On April 11th, the Wildcat and I decided to move into a single-wide trailer out in the middle of nowhere.  On the 12th, the landlord, Janna Napier gave us a sob story about how she’s lost her job, the bank had frozen her assetts, her vehicle had been repossessed, and the only thing she had was this trailer.  She wanted us to take over the payments, and we agreed.
     She said she’d be out by Monday the 14th.  On Wednesday the 16th, she still didn’t have her things out.  I went over, and helped her carry the rest of out.  She left a ton of garbage, both in bags and in the floor.
     The Wildcat was sick, so it took us a couple of extra days, and finally moved in on the 19th.  It was filthy.  There was water all over the kitchen and laundry room.  Janna had said she spilled baby water over there, but even after cleaning it up, there it was.  The fridge and appliances were covered in goo inside and out.  The place had never been vaccumed or mopped.  Toilets never cleaned.
     “I’m sorry about the mess,” she said.  “But I’ve been living with my boyfriend for the last year.”

     On the 20th, the Wildcat was lying in bed while her daughter and I continued to try and clean and rearrange things.  Here came our landlord, silent, not saying award, on the verge of tears.  She just stood there in the middle of the place, looking like she was going break down.
     “Are you okay?” I asked her.
     She shook her head.  A long, uncomfortable silence passed.
     “I’m broke,” she said.  “I can’t pay the electricity bill, and I haven’t paid the mortgage for April.” 
     I gave her $320.  I took the $183 Electricity bill and paid it online later that weekend. 
     “But it’s due again on the 1st.”
     “I can’t afford that until I get paid,” I told her.
     She whimpered away.
     When I caught her sister outside later, I asked, “Is Janna okay?”
     “Yeah, she’s like that when she misses her meds.  She’s just… well… just Janna!”

     And so, on the 26th, I found her behind her sister’s house, and in sight of her sister, I paid for May.

     On May 6th, the air conditioning went out.  I called her cell phone repeatedly to ask her about it.  She wouldn’t return my calls.
     Eventually, I went to her mother, Connie Hubbard, who worked in the Administration office at the Hospital.  I told her the situation.  Janna had apparently called her and told her about it.  Connie assured me that someone who be there to look at it.
     “Here’s our numbers,” I said as I gave them to her.  “I work all day and she’s working nights.  We need to schedule it.”

     Nothing happened.  Weeks past. 

     I called Janna on May 17th.  “Janna, it’s been almost two weeks.  What’s going on?”
     “What do you want me to do about it?” she said.
     “Excuse me?”
     She hung up on me.

     I got another Electricity bill, in the meantime, up to April 20th, for $48.  I paid it, too.

     I was pissed.  I vented about that situation to a few people, including some of her family.

     “Withhold her rent,” they said.  “I would!  There’s no sense in that!”

     I went home to find AC water all over the hallway.  I spent hours cleaning it up, and found that the overflow had been completely blocked because in all the time Janna had supposedly lived there, she never changed a filter.  It took hours cleaning up the AC condensors and unplugging the overflow drain.  But it was all no avail … the blower motor control unit was damaged after years of her neglect of the furnace.  The water had shorted it.

     On May 23rd, Janna showed up and brought me the mortgage payment book … which was actually an 8.5×11 sheet of paper with four check-looking things on it. 
     “We need out air conditioning fixed, Janna.”
     “Ok, he’ll be out here tonight or tomorrow.”

     On May 26th, I called her and left her a message that I would not be paying rent until she fixed the AC.  Plain and simple.

     No one came.

     No one called.

     Now, as we’re moving out, Janna is trying to claim that we never paid her rent.  That we are two months behind.  That we’ve destroyed her home by smoking and having pets that she didn’t agree to.  Horseshit.

     Problem is, I paid full price for partial month in April at $320.  I paid full price for May at $320.  I paid $241 (or thereabouts – I’m trying to remember off the top of my head) for her past-due Electricity bill.  I helped her carry her things out because she just couldn’t do it by herself (she whined).  We spent five days cleaning up her filth to the tune of NINE garbage bags full of garbage she’d left about the place.  I spent four hours making sure the AC didn’t leak all over the kitchen, utility and hall floors again.  I attempted to fix the blower motor, but it appears that the relay is bad from having water dumped on it for all those years.

     I called Janna and explained why I don’t owe her, and she hung up on me.  I called back and detailed everything, twice, to her voicemail.

     Next, her mother, Connie Hubbard, called me to rip me a new asshole.  She was rude and demeaning, and called me a liar the entire conversation.
     “Do you have receipts?  Then you didn’t pay it!”
     After repeatedly attempting to defend what I was saying, eventually, I gave up.
     “I am sick to death of you people from that town calling down here to wind me up when I haven’t done anything and you can fuck yourself, you cunt!”

     And she’s threatening to sue the Wildcat and I — claiming that we lived there four months, when reality and simple math show that we lived there two months, and it’s taking us a couple more days to move out.  It’s hard to do in that kind of heat with no AC.
     And Connie Hubbard called last week and said, “Don’t worry about the two holes.  Janna’s letting that trailer go back anyway.”  Yet, this week, everybody’s calling and cussing me out and degrading me and calling me a liar telling me I have to fix the holes.
     Mr Alan Osborne, benefactor of Ms. Napier, is seriously bitching the holes in the wall — and telling me the place was pristine when we moved in.  Clearly, he never saw it.  He’s going to get an estimate and sue me for the damage when he could just as easily pick up a patch kit and Clayton for $30 and have it installed in about forty-five minutes — and even match the crappy wallpaper.

     What they are doing is clearly against the Landlord/Tenant Act.  And again, friend of a frend, I trust too damn much.  I am allowed, by law, to withhold rent when they’re not fixing anything.  I’m also allowed to say, “It cost this much to keep the water from dripping and ruining the floor worse.”  Wonder what my four hours is worth?

     For a woman who may have never lived in the house, she sure managed to mess it up.  Instead, she lives with a guy who takes care of her and her daughter.  Now she’s claiming that we’ve destroyed HER house (where she hasn’t lived in over a year), and that she can’t afford to feed her child.  What?
     There was some MINOR damage (two holes in a 1×1 foot hold in the dry wall in the living room), however, that’s a $60 repair any way you look at it.  Caused by extreme frustration.  You try living in a trailer for a month with no air conditioning, you’d prolly get frustrated, too.

     But I am sick to death of these nonconfrontational assholes now turning tails and kicking the Wildcat when she’s down.  That is beyond reprehensible.  And I will not allow that situation to continue when we’ve done nothing wrong to any of those useless bastards!

     And so, Janna E. Napier and Connie Hubband get the Asshat of the Day award.

     Two women who seriously Can’t Understand Normal Thinking.  Janna’s money problems are not my problem.  The fact that she’s lost everthing she had?  Not my problem.  I didn’t sign up to be a benefactor for someone who’s obviously so bad with money that she can’t buy her own child food to eat. 
     I believe that’s what Welfare and Family are for, dear.  Except that it’d be a lie considering you’ve been being supported by one Alan Osborne for a over a year, now, wouldn’t it?

     So you want publicity, ladies, there it is.  You wanna lie about my character, I’ll tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about yours.