When kindness turns into a raw, open wound that doesn’t heal.
Warning: This story is probably going to enrage you. Part-time New Yorker Melissa Frost — full disclosure: she’s a friend of mine — wanted to help out the victims of Hurricane Sandy and she conveniently had a vacant room in the house she owns in Philadelphia. So when a 55-year-old man got in touch with her about renting out a room, she was all too happy to let him move in. “I got a response to the ad for the house from this guy saying he had been displaced by Sandy, and was still in Rockaways with no heat,” Frost told The Frisky. “He had pets and a seemingly good Internet persona–well educated, 55 … a reasonable adult.” Since her house happened to be unrented at the moment, “I told him it could be a good layover spot while he looked to find permanent housing.”
But no good deed goes unpunished.
So Melissa arranged to have the man come and check out her house, so she could suss him out personally. Instead, “He showed up in a van with all of his things––including his two cats and dog,” she explained. “He thought he could just move in right then and there, and I said, directly — multiple times — ‘I’m very uncomfortable’ and ‘Can’t I have at least a day to think it over?’ to which he basically said no. He said he had this rented van that he needed to return and these pets [to care for] and this and that.”
The plan was for the man to stay there for the month of November. Because of his Hurricane Sandy refugee status, Melissa asked for a check in the amount of $600, which is what she estimated her utilities would cost. Here’s where tenant/landlord law gets crazy. Despite not having a lease or sublease with her, when Frost cashed his check, he officially became her tenant.
via True Story: Woman Invites Hurricane Sandy Refugee To Stay With Her, He Gets Violent And Refuses To Leave. It only gets worse. Troll should be physically thrown out to the curb. These events only make it more difficult to be empathetic toward those in real need.
January 31, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Tenant abuses of lanlord’s are protected by law. Oh, we evil capitalists deserve to be cheated by the poor, deserving
swindlersfolks who can’t afford to buy property–or whose deadbeat records render them ineligible for a loan.January 31, 2013 at 7:34 pm
It’s not easy to evict anyone anymore. It is a horrible game. I’ve seen too much.
January 31, 2013 at 7:28 pm
This is why rental companies sprang up. It’s too hard to deal with legal hurdles, so companies create the contracts, charge first, last and security deposit to cover the 3 months a deadbeat can stay before you can even get the cops involved.
Frankly, I’m hard pressed to hear a real story of desperation from a Sandy “victim,” with the exception of the guy whose house was demolished by city government with all his belongings.
January 31, 2013 at 7:37 pm
I don’t know 15. I’m not there. I do know what happened with Katrina and how families were left without for up to 18 mo. because I have family that lost everything. They lived on the wrong side of the lake and lost it all in seconds. I do know that NJ got the short end of the stick compared to NYC. There are still some areas that are not back up to where they were before the storm.
Frankly, I don’t live without contracts anymore. There are very few places where someone’s word is as good as gold.
January 31, 2013 at 9:14 pm
That SOB is just lucky he hasn’t run into a homeowner who decided to use the self defense laws to get rid of an abusive tenant.
January 31, 2013 at 9:16 pm
I know. He got off easy. There are some people in this world that would have dropped him off in an alligator filled bayou.