Thought I'd share my latest design masterpiece. It's a flyer for a charity thrift store. Whee.

front:

back:

After relating my tale of landlord woe to my coworkers, one of the VP's
suggested I ask for advice from the agency lawyer. Which worked out
really well! Terry is amiable and funny, and he and i have an inside
joke which goes back to a hearing i did with him last spring, and ever
since then he's called me the "Wicked Witch."

So I emailed him the jist of my problem, he called me up and said "eees thees the WEEKED WEETCH?!"

The good news is that i'm absolutely in the right, and he quoted
experience from his law school days, when he and (now Governor) Deval
Patrick worked on tenancy cases together. ha-hah! After joking around a
bit he offered to send some legalese in the offending landlord's
direction, stipulating that he needs to stay away from me and how to go
about transferring my tenancy to the new owner. Sort of the legal
equivalent of saying "BACK off, Motherfarka'!".

Which I love love love. Yes yes. i'm going to bake this man some cookies this weekend, and start packing my things.

My first clue that something was awry was when I came home this
evening, and the door was unlocked and the porch light had been
switched off. Since I'm a young woman living alone in the city I try to
be aware of my surroundings for my own safety, especially when I'm
coming home after dark. Some creep might be lurking under the bed, you
know? So I checked the place out and everything seemed okay (Matt was
with me), except a few doors were open that I usually leave closed. Huh.

 Just as I was about to sit down there was a knock at my door.

When
I answered it, some guy was standing there on my front porch. He looked
like an absolute dickhead, and he was wearing one of those bluetooth
things on his ear. Turns out he's my landlord, who I'd never
actaully met in person before then. He and his wife live out of state,
so I've rarely had to deal with them. When I do, I only do so in
writing because they tried to mess with my lease a couple times
already, as some of you already have read.

He's in the
process of selling the house I live in, and they're closing on Friday, so he had apparently
come by to check to see whether i was packing. I am NOT packing, which
I'll explain in a minute. At any rate, it was pretty clear to me that
he was the one who'd been snooping around in my house while I was out.

Anyway,
I told him I had no intention of leaving, and I didn't have to move out
in the middle of the month. He said his wife called me weeks ago to
give me 30 days notice to move out. She left a voicemail in the middle
of march, and i responded- in writing- telling her she was mistaken and
i didn't have to move out then. According to Massachusetts' tenants
rights:

So if they issued notice in the middle of
March, that still gives me until April 30th, since April constitutes a
full rental period. Hah! I should also mention that I paid last
months' rent in advance. So basically they're trying to bully me out of
an apartment THAT I PAID FOR.

As
for selling the house, the
standard procedure is not to infringe on the tenant, but any portion of
leftover rent should simply be transferred to the new owners. So the
house being sold should have nothing to do with me, and I'll certainly
be ready
to move out before May 1st. At one point he tried to make up some fairy
tale about refunding my rent and mailing the check to me. I wouldn't
trust them to actually do that, though- and why should I? When that
failed he tried to tell me how inconsiderate I was, to which i
countered that it's pretty inconsiderate, nevermind ILLEGAL, for him to
turn up on my front porch and try to intimidate me. I didn't mention
that I knew he'd been in my house.

So. I
mustered all of my thinly veiled snark and unleashed it upon this
dickweed. I think he expected to be able to just barge into my turf and
bully me into leaving because, as he put it, "I OWN this property!" I
told him that not only was I assuredly going to protect my rights in
the situation, but it wasn't really my job to tell him the rules around
being a landlord. And the next time he felt like barging into my house
he'd either have to give me 24hours notice or I'd call the cops.
Muahaha.

The best part is, I get to move into my kickass new apartment in a couple weeks.

Didn't sleep so good last night, and this morning I'm all tweaky and
upset. Besides this drama, I still have to go through all the hassle of
planning yet another move over the next couple of weeks. That prospect
is difficult enough to deal with, nevermind having to wrangle this
asshattery. And I also have to somehow sit here in my cubicle and
manage to be productive today, all the while my cell phone is ringing
of the hook in my purse. It's probably my landlord, blowing up my phone
and leaving dickwad voicemail messages. I hate people who are bullies,
but I hate entitled fuckwad bullies even more. I'm not even going to
check my messages until i'm calmer, because the sound of his voice is
going to send me right over the edge.

Whoo Made This?

Well, I did, actually. My first flash toon! It's brief,
but there will be more to come at our new collaborative studio, www.kinkajoo.net!

Meet Ollie the Owl: