My Week in the Ghetto
Joe Ruelos
The
following is a summary of Saturday 4/26/03 thru Saturday 5/3/03.
In
exchange for free-rent and no greater than $400/wk, I verbally agreed to
provide 24-hour security coverage for 6 days (Monday through Saturday) of the
"School 181 Apartments" building (converted from the old Frederick
Douglass High School in Sandtown-Winchester into approximately 100 residential
units). I moved into the building on
Saturday 4/26/03 and planned to begin "work" the evening of Monday
4/28/03. As a 1099-Misc
"contractor", I arranged to split the security duty and money with
another guy (my friend Greg, who lives down the street from the building). On his first shift, Greg decided to quit
Tuesday morning (while I was down in Annapolis to get some remaining items and
enjoy my last moments before surrendering the keys). The manager (who lives in Virginia) said it would just have to be
me on security until he came back into town on the weekend. By Wednesday, I made plans and was highly in
favor of getting out of the arrangement.
I got my cousin and his friends to fill in for me briefly Wednesday
night so I could make choir practice in Eldersburg. The manager came back Friday night to relieve me, and I asked him
how much he would pay me if I were to take the rest of the weekend off and come
back Sunday night. He said he would
only pay me 4/6 of the $400 because my coverage would have been from Monday
night through Friday night, which is only 4 of 6 days of agreed coverage. I asked him to give me closer to $400 as
consideration for the time I spent mostly by myself with very little
sleep. He said he would pay me $350 if
I would return and work most of Saturday, citing that this would be more in
accordance with our "previous agreement". I asked him just to write me a check for 4/6 of the money because
I wanted to take the rest of the weekend off and I needed to deposit the check
into my account soon to pay bills. He
offered to write me a check for $265 (rounded down from the more accurate
$266.67), but he was nice enough to round it up to $270, after my suggesting it
would be "more fair". I left
peacefully, telling him that I would return Sunday evening, though in
actuality, I was already prepared to move out the next day. Saturday, a week after I moved in, I
returned with another moving truck and some friends, and we moved my stuff out
of the "dilapidated" apartment and into my parents' house.
You
might ask, "Why not stick around to see if things improve?" For one thing, I heard constant complaints
from the tenants about the manager. I
actually befriended most of the tenants and briefly got inspired to stick
around for their sake. Quite simply,
the manager is a bad businessman, willing to spend as little money as possible,
even at the expense of pissing off his tenants and workers. Upon moving in last week, I had to spend my
own money to buy a bathroom sink, 2 light fixtures, and a front door lock; and
I was still missing a refrigerator, which he suggested that I purchase as well,
where the total of my expenditures would constitute a "security
deposit" on my rent-free apartment.
He even asked me for cash to pay the "maintenance man" for
installing the things I bought for my apartment. I told him I would pay if I had the cash, and he was kind enough
to let me off the hook for that. Then,
when I moved out Saturday, he asked me for the keys to the apartment (even
though I had previously given him a copy).
I told him I wanted the lock back because I paid for it, but he said,
"Well, if you want the lock, you'd better pay me $100 that I paid Jonathan
(the "maintenance man") for installing it." I argued that: 1) first of all, the $100 was
probably for installing the bathroom sink, 2 light fixtures, and door lock; and
2) I shouldn't have to pay shit for un-installing the door lock anyway, because
it's mine since I paid for it. After a
heated conversation involving extreme anger and swearing from me, I ended up neither
returning the keys nor getting the lock back.
He has since left three messages on my cell phone, referring to my
"holding onto keys of another property" as "a crime",
threatening to put a stop-payment on the $270 check he gave me Friday if I
don't return the keys, and advising me with "Joseph, I am not playing games
here." Too bad I had already
cashed the check on Saturday! All I
hope now is that he has no legal recourse against me regarding the door-lock,
or for bailing out on a verbal agreement.
I *think* I'm safe since I never signed any contracts, and everything
seemed to be a verbal-trust arrangement.
There's
so much more to tell, my interaction with the tenants and my assumption of
other management-type responsibilities beyond my security duties such as
entertaining prospective tenants while the landlord was "doing other
business" in Virginia. It's
unfortunate that people who need housing have to settle with places like
these. The landlord charges $500/mo for
2-BR and $600/mo for 3-BR, and he asks for two months rent as security deposit
for units which are mostly un-finished, probably un-livable (by most people's
standards), but "leasable" according to him (maybe he has a
"slum-lord" manual which says it's okay to let people live in these
conditions). Greg, my friend who quit,
quoted the landlord as saying, "Oh, most of these people are used to
living in dilapidated houses." The
tenants equated their tenancy with "living in prison", mostly
because: 1) the security person is the only way the tenants can get in and out
of the building (and the guard has to hold onto the picture ID of any visitors
until they leave); 2) the tenants/visitors were allowed only to go from the
front door to their unit; and 3) the landlord wanted the security alarm on all
day to monitor any un-wanted entry in the building (this required me to turn it
off anytime anyone crossed through the main lobby). His reason for all this was to provide a safer environment for
the tenants, although ulterior-ly he was most likely concerned that someone
would break in and steal a water heater or similar -- which of course would
require him to spend money replacing it.
He warned me when I started, "I am serious, Joseph, if anything is
missing from this building when I return, I will hold you legally
responsible." Ironically, the
tenants felt "too secure" with the security arrangement, almost like
in a maximum-security prison. Anyway,
I'd rather just forget all of it for now.
If anything, it'll make a nice short story or grounds for legal action
against him. All I know is that I'm
back home with my parents, and after the hell of last week, I'm so grateful to
be back here, get sleep, take a shower, eat Mom's awesome food, etc.