Notice to Vacate
Monday, 7th June 1999DuhMoines, Iowa [NotS]
Our house; that was where we used to sleep.
At the time of this writing, the clock is ticking. It’s a long story.
For all practical purposes, it begins on 15th May 1999. That’s when the announcement was made.
On 15th May, Buddy Quick, the former co-owner of the property at 1092 and 1094 Twenty-eighth street in DuhMoines, Iowa, unofficially mentioned that he’d sold his share of the house to his partner and apparent boyfriend, Jim Scharper [who can be reached at 515-360-7808 to likely refuse to comment], and that he was giving the tenants of the house their Thirty-day Notice: by 15th June 1999, the house had to be empty of all parties.
Which almost makes a degree of sense. Almost.
The wrinkle: the unofficial [verbal] Notice to Vacate was based on the stipulation that the tenants of both halves of the duplex pay a pro-rated amount equivalent to half the monthly rent. In other words, since each half of the house was paying six hundred bucks per month, each half was expected to surrender three hundred for the ability to remain in the place halfway through June.
In still other words, the tenants had two weeks to find a new place to live beginning on 1st June, or a month to find a place willing to move them in on 15th June. Where such a place might be remains a mystery.
The unofficial and verbal Notice to Vacate having been more-or-less delivered, a bunch of labourers began to show up, hammering things, moving things about, spraypainting a sign on the garage telling us we couldn’t park in our rented driveway anymore, and leaving this hideous thing parked across the front walk of the duplex.
This might be a good point to mention that I was never an official tenant of the property. Instead, I’ve been staying there since I got to DuhMoines. So it doesn’t really involve me, except that I really hate it when dumb people do bad things to my friends.
One of my friends is Corey Taylor.
Corey Taylor is the lead singer of the band SlipKnot. That becomes relevant here in a moment.
SlipKnot have been signed with Roadrunner Records, and have since been signed to tour with OzzFest. So, for Corey’s part, the unofficial, verbal Notice to Vacate meant little: he was leaving for the road either way. Granted, he was less than pleased that our mutual friends were now searching frantically for anyplace that would let them move in on either two weeks’ notice or 15th June, but he was no longer directly involved.
Until….
On the final day, 23rd May, an hour before Corey and the rest of SlipKnot were slated to leave on the bus, Corey was taking a final load of personal items out to the car when he accidentally walked into the damned thing on the front walk. The departure was delayed as he was rushed to hospital to have his face stapled back on. SlipKnot are now suing the parties responsible for the attractive nuisance.
Meanwhile, the neighbours at 1092 Twenty-eighth managed to secure a new place for 1st June. One third of the tenants at 1094 was on tour, another third had found a place to move on 1st June, and the final third, who was with me at this point, was still searching for just about anything.
We found it: a very nice place which opens on 15th June. Perfect.
Except:
So, yesterday, I was back at 1094, breaking into the place with a MasterCard [the door was locked] when some idiot with a Mister Haney accent told me A) he thought everyone was gone already and B) he had a key to the place if I wanted in. I went ahead and finished my credit card transaction with the lock and otherwise ignored him. That twit, it would appear, was Jim Scharper–the new sole owner of the property.
And now, things become a bit sillier.
At eight this morning, Buddy Quick appeared in the doorway to the room I’ve been sleeping in. Anyone who’s ever heard of me can probably guess that eight in the morning is an unlikely time to catch me awake. Dumber than that, I didn’t quite bother to shoot him for breaking in and waking me up.
Which I easily could have done. I looked a few things up.
In the state of Iowa, a verbal Notice to Vacate is nearly as relevant to any situation as something beginning with ‘A guy walks into a bar’. That is to say that, realistically, no one has yet told us to be out within the next thirty days.
Also, the landlord or owner of a property may not enter without having first provided a written notice that he will be at least two business days beforehand. The exception to that would be a circumstance of emergency–like, if the house were on fire. Breaking and entering simply to wake up an armed gremlin and remind him [verbally again] that everyone was supposed to be out by 1st June doesn’t impress anyone as being particularly emergent.
Which probably means that the verbally orchestrated ‘deal’ struck with the remaining third of the original tenants of 1094–that Buddy and Jim would give him forty-eight hours to get the hell out–is also irrelevant to reality.
What could happen, according to my lawyers, who make more than the damned duplex is worth, is that these idiots could provide a written Notice to Vacate, from which point the thirty days could begin. Following that, on, for the sake of argument, 7th July, thirty days from now, they could provide another written notice giving the tenants a further three days to go away. If, at that point [10th July] the tenants hadn’t yet left, they could file for an official removal by the state, which would, realistically, take another three months or so to occur, since the state have better things to worry about than the problems of some whiny guy with a hillbilly accent and his evident boyfriend.
Then, there’s this.
Apparently, the property at 1092 and 1094 Twenty-eighth is destined to become a Bed&Breakfast once the tenants have moved out as early as 10th October or so. Why any idiot would attempt to place a Bed&Breakfast at Twenty-eighth and Cottage Grove in DuhMoines, or what that idiot will do next week when the thing predictably fails, is beyond me. But, that seems to be the plan at this point.
Which means that all the construction being done every day from dawn to dusk will be moving inside the house, and completely renovating the place.
Which means that anything which exists now will be destroyed, regardless its current condition.
Which means that Buddy’s intention to walk through the place on 9th June with a city official [the official is an interesting way of making sure someone’s backing him up on whatever damage might exist] before deciding whether to return the six hundred dollar deposit seems excruciatingly dumb to everyone who’s heard about it. The deposit is supposed to cover the expense of repairing damage, and not remodelling to turn a residential house into a business. Withholding the deposit for the purpose of remodelling may very well be considered fraud, in the professional opinions of my attorneys.
So, here we are. A week from now, we can move into this new place I’m renting. Thirty days plus three days plus however long it takes to get anyone official to care from whenever Buddy and Jim get round to officially serving us with a Notice to Vacate, they can actually make us leave. Beyond having to contend with the mindless complaining of a couple of nearly-comprehensible Iowans, we have little to worry about for quite some time.
Still, it bugs me. Not that I’m a big fan of most of the laws in effect [whenever I get pulled over for failure to use my indicator light, I apologise to the cop for overestimating his ability to divine my intentions there in the Left Turn Only lane] but it bothers me even more when a couple of idiots do dumb things which happen to be prohibited by some astonishingly logical law. And this sort of thing seems to happen a lot. Most people seem to assume that a landlord can just tell them to get the hell out without due process, and they’ve got to go; less think that they’ve got three days to find a new place; almost no one realises that they’ve got the sort of timespan they’ve legally got, because most landlords never bother to follow the letter of the law before evicting someone for whatever reason. Also, for much the same reasons, tenants tend to believe that the landlord can simply walk into the place whenever he likes, because he owns or manages it. Due to the common practise, if not the common law, performed by landlords, most people think they have no rights at all.
So: next time your landlord does something dumb, make sure he’s legally allowed to before you go along with it. Chances are, he’s trying to intimidate you into an unnecessary situation. Question everything.
Of course, that’s just my opinion; and that of my lawyers.
–Gremlin
Comments (1)
Ozzy Rules!