Lynne Simpson

One of the categories on my cell phone’s news reader is Strange News. Today, I read an article about a San Francisco couple who have been terrorizing their tenants so they can re-rent the apartments for more money. I had some crazy-ass landlords back when I used to rent, but none of them ever cut the joists under my floor, poured ammonia on my clothes and electronic equipment, dismantled my furniture, or stole my stuff.

One guy I rented from was a tad obsessive about his female tenants and called them at all hours of the day and night, expecting them to drop whatever they were doing and talk, even flirt, with him. When I was busy at work one day and couldn’t call him back immediately, he showed up at my office and told the people at the front desk he would kill my dog if I didn’t come out to talk with him. It had nothing to do with rent (which was always paid on time) or anything at all business-related. He just got offended when I wouldn’t take an hour out of an extremely busy day and respond to his increasingly scary flirtatious overtures. Corporate security threw him out, of course, and they told me I ought to get a restraining order against the guy. After that little escapade and other weird behavior (sneaking into the house and snooping through my underwear when I wasn’t home, etc.), I gave him written notice and moved out.

And then there was the landlady who refused to fix the dangerous wiring in a small house I rented near Morningside. About a year after I moved in, the wiring started melting in the walls, filling the house with the nasty, toxic smoke of burning plastic. Thick rivers of black goo from the melted fuses in the main panel covered one section of the kitchen wall. The fire department told me they would condemn the place within the week if the wiring was not completely replaced. When I notified the landlady, she initially agreed to have it fixed. In the meantime, I kept the main switch pulled and lived mostly in the dark.

Several days later, a repairman showed up, presumably to replace the wiring. When I asked him if I’d need to move anything out of the way so he could work, he told me he was only there to replace the fuses and clean the black goo off the wall in the kitchen, not to rewire the house. I called the landlady to ask (politely) when the rewiring would take place, and she said she’d changed her mind because it was too expensive. She then accused me of plugging in all my appliances at once to try to burn the house down, just to spite her. Umm, yeah, with my dog, my cats, all my earthly possessions, and me inside it?

I’m glad I own my house nowadays. I don’t ever want to be in a situation again where fruitcake landlords can endanger my loved ones like that.

But even though I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with renting, I still think the folks who were victimized by this San Francisco couple had it much worse. I hope the tenants sue those guys for all they’re worth.