Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies (Oh Oh Oh Tell Me Lies)

My old landlord is an idiot.
And also a jerk.
And also a butthead.

Things I Do Not Like
1. Being treated like I am stupid.
2. People trying to use my good nature, desire to be liked or my struggle with shyness as a way to screw me over.
3. Facial hair.
4. Bees.
5. Black and brown items of clothing thoughtlessly thrown together.

Question: When you read a law that says “All security deposits must be put in an interest-bearing account and the interest must be paid to the tenant within 30 days of the end of their tenancy,” do you read that as
(a) “All security deposits must be put in an interest-bearing account and the interest must be paid to the tenant within 30 days of the end of their tenancy,” or
(b) “Security deposits only need to be put in an interest-bearing account if the landlord has his own private finances in such an account and then only if the landlord feels like it.”
I said (a), but guess which one my landlord had on his answer sheet?

Second question involves a reading passage.

Future Landlord on the phone: When I originally priced the apartment, I was not expecting tenants with pets. I was wondering if I could add an extra $50 a month to the rent to cover damage to the apartment, like, you know, the carpet.

Future Tenant on the phone: Ok, that sounds reasonable. We will agree to that.

[Cut to: Months later, when we see that the carpet is already in pretty crappy condition]

Tenant in email: I’m concerned that we are paying extra rent because the dogs will destroy the carpet and the carpet is already in very bad condition.

Landlord in email: I had the carpet professionally cleaned before you moved in, so stop complaining.

Question 2. You are now the Landlord with stained carpet. It will cost you $170 to clean the carpet. Did the above conversations
(a) happen, or
(b) not ever happen in a millions years, no way, the original price included the extra $50 charge and that email that you have that says otherwise is imaginary, yeah that’s it, imaginary. Or made up! Yeah, yeah, that’s what I mean. Totally made up. Liar.

Again, I picked (a). Again, Landlord marked it wrong.


Final Question, worth 1/3 of your grade. When a well-educated law student writes you an email, demonstrating how you violated at least four different subsections of the city’s municipal code, any one of which is enough for a tenant to seek double her security deposit plus interest in court, do you:
(a) apologize for your misunderstanding of the law and negotiate with her to return some or all of her money, or
(b) rudely remind her that you are aware of the law (even though you clearly are not) maintain that you are totally within your rights (even though you soooo are not), cite to the code then claim it says something entirely different from what it says (even though the law student sent you a copy of the law, which is a pretty sure sign that she has read it and knows you are lying), blame the problems on the law student (even though they are your fault), lie about previous conversations (despite written proof of agreement to contrary terms), chastise the law student for quibbling over “nickels and dimes” and then warn her that she had better drop it or else she will risk making a fool of herself and ruining a perfectly good ex-landlord-tenant relationship. And since she is such a nice girl, she would really hate to do that, wouldn’t she?

You think I would have learned my lesson not to pick (a) by now, huh?
Sigh.
Looks like I’m gonna have to strap on my ass-whuppin shoes. Some people have Fuck-Me Pumps, I have Ass-Whuppin Shoes. And they look Damn Good when paired with my new Sexy Lawyer suit. So try it, Landlord. Please. I ain’t had a good suthern wit-wrassle in a long while and wooooooooo-WEE, I smells me some half-wit comin my way.