So, after I left the apartment on DeKalb (with the landlord and the bedbugs and all), there was a cracked mirror door in my bedroom. Sam did a walkthrough of the apartment, didn't notice it and wrote Abby and I our security deposit checks. Several days later he called Abby saying he was going to stop payment on my check because of the mirror. She told him to call me, he did, I couldn't talk and then I didn't hear from him. The check had shown up in my bank account and I assumed it cleared. I didn't hear any more from him. I also don't really look very closely at my bank statement because it makes me feel bad, so it was a month before I realized that he had stopped payment on the check. The bank had also charged me $25 for the stopped check. This was 2 weeks ago.
I called Sam immediately and asked for the check. He was reasonable and said he just needed a forwarding address for me and that he would send it the next day. I waited a week and never saw the check. I called him this past Tuesday and said I still didn't have the check. He gave me some bullshit about some letter they were waiting for from the bank and a whole bunch of nonsense. I told him that I needed the money by Friday or I would take him back to court. Big surprise, Friday rolls around...no check. Seriously? He's really gonna do this to me?
So then I was doing a little research. In New York, as in many other states, if the landlord does not give you the security deposit back within 30 days you are entitled to twice the amount. This is good news for me, because I am going to tell him that either he can give me back the full deposit (750) plus the $25 for the stop payment now and I'll drop the lawsuit (I am going to tell him I filed it already), or he can wait until we go to court where he can pay me $1,500 minus the $75 (or $135 as he claims) for the broken mirror. I am really hoping he chooses the option where I don't have to sue him again, just because I want to be over with. But I suspect he may choose the latter because he is arrogant enough to think that laws don't apply to him.
And this is what I don't understand. By now you would think he would realize that I am not one to be fucked with. I'm smarter than him, tenacious, and honestly, more desperate for money and pretty much will go the distance to get what I'm owed. I think he may think that my desperation means that I'll settle for less....but he underestimates my "strong sense of justice" (which is something one of my therapists once said about me). And more important than money to me is my feeling that people like him shouldn't fuck around with people just because they can.
My other strategy is to call Judge Karen and suggest a follow up lawsuit.
In other news I got my hair cut today. I was just watching friends and I realized I got "The Rachel". Yeah 1995!
In other other news, my phone is still broken. I ordered a new one and the tracking website says it came but it is not here!! :( It's a good thing no one calls me.
5 comments:
Ugh - I dread the day I have to try and get my security deposit back. They're gonna go crazy trying to screw me out of every penny. I would keep doing what you're doing if I were you though - a landlord's job is to avoid doing a landlord's job. If you don't legally hold them to their responsibilities, they will not take care of said responsibilities. They're like health insurance companies - they try to screw you out of money in hopes that you won't want to deal with the bureaucracy to get what's owed you.
As per your phone, if it was a UPS delivery, chances are they gave it to a neighbor or someone else who happened to be in the building. UPS does this to me all the time - just hand off my packages to whoever is standing around my lobby and then mark it as "delivered." Perhaps if they weren't running on the 1950's notion that the Mrs. is always gonna be around to sign for a package in the early afternoon, they could avoid such mix-ups.
I think you should absolutely sue him via Judge Karen, and if you get on a second time, really dig into him and humiliate him. Teach him a lesson Caitlin!
Yeah, they screwed me in college and charged me for a hole that was in the wall when I got there. And the dude ran up our water bill doing who knows what one month. If they assumed that we just wouldn't want to deal with it for the $20/each that we'd get, well...they were right.
It's times like these that make me want to cockslap everybody I meet.
If I had the proper equipment I believe I would cockslap Sam. I may get some sort of surgery just to have the opportunity.
It would cost extra to get this kind of equipment. WOOOOOOO!!!!!
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