27 May 1957 “Bad Tenants and Loss of Freedoms”

I would like to apologize for not posting yesterday. As many of you may know, I have been dealing with the worse tenant situation I have ever had. We have a house we rent out for the amount it costs to pay the mortgage. We make zero dollars from it and quite often end up paying more for various things like water and repairs.

Our latest tenants have stopped paying rent two months ago. They have destroyed the house beyond belief. The home reeks of animal waste and the yard has bags of actual garbage as well as an odd array of broken furniture, various appliances in disrepair and more ‘free’ garbage, not bagged. It appears they literally eat, drink, or smoke something and then let it fall where it may.

The last week has been one of talking to lawyers, going to various government offices (where they seem to care very little) and to the local sheriffs office. What I have come to fine, and this is not an exaggeration, as a homeowner/landlord in MA I have NO legal rights to the house. I have to give a 30 day amount of time AFTER they have stopped paying rent. It has to be delivered BEFORE the last of the month it gives as the final month. It has to be signed for by the tenant by certifies mail (which I paid for) BUT if they do NOT accept the letter and go pick it up. That counts as their NOT having it! I couldn’t believe that, because obviously they have done this before.
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So, now I have to pay seventy dollars to have it legally served, that gives another month free. Then if they don’t leave, I have to pay more money to have a sheriff serve an eviction notice which really only gives them a court date THREE weeks after it is served. After that court date even if they DO NOT show up for it and we ‘win’ they can file an injunction within 10 days WITHOUT a reason and it can be held up two more months. SO, quite literally, they can continue to live in my house rent free, continue to destroy it and I have no recourse. IF I tried on my own to evict them, such as turning off power or changing locks, they can sue me. And that is called trying to take the law into my own hands.

This is what bothers me. We own the house (well the bank owns it and we pay our mortgage) and we pay our taxes. Yet the taxes support a system that allows those who wish to be leeches to have ALL the right. If we want to protect our own property we have NO laws. People go on and on about for or against gun laws in our country yet no one bothers about the actual laws that really protect private property. As a property owner I have no legal recourse against my own property. Now, we have to drain our savings to continue to pay for a house for the next multiple months so that our dead beat tenants can continue to live and destroy the place. They even started calling and harassing me on the phone!

Again, I am sorry to unburden myself here with this. This blog is not about this. Yet, it has been about my life and the realities of the 1950’s and today. If this were 1957 I would have more legal recourse. And that legal recourse would, in a sense, require people to be responsible for their own actions. I also know for a fact that the tenants receive various government monies and therefore have even more time at home to not clean but apparently make more mess. It is very frustrating and I Just have to grin and bear it. I am off, again, today to have to go and file more paperwork. It is odd that it is even costing me more money to try and get them out because they didn’t pay money already.

When I asked, “What would happen if I did nothing but asked them to leave and they continued to not pay rent” and I was told, “They can just live there forever”. So, I asked, “Why did we pay a lawyer to draw up a contract that states all these reasons they can be evicted if they don’t apply?” The response from my helpful government employee, who was eating her lunch at the time I might add at the counter, with her mouth full of food: as an ‘I don’t know’ Shrug.

I feel quite used as I believed in my own personal rights, my rights of property and even my rights of a document I paid to have made and signed with legal fervor. All, to find out, it was simply some sort of charade I was expected to play to give me a sense of Freedom, which when questioned or attacked, has the strength of a wet noodle. I have never felt more used nor more put upon nor more un-free (if that is a term) than I do now. I am still aghast.

I am not sure WHY these various laws came about. I know they were first to protect the needy from the greedy, but when did reason and rightful law on the side of the small property owner go away?
I also used to be a small business owner and my eyes were opened quite a bit to the realities of our day then as well. Where my business was, was an upscale outdoor ‘Market Place’ those types of out door malls that look like little towns. They are built to fool one into a sense of community, though the whole ‘town’ is owned by one person or one corporation.

We often struggled with the high rent at the low times of the year, as we live in a seasonal area. I later found out that all the large corporate chains, The Gap, Banana Republic, and their ilk, had their large buildings built to their specs at the cost of the outdoor market place. When I received my little spot, I had to literally pay to have it plumbed, put a finished floor in, paint, put up counters and interior walls etc. We also paid insane electric bills and had to pay an additional association fee. I found out that the large chain stores paid NO electricity nor the extra fees. And came to find out the extra ‘maintenance fees’ covered the electric bills of the large chains. The Mall began with many small business touting the great ‘support’ of small local business. They used that to lure the larger chains and when they arrived, the rent and ‘fees’ went up. The average life of a small business in that complex is about one year.

In many ways my project has shown me the vast changes to personal rights and freedoms since the 1950’s. It has shown how the middle class grew up so quickly for one generation and then has deteriorated since. It isn’t as if I have chosen to BE middle class. I got stuck there by our means to want to own our home, invest what we could and try and MAKE our community with business and jobs. But, what happens is we are steam-rollered by the Big Guys and sucked dry by those ‘below’ us (though I hate to use that term, but not sure how else to describe it) I know that many, such as my tenants, seem to have endless free time to waste and not be responsible on top of the fact that they, themselves, are parents and are teaching up another generation to take and not care and now they will always have ‘their rights’ as my tenant shouted at me on her last voicemail.

I wish I knew what I could do to make it better, but after this week, I am not sure if there is a real solution. I am sorry to be rather down today, but it has been a rather bad week. I shall persevere, of course, for what else can one do? I haven’t anywhere to turn to get help, as others seem to have, only our own hard work and savings.

I know that in the 1950’s it was not all sunshine and lollipops, but I do know that it was TAUGHT in schools and in HOMEs to be responsible for ones own actions, take what you sign as a statement of fact, and that if you work hard and are a good person you shall get ahead, as you will be seen so in your community. Today community doesn’t work like that; things have changed greatly.

I have included the following video in today’s news as well, but felt it was worth posting here. At the end it talks of personal and private rights. I know it is a bit ‘hokey’ but its points are valid and I wish still true:



I hope all have a lovely holiday weekend for Memorial Day, and those out of the U.S. have a lovely weekend.