Phishing for Answers

Yesterday evening, I had to give a little girl the nonsense words test that I wrote about a few posts ago. Guess what word came up, friends? Oh, you guessed it. P-H-I-S-H.

How did the little girl pronounce it?

FISH.

I am vindicated. She missed every other word, but for the love of God, at least she got that one without hesitation.

In other news, many of you know about my ongoing one-sided death match with my former landlord. For the sake of this blog we'll call him David (because that is his name). If you remember the old Windows Live Spaces blog, I'm sure you'll recall a number of problems I had with David. They included (but are not limited to):

1. He attempted to cut down a 30-foot-long span of 8-foot-tall bushes with a pair of hedge trimmers and then, because he was too cheap to haul the yard waste away, he systematically attempted to BURN the bushes IN A PAINT CAN (I swear) over the course of several weeks, violating numerous city codes related to fire, smoke, being an idiot, etc. This brought Kathy and me ENDLESS delight as we would observe this burning ritual day after day until finally some neighbor called the fire department and they came and made him put it out. (I have pictures. Thanks again, Kathy, for having the presence of mind to document the occasion.) In case you're wondering, he made about eight feet of progress and then left the wilted shrubs out to rot. They're still there along with the now-rusted paint can.

2. He had a "girlfriend" (this is in quotes because it seemed that she was more of an indentured servant than a girlfriend) who was very nice but was, for lack of a better word, his bitch. There was NO END to the things he would ask her to do for him, and much to our amazement she did them all! Goodbyeeeee, self esteem, is all I can say about that. These chores included her manning the burning paint can for hours on end while he left or played chess and drank with his roommate; taking his laundry away, doing it for him, and then returning it FOLDED for him; cooking for him AND his roommate; and (this is my favorite) mowing the lawn at ten o'clock at night in the PITCH DARK for him. After ALL of this that she did for him, David admitted to Kathy that the girlfriend was nice but that he wished he would've found someone hotter. Just...just read it all again and then let it stew. Yeah....now you've come along on that journey.

3. He refused to do anything like help with snow removal, despite the fact that he lived there too, so by the time we moved out it was a death trap of glacially compacted ice. My husband and I had to go buy 120 pounds of sand to put on the driveway just to keep ourselves from dying as we moved all the heavy stuff.

4. He forced me to play chess with him once and then bragged about his liquor stock, which, when I added it up in my head, was worth more than my CAR.

5. Sunday night Martini Nights. I swear. Is it sinking in what a douchebag this guy is?

6. To top it all of, he had (has) a myspace page, and the background of the page is tiled pictures of Michaelangelo's statue of David. Our David, dipshit, douchebag landlord David, has written on his profile, "By the way, that picture is the statue of David." It just...makes me cringe.

Anyway, before we moved out I left David a note telling him my new address and how to get ahold of me and all of that crap so he could send my deposit to me. Weeks passed and in the middle of February I called him (having found his phone number on the infamous myspace page because he never would actually give it to me in person). I left a voicemail reminding him to send it. He did nothing.

So a couple of weeks later I called and left another voicemail that was a little firmer. Again, nothing.

Finally I got pissed and put on my business voice and drafted a letter in March that said, essentially, "I will have you by the balls in court if you don't send my deposit back by (insert date here)." STILL nothing, as my "I'd better have that check in hand by April 11th" ultimatum neared.

Well, kids. Imagine my surprise when he called the other night. Incredible. "Whaaaaa?" he asked like the true wank he is. "I totally sent you your deposit back and an explanation of charges way back in January!"

Me: "Noooo ya didn't. And didn't you notice that that much money never left your bank account?"

Him: "I'll be honest, I don't really check my bank account ever." UH HUH.

Me: "Well I never got the money that you claim you sent. I don't want to have to sue you because it is going to be an enormous pain in my ass, but I will do it. I'll be there next week for a wedding and I'll file papers while I'm there if I have to."

Him: "No no! Oh this is just a miscommunication! I'll FedEx a new check on Friday! Saturday at the latest."

Me: "Uh huh."

Etc. Etc. Blah blah it was insufferable.

It went on like this for a few minutes, but I can't be bothered typing it all. The point is he's keeping $140 of the deposit because he claims he needed to replace the drip pans on the stove (that's fair) and change some lightbulbs (interesting, since apparently in his world lightbulbs go for something like $10 a pop, and there were only three fixed ceiling bulbs in the entire apartment anyway, all of which worked just fine when we left). He also claimed my roommate stacked up "18 bags of trash" that he had to pay extra to remove, which is hilarious because 1. all the trash that was there was there before I left, and Kathy specifically talked to David about it being a lot of trash and he said no problem....she added nothing to it and MOST of that trash was stuff that had been accumulating from both apartments for a month because it was icy and David wouldn't help us take the trash down (he made his girlfriend do it), and frankly we were sick of it; and 2. according to an acquaintance who drove by the place at the end of March, all (ALL) of that trash was STILL THERE, thus showing he hasn't paid extra to get rid of it.

Blah, whatever. So the point is I'm supposed to be FINALLY getting this deposit back (or most of it, since I don't feel like fighting him tooth-and-nail about the rest of it, even though I should just to make his life a living hell) soon. I don't know about you, but I'll believe it when I see it.