There are those in this country who have to live in subsidized housing in order to be able to keep a roof over their heads and not have to live with their parents and or friends. It's nice to be able to come home to somewhere you feel good about, the place may not be yours to own, but, it's yours for the moment. It's fantastic to know that you can afford to live somewhere without depending on others for help (and by others I mean friends and family).
I have been able to live in a normal apartment complex and pay a lot of money for a place to stay for me and Piper. I have also had the opportunity to live in subsidized housing and there is so much going on with this that it's beyond comprehension.
In the beginning of October, I wrote about having to fill in blank post dated documents and how uncomfortable we were at having to do that. I wrote about the fear of being evicted from our home because we never received our 90, 60, and 30 day renewal for our lease and how we were told that though my income had gone down a great deal, our rent would be going up. How can that be we asked. And then we got the USDA involved with it and after two months of going round and round, and paying the higher amount for rent, we got it all done. We were overcharged by about $400 for those two months and another $350 for the previous 12 months. Holy shit that's a lot of money to have to come up with when there's not much to begin with.
Well, now it just keeps going with this company. When we asked to get the USDA involved to help, we had no idea the kind of shit storm we would create by doing so. These people, Bosley Management/Show Low Apartments are truly something special. Let me explain. By getting the USDA involved, they started by doing an audit of some of the tenants leases. Ours was in this group of course and they saw what we were talking about with wrongfully using what's called an income statement and bank statements instead of using my taxes like they are suppose to. And then, as more complaints came in to the USDA, the more that they realized something was going on here that maybe shouldn't be. Thus, a larger scale investigation was begun at our apartments. This included the USDA doing a 100% inspection of all units here as well as a visit from the Civil Rights branch of the USDA who work directly under the actual appointed person by the President... Yeah, that president. The one who lives in the White House. So, we talked to her about some of the things that have been going on in our apartment. She was a very nice lady and Thomas said she reminded him of his mom :) We told them of being overcharged for 14 months, that the laundry facility is only open from 9-5 daily, which, makes it really hard to do any laundry after work. We told them about the bullying and the harassment and the fact that our maintenance person is a convicted felon (which is not allowed in the USDA housing at all) and that he, on more than one occasion has solicited others for the sale of their prescription medication for personal use.
They took all of this information and told us that they would get back to us... this was in March or April.... I am still waiting to hear anything back from any of this. Now to what's going on this week. So, during the inspection when Mr. Terry Brown from the Show Low office of the USDA came in, he made several suggestions for things to be done in our apartment. The sheetrock should be replaced where it's cracked and falling off the ceiling, the carpet should be stretched, the toilet leaks and should be looked at to see if it's filling at the proper rate, the bracket on the refrigerator should be fixed. Well, so far, the toilet has been fixed, but not because he said it should be. Nope, when it got to the point that it was taking 20 minutes to fill up, we went to the maintenance person and he gave us a new flapper for the bowl... Thomas fixed this himself. The management company said that we had to have our carpet stretched because it was a health and safety issue. We were scheduled to have it done on the 21st of July, and after being told that we would have to pack everything that sits on the floor and move it out for about 4 hours, have the carpets stretched, we could move it all back in ourselves, we decided that this is not what should be done. In fact, on three separate occasions, we had been asked to move to the upstairs unit (also a three bedroom) so they could replace the carpet and flooring in our unit because it was old and needed to be replaced. We wrote up a letter expressing our concern about this stretching and sent it to the nice lady in D.C., Terry Brown and gave a hard copy to the apartment manager, Valerie Carter.
Monday comes and goes, and Thomas said that the guys came out and took a look at the carpeting and agreed that this needed to be replaced, not stretched. He showed them a copy of this letter and they left and said thank you. Tuesday night, when I got home, we had been given a 10 day notice of eviction. I was flabbergasted! I mean, I kind of expected this. So, we decided to go eat, I wanted to get out of that place for a while. Sadly, we didn't have wings, but, Chinese food worked for the night. Piper was happy about it. I didn't know how to react to this. It's the first time anything like this had happened to either of us. The question remained, Now what?
I have been searching every day for someplace to live. Every place that I had found requires a first and last and some kind of deposit. And while yes, I do have enough to do that for most of these places that would work for us, how am I going to pay the deductible for my car if I have to use the whole of my savings? We are still searching.
This thing about this whole mess is this: there are no laws on the books that protect tenants from the management companies. Sure there are lots of laws in place to protect the landlords, but, nothing for the ones who need to rent. How is this possible? How can we always assume that the tenant is the one who is going to try to fuck over the landlord? Isn't there that possibility that maybe, just maybe, there are landlords/management companies that bully and use intimidation tactics to harass tenants? Because, I am here to tell you, this does happen. And sadly, it's happening to us. Right now, as I write this.
So what can I do? Let's see, I have gone to the USDA repeatedly trying to figure out what we can do to protect ourselves. I know that Mr. Brown has been going through the landlord tenant laws line by line seeing what, if anything, can be done. Sadly, as of right now, there isn't much other than wait for the police to come and lock me out. Which is really what I am afraid of happening to me tomorrow. And from what I have been told, they can't do that without serving me with a eviction, by a process server, that has a court date attached to it. I don't see that happening for me. I see them calling the police, because on our paperwork, they made sure to write it nice and large, that the police are on standby. That's a threat right... that's what I thought too. When we did go back to the USDA last week, think it was Friday, he said that Bosely Management said that was because they have had to call the police for an issue with us before... That's not right either because by law, they are required to evict us if the police are called to our apartment that ends in an arrest. Have the police been to my apartment, yes they have. We have called them to respond for different things... noise that is out of control at 2 am for the lady who lived above us, for Kelsie when she was out of control, but they have NEVER CALLED TO REPORT US OR BECAUSE WE WERE THE PROBLEM!!! Not only that, they told Mr. Brown that we have failed to turn in certain paperwork that is required, which is why they are telling us that we owe them $1800... Again, not true. If we had failed to turn in the correct paperwork, we wouldn't be living there. This is the most frustrating event. I feel like this is a bad dream and I can't get out of it.
Fortunatly for us, we have a place to land until we can get save enough to find us another place. We are finally able to get out of subsidized housing, how fantastic is that?! The sad thing about housing is that it's not designed to help you get out of that situation. You are not able to save if you get a better job and make more money, it's only going to keep you in the whole of having to be dependent on the government to help. I know that there are a lot of people who don't care if they ever get out of it, but there are far more who want to have a better life and get out of a place that is falling apart and the management company isn't trying to take all that they have. Mr. Brown says that this is an ongoing investigation with this company, and that Washington is very interested in all that happens and everything that we tell them about. We are the ones who are brave enough to stand up to bullying and we are the ones who are going to be the reason laws are passed to help protect others in this kind of situation... But what happens in the meantime? What happens to others who have been bullied and forced to leave without this company being correct? How do we protect ourselves in the midst of all of this?
I am hoping that this will be the reason for many good things to happen. I am confident that we are going to come out on top of it, even if it takes a few months to years to get it so. At least I know that what we did was the right thing to do.
This morning, we have only little things to worry about, some bedding, some jackets, ceiling fans, that sort of thing... And the bird, of course. I'm not going to leave baby bird there to be taken by anyone else. It's been a very stressful two weeks now, I am so relieved that it's all over and done with, for now. There is still much to do and I can't see it being done in a hurry... After all, this is the government. I have faith that it's all going to work out for the best and we are going to be that much better for having been through it. I am so grateful for the friends who have helped me through this, for the ones who let me cry on them, for the ones who have offered their homes to us, for the amount of support and love from all of them. Mostly, I am so happy and grateful for the magnificent outcome of getting out of the apartments... though, I have yet to see what that's going to be... it's all good though. Peace
