Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Open Letter To My Soon To Be Former Landlady

So, I'm getting kicked out of my house, thanks to my nutso landlady. Because she is, quite literally, crazy, I know that nothing I could say to her would break through her skull. To satisfy my need to express my feelings towards her, despite the fact that she will never see this, I am writing this letter. I'll call her Ursula, because it's a good villain name (and it's what her parents conveniently named her).

Dear Ursula,

I was very sad to see the email you addressed to me for a number of reasons. After past experiences, I am not surprised to see you make such a bizarre and over-reactive action of telling me to leave. Your handling of the situation, however, really saddens me. To say that I am not angry would be a lie, but stronger than the anger is pity.

Yes, I pity you. I cannot imagine living with such OCD/anal retentive-ness that a simple request for privacy in a room I am paying to use would result in throwing me out of your house. That must be a very difficult life. The idea of being so upset over being asked not to clean a room that you have no reason to ever be in and to let the people who are paying you for the use of the room arrange the furniture in the way most comfortable to them is unfathomable to me. If these are considered "unreasonable demands," (your wording, I believe) especially when phrased in such a respectful, diplomatic way as C. (my roommate) and I did, then I can only imagine what the reaction would be should we have actually wanted something extreme. Thankfully, we will never have to find out.

You may notice that I mentioned C. and I phrasing things together. This is because that is exactly what happened. In reading (if you actually did) our email, you should have seen that everything was "we" vs. "I," it was signed by both of us, and sent from her email address. Most people would have interpreted that the email was from both of your tenants. I am at a loss as to how we could have spelled it out more clearly. The fact that you singled me out in your response and told me that while I have until December 15th to leave, C. can stay as long as she likes was appalling. As was the fact that you sent the email, addressed to me, to her address. I think it is incredibly sad that a grown woman would stoop to such levels. We have communicated many times via email both when I was living here previously and also in the past two months. There was absolutely no reason to attempt to avoid dealing directly with me. That was nothing short of childish. The same can be said for the additional emails which you sent to C. mentioning me and your asking that I leave prior to contacting me personally. Your assurances to her that you hope she will continue living here are laughable. What incentive could she possibly have for staying now that it is painfully obvious that we have no rights as renters and are, essentially, paying you for the privilege of house-sitting for you?

In conclusion, I will be out of your house well before your deadline. Additionally, I will make sure to be gone this Thanksgiving weekend while you are here so as not to disturb you by anything "unacceptable" that my presence may entail. Finally, if I ever see you advertise this room on craigslist or anything similar (which I anticipate you will be doing soon), please be assured that I will be writing to the website and/or posting an ad of my own warning people. While I will not stoop to your level and make unintelligible statements (They are crazy, wahh, wahh, wahh) I will absolutely tell them the truth. That you do not consider the renters to have any rights, they may not arrange things in their room, you do not want them to change the temperature so that they are comfortable, and, above all, you will give them no lease so if you change your mind about them living here on a whim, they have no recourse when you evict them.

Sincerely,
Rose

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