So... the tenant from Hell has won again. Some time between 6:30 and 8:00 Thursday night, she stuffed a hastily filled-out response into our storm door. B found it when he came in from work. It was filled out incorrectly, did not have the stamp from the County Clerk, stated on Pg. 2 that she had "under penalty of perjury" hand-delivered the document to me. She did not. That's 3 strikes, right: 1) late, 2) not hand-delivered and 3) perjury regarding point #2.
The judge ignored all of that. She refused to enter a default judgment because "well, she did respond." Now, look... we had to have everything filled out properly, do everything at the proper time and place, everything just so. We jumped through every hoop. The eviction notice says, right at the top and in
bold, that a response must come on or before March 2, 2017 at 4:30pm. It does not say "whenever you get to it, preferably at the last minute and incorrectly." If that deadline can be tossed aside so lightly, why is it there at all? WHY have a deadline if the law does not recognize it?
So we are forced to file yet another paper, pay an additional $112 and have a hearing date set. We managed to get all of that done before 4:00 today. Our hearing is set for the 17th and, by God/dess, I hope the luck of the Irish is with us because we are going to go broke with this. It's been 4 months now. We should have taken in $4400 over that time (plus a $700 deposit we never got); we were given $200 in December to cover that month's electric bill (the name change hadn't taken effect yet). Now, we don't charge the going rate for rent around here. $1100/mo is below average for a 4 bd/2 bath on land. So the rent is not meant to enrich us. It costs money to maintain this land and the buildings on it. We are not "rich landlords."
This is making my husband sick with stress and I am genuinely scared that he might have a heart attack. I don't know what to do! What does this evil person want? (And, yes, she is evil. She is purposely inflicting pain upon others) I mean, does she think that we're going to just let her live there as long as she wants for free? Does she want the house signed over? I'm at the end of my -- very frayed -- rope.
Thanks for letting me vent. I now return you to your regular MB reading experience.