Open letter to my upstairs neighbor

[eirias]

I recently had the pleasure of delivering this note to my upstairs neighbor, who is refusing to leave despite the end of his lease:

Dear [asshole],

Rumor has it that you have decided to squat. I’m writing in the hopes that you will reconsider. A friend of mine was scheduled to move in here today. Like you, she is a graduate student and money is always tight. Because of you, she is now homeless. Think about this for a second. Your irresponsibility has made somebody homeless. Your refusal to deal with your own life has made your problem into somebody else’s problem. Adults do not behave in this manner. Please leave now. You are not welcome here.

[me]

Comments

[harleybitch.livejournal.com]

wow that sucks

[drspiff.livejournal.com]

Hopefully your landlord takes action in favor of replacing that guy with someone who will actually pay rent. Seems that might happen quick since it's in your landlord's self-interest.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

The thing is, Madison tenancy laws are such that the landlord can't throw this asshole out without a court order. And Madison leases are so uniformly 8/15-8/14 that pretty much everyone who is squatting, and who will therefore wind up in court, is going to have papers filed today. Meaning it may take some weeks before this jerk is out of the apartment. We don't really know yet - my friend should find out today, though. I hope.

The "good" news is that future tenants were not ignored when tenancy laws were constructed; if my friend takes "our" landlord to small claims court, she will be awarded double damages for the expenses she incurs due to this guy's squattage, including housing, storage, work missed, the cost of eating out, etc... but this just makes it my landlord's problem when he's this really nice guy who only owns two properties and isn't exactly living large.

[drspiff.livejournal.com]

Fair would be if your friend could sue the squatter in small claims for taking her apartment.
Since this is an annual event in Madison perhaps the courts are geared up to deal with it today complete with temporary injunctions.
This guy must be a major idiot because what landlord would ever want to enter a lease with him after this?

[cognative.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's a great letter. It's mean, yet polite. I like it.

[nein09.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. How long does it take to evict a person there? In cleveland heights, it's 3 months...

Can they get arrested for trespassing?

[eirias.livejournal.com]

See above; it shouldn't be as long as three months but it may well be long enough that my friend will find breaking her lease more palatable than waiting. Which, thankfully, is something small claims court is almost guaranteed to allow her to do without penalty.

I don't know about trespassing. It's a good question, but I suspect the answer is no. What I'm wondering is, since she has already been given keys (I guess the landlord had a spare set?), would she be violating the law if she entered the apartment? Clearly it would be foolish to start moving stuff in (yeah, leave your stuff in an apartment occupied by a guy with whom you have a hostile relationship... that's smart) but I'm hard-pressed to see why the law would find against her here.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

You know what's unbelievable? Last night I looked him up on the Chem dept website to see if he was still a grad student. Sure thing, he was. Then I get a call from Ken today, hey, do you know where this guy works? I say, "Sure, he's a chemistry student - let me pull that info off the web..." but when I went to look this morning - he'd already pulled the info from their web site. The UW directory doesn't list him anymore, either. What an operator.

Lucky for Ken, I then realized that we have a friend in Google's cache. The August 14 edition of the Chem directory is still on Google, and it still has his room number and telephone number, and now, so does Ken. Take that, squatty bastard!

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

Would contacting his advisor and letting the advisor know of the possible legal proceedings and stuff help? I mean, pressure from multiple sources...or at the very least, getting the word out that this guy's sketchy.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting suggestion. Unfortunately, he's employed as a TA in the chem department, and as such it's hard to know who his advisor is. OTOH, I do have a friend in the department so maybe it would be worth poking...

[harleybitch.livejournal.com]

could it be that he is no longer a student (and hence his lack of place to go?) perhaps he did something equally shady to the university (eg. yeah so I dont want to graduate and will be a student forever even though i wont pay tuition)...

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I since found out that he's not with Chem anymore, so this is looking pretty plausible. I was skeptical just because *yesterday* he was listed, you know? But it's near the beginning of the school year, so maybe it's roll-purging time in Chem. And if he failed out of school it explains his total lack of ambition where living quarters are concerned.

[cynic51.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Normally in this situation I offer my services as a purveyor of physical violence, but I expect that a murder investigation would tie up the apartment longer than eviction procedings.

But if he's still there when I come to visit, we can probably work something out :-)

I don't think murder is necessary

[vja2.livejournal.com]

Just have a conversation with him. Preferably involving tire irons.

Re: I don't think murder is necessary

[cynic51.livejournal.com]

Two responses came to mind. Choose your favorite:

Tire irons are indeed a manly conversation topic, much like tractor pulls and beer.

OR

You and your subtlety, ruining my fun.

-
You will note I didn't say either comment was, you know, funny.

Re: I don't think murder is necessary

[eldan.livejournal.com]

Personally I think I'd go for the "leave a horse's head on his pillow" approach. But then I did grow up in a country that's known for its inhabitants' passive-aggressiveness.