The Latest in the Slumdog Millionaire Saga

     I'd like to think that whoever knows me also knows that I never make a fundraising appeal unless and until it's absolutely necessary and this is one of those times.

     The stimulus checks we got in late March, and then some, have long since wound up in our slumlord's bulging pocket. The son of a bitch had the gall to haul us into court, thereby putting our names on the state court database forever, thereby forever tarnishing our names and reputations and all over a lie. You might remember that I'd broached the subject back on March 26th when he threatened to evict us for nonpayment of rent that he wound up refusing to collect for four straight months. It all started that day when, right before Mrs. JP was going to pay the rent for March (that we had to badger him the night before to come collect).

     That was when she told him the oven stopped working earlier that month. He essentially made a public spectacle of himself and yelled at her that he wasn't "doing this anymore" and that he was going to seriously jack up our rent, etc. 

     Well, a lot of things have happened since then. We got virtually hauled into Worcester Housing Court on June 18th for a mediation hearing that was anything but a mediation hearing. To make a long story short, the slumlord lied as I expected, which is what sociopaths do like the rest of us breathe, claimed we refused to pay our rent, blah blah.

     I set the record straight, for whatever good it did us. Because it quickly seemed that everyone at the hearing, including my own so-called lawyer from Massachusetts Legal Aid, was representing not our interests but our slumlord's. Indeed, every time someone asked me what I wanted I tried to respond with, "A year-long lease," I was shouted down and told I didn't have the right to ask for that because, according to Mass housing law, he's not obligated to give us one.

    So I was essentially bullied into handing over within the hour the $3200 in rent money that we'd "withheld", leaving us dead broke, with an oven that was still busted (a violation of the Commonwealth's sanitation code and that wasn't fixed until about a week ago) and still not even the vague promise of a year's security. Since then, he's gotten another month's rent and gave in return a promise to give us a lease next month.

     But that leads to our next worry: Massachusetts law stipulates  there's no limit to how much he can gouge us on the rent (We're bracing for at least a $100-200 increase). If he does that, we'll pay him nothing because $1000 a month is literally half our income and we can't even get by with our rent being $800. So we'll need a lot of help this month. We have next to nothing in the bank and even less in Paypal.

     Plus, old Betsy needs a new muffler and when I drive down the street, blind people turn around to look at me. That'll be several hundreds of dollars right there. So whatever you can spare would be greatly appreciated.