A Third One on the Brink

One of our homes needs some maintenance. For the past two months, I have asked Marty Sunshine to work with Asshat the Maintenance Flunky in getting this done. There are a few reasons for this, primarily I just don't want to deal with Flunky and his maintenance requests. Frankly, anything related to Flunky just annoys the hell out of me.

Last April, two days into my vacation I spent a good 45 minutes in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Fort Stockton Texas, chewing out Flunky for being a liar. At the time, he really had no reasonable defense and didn't care much that I had caught him in lies that were detrimental to my business--which made me chew him out even more. Strangely enough, he took it from me. A few hours later, somewhere near Ozona Texas, he spoke with Marty and got another earful. Either the guy is just some sort of freak who gets his jollys from others yelling at him, or he is a serious dimwit. I am not betting money on which.

Moving right along,  months ago, when these repair issues came into play, I made it perfectly clear: CONTACT MY HUSBAND ABOUT THIS HOUSE AND DON'T BOTHER ME. There were e-mails, which Flunky acknowledges ("Mrs. Landlord, I don't have Marty's e-mail address, will you send it to me again?" and "Mrs. Landlord is (your cell number) the best number to reach Marty?")

The other day I got an e-mail from Flunky: It said, "Your tenant is complaining that this work has not been done."

This was news to me. Marty had authorized Part A. Part B wasn't too bad and could wait. So what was the big deal? But because I was not in a saintly frame of mind, I responded with, "Your owner is complaining that the tenant is late on their rent, so nobody is happy right now." I also reminded him that concerning this house, Flunky was to go directly to Marty Sunshine and not involve me whatsoever.

But no. Flunky is an idiot. Instead, he sent me an e-mail saying, "It looks like they paid up," and then asked when we would authorize the work.

Because I am not a fool, I asked Marty to please call Flunky and get things straightened out. Flunky's story to Marty was different, they had not come up with the entire rent amount and when were we going to make all the repairs? So, not only did Flunky lie directly to me--the tenant is not paid up, but he didn't care that he lied to me.

As I explained to Marty, this tenant's lease is up in October. We can't afford to get the work done on this property without the rent money (which will pay for the work). If the tenants move out, we can't afford a vacant home AND the repairs we will need to get this place in order to rent. So, it might be best to see if the tenant is staying before we move forward. Otherwise, it will be the third home to go.