MaggieMae
Reality bits
- Apr 3, 2009
- 24,043
- 1,635
- 48
Do they have any when their hoarding affects neighbors?
I live in a condominium community with 3 townhouses attached to each structure. We discovered early last spring, following sewage backup so bad that it was bubbling up from the outside connection and causing godawful smells, that one of the new tenents (non-owner) had been flushing her garbage DOWN HER TOILET.
This is not a stupid person; she has a great job and is gone much of the time. She's always dressed to the nines, drives a nice shiny Subaru, and is pleasant--whenever anyone actually sees her. But after that experience, I just shrugged it off as a person who is nice and shiny on the outside and a pig on the inside. C'est la vie. To each her own.
But there's more: The other two residents in the building (myself and another) also had a terrible time with gnats (fruit flies) all summer long. They were so bad that I began giving them their own little dish of fermented tomato juice, where they would all party down, and then I could zap them all at once. But within a day, there was a whole new family of fruit flies that had moved in. LOTS of them.
Come to find out this WOMAN, rather than flushing her potato peelings down the toilet, and everything else that would fit in there, was just leaving it out in plastic bags strewn all over her kitchen. (No wonder no one ever ran into her at the dumpster!)
Well she moved out a few days ago, and last week we discovered why: She had no more room in her unit. Yup. She is one of those classic hoarders we've been seeing a LOT of on several TV programs lately. Unfuckingbelievable. I won't even go into how bad it was; just use your imagination.
Anyway, because of the filthy lifestyle that she chose, the unit now has mold up and down the kitchen walls, and holes in the walls have been created because of the heaviness of the wet trash bags leaning up against the walls and floor. The whole place has to be professionally fumigated to get rid of silverfish, roaches, etc., and of course the fruit flies swarming everywhere in there. So the Association has decided we're going after her for damages, and she has been notified so far only by registered mail. She is now claiming, in phone calls to me, that what she did in the confines of her own private living space is protected by her right to privacy which trumps any lease agreement she signed.
Since the Association will choose not to spend the money for a lawyer, it looks like we'll just have to pony up. While I usually weigh in with compassion for people like this woman (whom we're all told has a "mental illness"), this time I'm just pissed off beyond belief. We're going to have to raise association dues to cover the repairs (and any future repairs should we unwittingly rent to another one), plus it looks like I'll have to spend a couple of days in a hotel, which I'm NOT looking forward to.
Thanks for reading my rant. It's better to vent in writing than to go knocking on this person's door to her "new" place and smacking her around.
I live in a condominium community with 3 townhouses attached to each structure. We discovered early last spring, following sewage backup so bad that it was bubbling up from the outside connection and causing godawful smells, that one of the new tenents (non-owner) had been flushing her garbage DOWN HER TOILET.
This is not a stupid person; she has a great job and is gone much of the time. She's always dressed to the nines, drives a nice shiny Subaru, and is pleasant--whenever anyone actually sees her. But after that experience, I just shrugged it off as a person who is nice and shiny on the outside and a pig on the inside. C'est la vie. To each her own.
But there's more: The other two residents in the building (myself and another) also had a terrible time with gnats (fruit flies) all summer long. They were so bad that I began giving them their own little dish of fermented tomato juice, where they would all party down, and then I could zap them all at once. But within a day, there was a whole new family of fruit flies that had moved in. LOTS of them.
Come to find out this WOMAN, rather than flushing her potato peelings down the toilet, and everything else that would fit in there, was just leaving it out in plastic bags strewn all over her kitchen. (No wonder no one ever ran into her at the dumpster!)
Well she moved out a few days ago, and last week we discovered why: She had no more room in her unit. Yup. She is one of those classic hoarders we've been seeing a LOT of on several TV programs lately. Unfuckingbelievable. I won't even go into how bad it was; just use your imagination.
Anyway, because of the filthy lifestyle that she chose, the unit now has mold up and down the kitchen walls, and holes in the walls have been created because of the heaviness of the wet trash bags leaning up against the walls and floor. The whole place has to be professionally fumigated to get rid of silverfish, roaches, etc., and of course the fruit flies swarming everywhere in there. So the Association has decided we're going after her for damages, and she has been notified so far only by registered mail. She is now claiming, in phone calls to me, that what she did in the confines of her own private living space is protected by her right to privacy which trumps any lease agreement she signed.
Since the Association will choose not to spend the money for a lawyer, it looks like we'll just have to pony up. While I usually weigh in with compassion for people like this woman (whom we're all told has a "mental illness"), this time I'm just pissed off beyond belief. We're going to have to raise association dues to cover the repairs (and any future repairs should we unwittingly rent to another one), plus it looks like I'll have to spend a couple of days in a hotel, which I'm NOT looking forward to.
Thanks for reading my rant. It's better to vent in writing than to go knocking on this person's door to her "new" place and smacking her around.