She returns to the home about an hour before she's showing the house, after my Mom leaves of course.
She insists there is a cat odor. She somehow gathers the nerve to ask my girlfriend to carry around freshly microwaved cinnamon apples to cover the smell that really isn't there as she shows the house. My girlfriend did it, for that stupid scumbag whore. The girl wasn't interested in the house. She spent two minutes and left. All of that work for two fucking minutes. What a dumb asshole. She then calls back later that night and says she has another person to show the house to in the morning, and wants to know when a good time would be. I inform her that she is no longer welcome when I'm not home due to the events of yesterday, so we make it before I goto work at 9.
Wednesday arrives. I wake up bright and early and await the late asshole, as usual. I'm surprised when I see two disgustingly dirty rednecks walking up the sidewalk with her. I figure two redneck homosexuals are moving in. They come in, I say hi, and she informs me they're here to look at the carpet. I'm absolutely fucking dumbfounded. I ask her when she is showing the house to the potential, and she says she doesn't have anyone. I tell her she mislead me, and she tells me I was just confused. I say no, you mislead me and I tell her I don't appreciate it. I tell her she doesn't need to do those sort of things. Polite and stern, that's my attitude.
So these fucking dirty rednecks come in, and of course they're scummy pieces of shit and they say the house stinks and the carpet needs to be replaced. I explain I just had it cleaned and it's being redone for free by the company. They say it doesn't matter, it needs to be removed. I tell them it needed to be removed before I left, but it doesn't need to be removed because of me. These fucking lying assholes say the house smells like cat piss when the cats never left the spare bedroom.
This is when Joyce makes me the shady deal. She tells me that if I remove the carpets and dispose of them, she won't charge me for them. Isn't that fucking brilliant. Does this stupid bitch think I'm someone to be fucked with? Her carpet heathens are full of shit. They're dirty assholes who, of course, are going to say the carpets need to be replaced. They're her people and they are lucky to get any work they can. They make money by saying "YES REPLACE THEM!" I tell her I'll think about it.
Why the fuck would she make that deal anyway? How is that good for her? So, according to her, my cats, the ones who never left the spare bedroom, ruined the carpet in the whole house, and she's going to replace the entire carpet. Everywhere. But, if I remove the carpet, she won't charge me for it? That's fucking stupid and insane. It makes no sense. I knew from that moment she was going to fuck me. She wanted those 20 year old carpets replaced and she was going to do it with my money. Meanwhile, the fucking landlord will not call me back.
What to do... What to do? I conclude she's fucking me. I conclude that I will not save her money by doing all of that work when she isn't planning on giving me shit anyway. So I call her bluff, at around 10:00 at night the night we're packing to leave. I tell her that I'm doing the carpets. We already had plans for her to come over at 9 am to do the final walk through. I ask her to put this carpet agreement into writing. She refuses. I got her now. I keep pressing her, asking her why. And then it comes out. The truth comes out finally, when I have an already rented truck sitting in the driveway being packed as I speak. She tells me I'm not getting the deposit.
It's official. "It won't be a problem" turned into "I just fucked you out of $800." It is at this time that polite and stern ends. Sick Matt comes out, and here's the line I give her. "Joyce... I will see you at 9 am tomorrow, and you will have my money with you, and if you don't YOU WILL HAVE A FUCKING NIGHTMARE." Caps being me literally screaming, heavy metal style. I sounded like Satan himself. She gasped and said "WHAT?!" I said "You fucking heard me. I am now your fucking nightmare" She hung up. She my phone dies and she leaves me a voicemail.
So right there, I have my extension to December 2nd. I spend all night packing with no sleep. I leave at around 11 am and head off. I couldn't fit about 10% of my stuff in the truck, so I had to make another trip on Friday the 1st after work. That was the plan. Shouldn't be no problems, right? Of course not.
I move in, brutally, with no sleep, sign my lease, beg my Dad for money so I can move in and turn on the electric, and goto work. I sleep at work mostly. I didn't sleep a wink until after 5 PM. I get home and completely die on the couch. And I slept like a fucking rock until Friday morning. Somewhere in the day, I got this message from Michelle.
Friday, December 1st. This is the epic day that all hell breaks loose. It begins with this message. It's the message I woke up to. My first morning in my new house, and I wake up to fucking this:
This fucking scumbag. It was fucking on like Donkey Kong. I had to hurry and get to work, so I called my Mom and told her to drive by and make sure everything was ok. I call the landlord and amazingly get a hold of her. We talk and she tells me I can take the weekend to finish moving. Great. So she got over there, and people were in the house. I locked the doors. I put a no trespassing sign up. People were there, and they were touching my shit. I was working an hour away and couldn't receive calls at work. I finally found out what was going on during a break. They moved all of my shit, broke numerous items, and one of those dirt bag carpet people tried to attack my Mom. I didn't find this out until a week later, otherwise I would have left work and would have had them all trespassed.
What I did do is call the police. I made them let my Mom get my stuff, because I didn't want anyone fucking with my shit. They said they couldn't get them off the property without me there with my lease. Fan-fucking-tastic. My Mom and my Grandma took what they could of mine and left. While there, apparently my Mom was insulting the carpet/handy men who had broken my shit and one of them actually tried to attack my Mom. Big trouble now, motherfuckers. My Dad is fucking irate. He works in New Jersey and he wants blood. Now the fun starts.
I leave work, change my clothes, and go right to the house. The motherfucker changed the locks and a decent amount of my shit is still inside. She has also turned on every single light in the house. Not one wasn't turned on, and the electric was still in my name since it was a weekend. It's past 10 at night. I call the police, and they review me lease and advise my that it is not illegal to break into your own house. I thank them, and in front of a police officer, forcibly enter the side door to the garage. Once in the garage, I try to open the door that leads into the house and it is locked.
This is a huge thick door, since it's an outside door. So what do I do? I back all the way up, and give that fucking door a flying Liu Kang kick and bust the frame in one shot. My girlfriend enters and we get to work. We take everything of mine that we forgot. I also take every single thing of theirs that I had left. The house was furnished, and I left everything of theirs when we left. When I returned, I took it all. I won't say what I did or didn't take. I'll just say that I made it clear to these people that they made a mistake.
This message was interesting. This was the first time she ever got cunty with me. I called her back and had a good talk with her. I explained her mother was causing all of this bullshit and it needed to end. I told her I did nothing illegal, I have a lease, and to not dare threaten to have me arrested. It's not possible and the very notion of you even considering such a thing makes me want to do very bad things, and very bad things I may have done in retaliation to that threat. But I cannot confirm nor deny that.
What I can say is that Michelle set herself up for a doozy. She said "I don't understand why you Dad is calling me, and threatening me and my house." I said, very calmly... Michelle, do you think it's possible that my Dad is calling you and yelling at you because YOU'RE A CUNT!" Burned motherfucker! She was fucking speechless. She said "... ... ... Did you just call me a cunt?" "Yes I called you a cunt. You are threatening to have me arrested for breaking into my leased property, which your Mom changed the locks on illegally and that makes you a cunt. You threaten me, I insult you. That's how I work.
So now Saturday rolls along. She reported me for burglary. A detective called me and told me it was civil and not to worry about it. She's owned again and I need to get the rest of my stuff! But wait, there's more! I had left a large amount of retaining bricks from a water garden there. I wanted them. So my little brother went over there with his SUV and helped me load them up. I get over there and again, the fucking lights are all on. I call the cops again and I report a vandalism to my leased property. The place is mine until Monday the lights are in my fucking name.
Very... Very luckily, I get a cop who used to rent houses. She is fucking appalled by what this scumbag is doing to me. She promises to help me, and boy did she help. She finds where this Joyce Cunt lives, and goes and brings her to the house, with my permission I might add. It's fucking showdown time at the OK Corral.
I'm standing in near the door and Joyce, the kind female officer, and a friend of Joyce's walk up the sidewalk. I'm staring Joyce down, giving her looks that would kill. She starts to walk towards the door and I step in front of it. She stops, sarcastically laughs, and looks to the officer and says "He's not going to let me in." The officer looks to me for approval, and I said "Joyce... If you ask me really... REALLY nicely, I will let you in my house." Fucking bitch slapped! Cunt!
It's not over now. We have a long discussion about the situation in the house. What it boiled down to was this: She had my written notice. I had my lease. My lease was signed by the landlord. The notice was a photocopied piece of paper with my signature alone saying I was leaving. The cop said, and Florida law says "As long as he has a lease, I can't do anything. It's civil." As we're talking, Joyce's little friend starts to give me attitude and without even thinking, I just blurt out "You shut the fuck up." I got triple gasps from these people. I apologized, and explained I was trying so hard not to yell at Joyce that I took it out on the friend.
Eventually Joyce started pissing me off more and more. She kept asking me why I was at the house with no furniture. She thew away perfectly good couches in order to fuck me even further out of my money. The couches were damn near mint, with a few drool marks. She dumped them, just to fuck me. I explain I have things to get. She wants to know what I need to get. I tell her that I'm not telling. I go into little kid prick mode, and boy did it piss her off. The conversation went like this:
What do you even need to get from here? I'm not telling ya. Because you've got nothing to get, you just want to burglarize the house again. I assure her I have things to get. she asks what. I tell her it's a secret. Shes fucking steaming. The cop is visibly grinning because of my silliness. This woman was fucking about to explode with rage, just because I was acting like a child. I created the illusion that a child had defeated an adult. A veteran real estate cunt! The cop knew I was there for the bricks, but she wouldn't tell her.
Eventually Joyce pisses me off and I say OK OK, That's it. I told her that she needed to leave the property immediately. She tried to respond, and I just said BYE... BYEE... BYEEE JOYCE... BYE BYEEEEE. The officer walked her down the fucking sidewalk! In shame! The motherfucking walk of shame, bitch. She was literally escorted. Victory was mine. I packed the shit up. I smashed every bulb in the house so she couldn't turn the lights back on while it was in my name. I did some other extremely hilarious stuff, and went home. I haven't been back since.
As of right now, she has sent me a certified letter claiming my deposit. She fucked up though. In Florida, you need to do the work within 15 days and show receipts and itemize everything. She's on vacation right now. She's fucked, and I am legally entitled to the deposit! The whole fucking thing. After Christmas, I'm filing suit in Citrus County, Florida and I'm going to sue their asses off. When I file against the landlords, they will have to come down from Rhode Island where the live. That'll cost them the security alone. Then I'll sue for every offense possible, the access to the house the last month, the changing of the locks, my shit that they broke, the carpet man who tried to attack my Mom, the time and labor of my Mom and Grandma, and a ton of pain and suffering, especially to my very pregnant girlfriend. They are fucked, and that's not me saying they're fucked. It's Florida law saying YOU FUCKED YOURSELF.
The saddest part is this, and this is the complete truth. My Dad, My Mom, and everyone else I knew who advised me when I was considering breaking my lease and moving out early told me to not pay the last month's rent. They told me not to take any chances. They told me it was too much money. I needed it for the baby and to not even take a chance. Well I fucked up, because I paid it.
I decided that I wanted to give them a chance to be decent. I decided that I wanted to do the right thing, and if I did the right thing completely then they would too. I was very, very fucking wrong. But that's ok, because Matt Sick is a fighter. I don't give up until I'm dead, and that's just the way I am. I'll win this, I'll get my fucking money from this scum bag thief, I'll sue for everything from the assault of my Mom to my broken pirate ship, to a charge to have my girlfriend walk with those apples. I'll get my shit back.
One of these days, the world will realize that you just should not attempt to fuck with intelligent people. This fucking lady got herself in over her head with me and my family, and she's going to really, really regret it once I get her into a court room and humiliate her. Stay tuned, this shit isn't over.
(Excuse the typos, I'l sleep deprived and I'll fix them tomorrow or as soon as I have time to proofread.)
