Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous.
[1] I'm Dick Harrington.
[2] I'm joined by Kylie Beto.
[3] Hi, Kylie.
[4] What's the weather like out in Santa Monica today?
[5] 42 and windy.
[6] Unseasonably cold.
[7] That must be a record.
[8] I wish our prompt was unseasonable temperatures.
[9] That would have been a really great segue.
[10] Tell us about a time where your hometown was unseasonably cold or hot.
[11] Let's see if we can get there, if we can make a connection.
[12] Yes.
[13] Have you ever been in bad weather and been so uncomfortable in your apartment?
[14] And then when reached out to your landlord, you were told to fuck yourself.
[15] That's right.
[16] Ding, ding, ding.
[17] Bad landlord experiences.
[18] That's what this is.
[19] Yeah, so we're going to hear for some people that had some undesirable landlord.
[20] One in particular, I still wouldn't mind going over to MacArthur Park and just seeing if I can spot them.
[21] I'd like to pop in and just give my, hey, I see you.
[22] Don't do it.
[23] All right.
[24] Please enjoy bad landlords.
[25] Hello?
[26] Hi, is this Molly?
[27] It is.
[28] Can you hear me okay?
[29] Oh, beautifully.
[30] And you have an assistant, I see.
[31] You have second parties here.
[32] My technical and emotional support.
[33] Oh, wonderful.
[34] He's making sure everything is turned on because I'm not going to touch anything.
[35] Well, he's done an incredible job.
[36] You sound gangbusters.
[37] Great.
[38] And look at this little environment you're in.
[39] It looks like there's some softness behind you.
[40] That's really going to make for good sound.
[41] We landed in London this morning.
[42] Oh, you're in London.
[43] Are you all fucked up from the weird time change?
[44] That and this.
[45] I don't know where I'm at or what's happening.
[46] Is it for vacation?
[47] Two -week vacation with my husband.
[48] Oh, heaven.
[49] Okay, so you're in London on vacation.
[50] So thank you for taking a minute of your vacation, although as we just discussed, this is that weird day where you can't decide if you're going to stay up until nine or go to sleep at 4 p .m. But you have a great bad landlord story for us.
[51] I have a landlord story for you.
[52] So this is set in 2012.
[53] I was in my fourth year of optometry school, and we go on four three -month rotations where short -term housing was a must.
[54] And so it was a scrap together situation where my first rotation was in Austin.
[55] They can deploy you anywhere.
[56] Do you have some choice?
[57] You have to kind of fill certain requirements and there's certain options and it's a lottery system and it's this whole shabang.
[58] But you really kind of have to figure out your own housing and you're not getting paid.
[59] You're still paying for school.
[60] Right.
[61] You're an intern, basically.
[62] So my first one was in Austin.
[63] My first person canceled on me. The second one, they moved out and took all of the furniture with them when I was there.
[64] I had to move three times during that rotation.
[65] So my next one was in Daytona.
[66] I was like, we're going to do better.
[67] It has to go better.
[68] Sure.
[69] My sister lived 40 minutes away, so I had her vet the place that I found.
[70] And she's like, yeah, it's, you know, it's a studio.
[71] It's small, but it's off the beach.
[72] I think it has everything you need.
[73] So my husband flew in and we drove from.
[74] Austin to Daytona.
[75] We get there.
[76] The landlords drive up.
[77] It's like this nice looking middle -aged couple and a bright yellow Hummer.
[78] Oh, perfect.
[79] Yes.
[80] And it's this historic tutor home, beautiful.
[81] And they're like, oh, yeah, come around as a gravel lot.
[82] And we park and the place is actually in the back house, not in like the main house.
[83] And it had three units in it, two side by side and one on top.
[84] And mine was in the one that didn't have one on tap.
[85] So I was like, well, that's good.
[86] Like, it looks quiet.
[87] We unlock the door.
[88] We walk inside and we look at each other and we're like roaches.
[89] So for anybody, national slurna, they might not know that roaches have a smell.
[90] And that was the smell.
[91] Oh.
[92] It was furnished, but it was just a single bed, two armchairs.
[93] And then there's like a small kitchen.
[94] a bathroom.
[95] So it wasn't a lot of furniture.
[96] And so I was trying to figure out how it's going to work with the bed.
[97] So I had luckily, or unluckily, I don't know, had an air mattress from the time I was living in the empty apartment.
[98] I like had it deflated and put it over top of the bed.
[99] Okay.
[100] Oh, smart.
[101] Thinking that would kind of protect my body a little bit.
[102] Didn't use the armchairs at all and just like had a folding chair and made it work.
[103] And so there was all kinds of problems.
[104] So I kept texting the landlords.
[105] I'm like, look, there is a roach problem.
[106] You know, the fire alarm is chirping.
[107] There's only three light bulbs in the whole place, but two of them are burnt out.
[108] I need some help.
[109] And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah.
[110] We'll get Terminex out.
[111] And so for the first time in my entire life, I took up running.
[112] And so I would go to work.
[113] I would run on the beach until the sunset.
[114] I would come home.
[115] I would cook dinner.
[116] And then I would have a battle in the kitchen of who were the bravest roaches that night.
[117] Kill them all.
[118] And then clean up and put everything in the outside trash thinking like I would minimize my risk while sleeping.
[119] So finally after like pleading with them, they're like, okay, yeah, we're going to send somebody out.
[120] They're going to treat the place.
[121] That weekend, I went and stayed at my sisters.
[122] I come home and I'm like carrying my bags.
[123] I'm unlocking the door.
[124] And I'm kind of clocking in my periphery that there are roaches in the gravel right outside of the apartment.
[125] Alive or dead?
[126] Combination, like they seem to be kind of moving through the gravel away from the unit and I open the door and they fall from the doorframe.
[127] No!
[128] Running out a bugpocalypse, there were roaches in all states of dying across every single surface.
[129] Oh, my God.
[130] A wave of smoke comes out.
[131] So I look and they had set off three bug bombs.
[132] in a couple hundred square foot unit.
[133] And all of the windows were sealed shut.
[134] So there was no way to air it out.
[135] All of my belongings are inside.
[136] And I call them, I'm like, this was not Terminex.
[137] Like, you guys just set off bug bombs in here with all my belongings.
[138] You didn't tell me. I had to clean up everything.
[139] Had to wash everything.
[140] And I was like, this is just disgusting.
[141] I don't think I can say here.
[142] And they're like, oh, it's fine.
[143] I honestly just cleaned everything up I continued on my business and not long later I was using like the laundry which was outside and a huge thunderstorm comes through which is pretty typical for like Florida summers and I'm going in and out and in and out and I look up and over the bed there's a huge sag forming in the ceiling and I was like we have a problem so I give them a call goes to voicemail I was like look It's raining.
[144] There's a water leak.
[145] It's right over the bed.
[146] We need to get somebody out here immediately.
[147] I'm like texting pictures.
[148] Nobody is answering.
[149] I'm like the phone calls are kind of just disintegrating into panic.
[150] I come back in one more time and the ceiling has caved in on the bed.
[151] Decades of roach debris, mold, garbage has fallen from this ceiling.
[152] And at this point, I call them, I'm just laughing.
[153] I'm like, the worst has happened.
[154] It's on my bed.
[155] I don't know what else to say.
[156] And so they finally come out and they're like, oh, wow, yeah, I guess that's going to take a little bit to fix.
[157] And I was like, yeah, like, you're going to have to compensate me to stay at a hotel.
[158] And they're like, actually, now they have another unit available in the big house.
[159] And even though it would be more expensive, they'll graciously let me stay there at the same cost.
[160] Oh, my gosh.
[161] Do you take them up on that offer?
[162] Of course.
[163] Shake off my air mattress.
[164] I feel that bad boy up.
[165] And then once again living in another empty apartment on an air mattress for the remainder of the time.
[166] Oh, was the big house inundated also with cockroaches or was it better?
[167] It obviously didn't have the same water leaks, didn't have the same mold, and you couldn't smell the cockroaches in the same way.
[168] I mean, there were still bugs.
[169] Wow.
[170] But it wasn't like a battle to the death every night.
[171] This is bringing back some PTSD from my 10 years in the apartment in Santa Monica, where we fought.
[172] the cockroaches, a .k .a. grumblies.
[173] We fought the grumblies valiantly daily for 10 years.
[174] And you couldn't do anything about it because we had neighbors that were below us.
[175] You couldn't control what was happening there across the hall.
[176] And we would let those bug bombs off occasionally.
[177] Like, we knew we were going to be out of town.
[178] We'd put one under the sink.
[179] And as I told Monica, which grows throughout, you start killing them with your hands.
[180] I don't, did you get to that point?
[181] Well, they're so big.
[182] Yeah.
[183] My hands are so small.
[184] Yeah.
[185] That proportionally I couldn't do it.
[186] shoes and stuff.
[187] You ever put like a paper towel over your hand and just start smashing?
[188] I'm surprised.
[189] Like, I mean, I'm not because you have strong hands, but you have to have a surf it.
[190] Like, my hand also wouldn't be too squishy.
[191] No, you could do it.
[192] You just pop.
[193] They die pretty easy.
[194] They kind of just pop up up.
[195] Shoes are good.
[196] I'm more of a stump or a smack with the flip -out.
[197] But they're resilient.
[198] I mean, you really have to mean it when you kill them.
[199] They got their reputation for a reason.
[200] Georgia has a fair share as well.
[201] They do?
[202] Other states, yeah.
[203] Cockroach said, La Cucco racha.
[204] No, bueno.
[205] Anyway, wow.
[206] Wow, what a disgusting story.
[207] I loved it.
[208] Yeah, the icing on the cake was they never gave me my security deposit back.
[209] They said that I had actually owed them like $60 or something, and that's why they couldn't send me my $500 back.
[210] Oh, my God.
[211] This is kind of slum lordy.
[212] This could also be a slum lordy.
[213] You did.
[214] And a bully.
[215] You know, maybe these two, they're like, we're going to be in the management business, but they're just ill -equipped.
[216] What can we say?
[217] Can we make any excuses?
[218] No. They're just running slums.
[219] And they're like, we want to make some money.
[220] If they had arrived in a rusted out Honda prelude, that makes it different, right?
[221] A little bit.
[222] You're like, oh, they just couldn't afford to maintain these places.
[223] Full -size yellow Hummer.
[224] Wow.
[225] Well, Molly, that was fantastic.
[226] I'm so sorry you went through that, but I imagine now that you're a sorted -out optometrist, you're probably doing okay is all part of the story now.
[227] Two weeks in London.
[228] You're doing pretty good.
[229] I'm in Europe and talking to you guys.
[230] I can't complain too much.
[231] The hassle got me this, so it all comes around, right?
[232] Yes.
[233] Well, thank your husband for us for doing such a great job technically.
[234] Thank you so much.
[235] Do you mind if he says hello really quite a course?
[236] Oh, we would love to say hello.
[237] Hello.
[238] Maybe give him one ear, bud, maybe one of the two.
[239] See, I know how nothing works.
[240] There we go.
[241] All right.
[242] I try to be IT support as I can.
[243] You did a stellar job.
[244] Thank you.
[245] Everything ran perfectly.
[246] We appreciate your efforts.
[247] For this to kind of kick off our 10 -year anniversary, it's really exciting.
[248] Oh, we have the best tip for you.
[249] You're in London.
[250] Absolutely go eat immediately at Lena stores.
[251] There's three or four locations.
[252] It's the best Italian I've had outside of Italy.
[253] It's insane.
[254] All right.
[255] I was trying to Insta stock, Manico, and she was in London recently.
[256] You should definitely go to Brat, B -R -A -T.
[257] It's in shortage, and you have to get the fish.
[258] You get like this whole fish, and it's unreal.
[259] Just take my word for it.
[260] If you eat fish, go there.
[261] We love fish.
[262] Oh, wow.
[263] You got to go.
[264] Fish, my favorite dish, but without no money, it's still a wish.
[265] Oh, my God.
[266] Well, great meeting, you guys.
[267] Have a spectacular two weeks.
[268] We're both jealous that we're not also in London.
[269] Thanks so much.
[270] Thank you.
[271] All right.
[272] Take care.
[273] Oh, my God, how cute.
[274] I think of the store is a place Lizzie Kaplan really liked, right?
[275] She hates it.
[276] She's fucked up.
[277] She got my head.
[278] Oh, my God.
[279] You said you didn't like it this time?
[280] No, I liked it, but it got in my head.
[281] Like, it wasn't as good as one we want.
[282] I know.
[283] I know.
[284] I hate her guts.
[285] Hello.
[286] Oh, look at, you're on a sure DB 7 as well, aren't you?
[287] I know.
[288] I thought I'd be all matchy, but you guys got these fancy ones now.
[289] Well, these are brand new and they were a gift from the kind folks at sure.
[290] That's right.
[291] You might notice it's good.
[292] got our signature yellow around the outside.
[293] Oh, that's nice.
[294] Yeah.
[295] Tim, where are you at?
[296] You seem to be in a mid -century modern something.
[297] Yeah, I'm in Minneapolis.
[298] Are you a music producer?
[299] I am not a music producer.
[300] I'm a musician, but my day job is building drums, actually.
[301] Oh, cool.
[302] Manufacturing them?
[303] I own a drum company with a couple other guys.
[304] Oh, wow.
[305] Amazing.
[306] Yeah.
[307] You start with, what, maple plywood?
[308] What do you start with?
[309] So we get our shells made locally here, And we have two different variations, maple and mahogany and then poplar.
[310] What's poplar?
[311] It's just softer.
[312] It's kind of what a lot of the old vintage drums had.
[313] So we're kind of doing the vintage inspired thing.
[314] It's called Franklin Drum Company.
[315] Franklin Drum Company.
[316] Wonderful.
[317] Make sure to order a full kit from Franklin Drum Company.
[318] Okay, so Tim, you had a bad landlord experience.
[319] I sure did.
[320] This was 2017 actually took place in Detroit.
[321] Oh, I can't say I'm shocked to hear this, but please proceed.
[322] So my wife and I were living in Chicago at the time, planning to move to Detroit, had some friends and family there.
[323] So I went out about a month before we were going to move, and I did the whole apartment shopping, struck out the whole morning, and then the afternoon I met up with this guy.
[324] I'll call him Dave so I don't get him in trouble in any way.
[325] So Dave rolls up and brand new RAM 1 ,500, gets out, 5, 5, 5 ,000.
[326] six stocky dude doesn't really make eye contact.
[327] You can tell he's really nice, but pretty difficult to have a conversation with.
[328] Okay.
[329] But he tells me that he's got a handful of houses in this one neighborhood.
[330] Were you looking in like Royal Oak or something?
[331] Where were you looking?
[332] No, I was actually in Bagley, seven mile in Levernaut.
[333] Oh, okay.
[334] Real Detroit.
[335] In the thick.
[336] So he shows me a couple places and he says they'll renovate them as they get rented.
[337] Seems like a great option.
[338] We're moving in a month is it going to be ready?
[339] He's like, for sure, no problem.
[340] I was like, great.
[341] Well, let's go with this one is this cute little brick bungalow.
[342] The upstairs was unfinished.
[343] He said, we'll throw a primary bedroom with a bathroom up there for you.
[344] It'll be great.
[345] Talking back and forth as I'm back in Chicago, like, hey, can you paint it all white?
[346] She's like, why not?
[347] Sure.
[348] She sends me pictures.
[349] Oh.
[350] The whole interior is white.
[351] It's like, this might be pretty good.
[352] So we pull up with our U -Haul, and it is not habitable yet, and there's people staying there.
[353] It's just not livable.
[354] So I call him right away.
[355] I'm like, hey, so it's not done, and we're here.
[356] What's going on?
[357] He's like, I guess they haven't finished up yet.
[358] I'll prorate the rent, and we were able to just stay with our family.
[359] He was like, okay, he's like, yeah, and I've got guys staying there at night, so nothing gets stolen.
[360] Oh, sure.
[361] Okay, cool.
[362] Sounds good.
[363] Well, just keep me posted on when we can move in.
[364] About a week and a half goes by.
[365] He's like, we have the main level done.
[366] The upstairs still needs to be finished.
[367] I'm like, okay, we'll move in.
[368] So we get there and there's just construction trash all in the backyard, half sheets of plywood.
[369] The back porch was covered in soot from like a bonfire that somebody had.
[370] There's bugs everywhere.
[371] I'm just making a list.
[372] I'm just like, okay, Dave, this is what we've got going on here.
[373] They finally finished the upstairs after a couple weeks.
[374] The door to the bathroom was too short, so somebody pulled a piece of trim off the floor and stuck three drywall screws in it to make it the right height.
[375] Okay.
[376] Stuff like that all the time.
[377] Oh, wow.
[378] He had the best intentions, but it's like, this guy might be in over his head.
[379] Yeah, yeah.
[380] The first rain had a hole in the roof.
[381] Oh.
[382] Not even just like a drip, just a stream of water.
[383] Took about a month to get that one fixed.
[384] Can I ask how much the rain?
[385] rent is this is 16 you said 17 and it was 1150 okay and it sounds like it shouldn't be above 400 bucks for what you got so far we were paying the same amount for that place as we did in chicago oh wow so i thought maybe that price would get us a little better situation yeah yeah an improvement so we went through four refrigerators in four months oh boy he kept getting used ones that would freezer food or our food would go bad and I was probably texting him once a week at least every time we talked on the phone he was so apologetic he seemed really earnest about it so I'm like okay I guess I'll keep giving him benefit of the doubt we'll get this sorted and he starts trying to become friends with me I think too because maybe I was just so nice understanding at one point he sent me a selfie of him and some videos at like a Metallica concert oh no context just hey dude check it out Oh, God.
[386] Sick, dude.
[387] Yeah, you should be worrying about my roof right now, maybe.
[388] Or at least pretending to be worrying about my roof.
[389] He also had this battle going on with a thief, stealing tools and stuff from his storage facility.
[390] So he's sending me CCTV videos and, like, hey, if you know anything, I'm like, I don't know anything about that.
[391] And then a little while later, he just texted me a picture.
[392] And he goes, I got him.
[393] And Rob actually has a picture for you to look at.
[394] Oh, oh my God.
[395] And Rob printed it.
[396] Let's see.
[397] Wait.
[398] Oh.
[399] What is going on?
[400] First of all, I feel like I'm going to know these people, but let's see here.
[401] Wait, describe the picture.
[402] Okay, but there's so much.
[403] So Detroit versus everybody.
[404] This is the shirt the man's wearing.
[405] He's standing above somebody who's on the ground sitting crisscross applesauce with their hands behind their back.
[406] He's tied up with an extension cord.
[407] Oh, extension.
[408] Oh, right.
[409] I can see the extension cord.
[410] And he's pointing.
[411] angrily.
[412] That's the dude though from the truck, huh?
[413] That's my landlord.
[414] Oh, God, because he looks kind of taller there than five -five angles.
[415] The landlord is pointing somewhere.
[416] It's as if he's telling him to get out, but he's, but he's roped up.
[417] You're not welcome.
[418] I got you, man. Get out.
[419] Okay.
[420] So I was like, okay, good job.
[421] Yeah.
[422] And six months in, we're like, we just got to get out of this.
[423] Go.
[424] Yeah.
[425] So we break our lease and don't have to pay anything.
[426] He was really amicable.
[427] We thought that was that.
[428] And then about six months later, I get calls and letters from collections agencies.
[429] What?
[430] At first, I was like, oh, my gosh, I had my tax info mailed to the old house or something.
[431] Someone got a hold of my information somehow.
[432] And I'm digging through the accounts, and one of them is AT &T home services.
[433] One of them's Brinks home security.
[434] One's a Lowe's credit card.
[435] And all the addresses are homes that were managed by Dave.
[436] Oh, no. And so I'm like, did he steal my identity?
[437] Yes.
[438] So I try calling him a bunch because I still have his number.
[439] No answer.
[440] I call the property management company and I say, did Dave get a new number?
[441] I can't get a hold of them.
[442] They're like, we don't have contact with him.
[443] He never existed.
[444] I don't know who you're talking about.
[445] Right.
[446] And so as I'm given the police report.
[447] Oh, you file a police report in Detroit, which I've done.
[448] What an encouraging experience.
[449] You really get a sense they're going to follow up.
[450] I'm talking to the detective and I say, okay, I don't have official proof, but I think I know who it was.
[451] I think it was my old landlord, Dave, whatever.
[452] And she goes, oh, I know that name.
[453] He was Mr. Vigilante last summer.
[454] Right.
[455] So he apparently didn't have a great connection with the police because they were all upset that he held this dude in the house waiting for the cops to come.
[456] And he, like, citizens the restless old guy and the whole thing.
[457] Oh, my God.
[458] They knew of him, but also couldn't get a hold of him.
[459] And I went through the whole process of fixing everything and all the affidavits.
[460] It then happens again, the exact same time of year, the next year.
[461] And it's like a Coles card.
[462] Oh, my God.
[463] A DTE account, which is the energy company in Detroit.
[464] What a fucking nightmare.
[465] Oh, my God.
[466] And then that was it.
[467] That was the last round of it.
[468] TBD.
[469] Did you have to get a new social security number or anything like that?
[470] I didn't.
[471] No, I just was able to set up all the fraud alert stuff.
[472] So is it a pain in the neck when you want to do something now?
[473] Yeah, there's a couple extra steps I have to do.
[474] Wow.
[475] So Dave was a vigilante, a landlord, an entrepreneur, a thief, wore a lot of hats.
[476] He wore a hat in this picture.
[477] He is wearing a hat backwards.
[478] The shirt, Detroit versus everyone, really says it all.
[479] Detroit won.
[480] They beat me. Detroit one, Tim Zero.
[481] Yeah.
[482] Well, I'm very sorry that was your experience in Detroit.
[483] I can't seem terribly shocked, but that's a bummer.
[484] Hey, it got me here.
[485] It's so great to meet you guys.
[486] Thanks for having me. Yes, of course.
[487] Take care.
[488] There's a lot of sweet people just in America.
[489] I wish some people would call us from other countries.
[490] Well, they have, but they're always American.
[491] Yeah, I mean.
[492] You want a Russian.
[493] Yeah.
[494] Can you imagine the bad landlord stories that exist in Russia?
[495] No, you're right.
[496] All right, here's Caitlin.
[497] Hello?
[498] Hi, Caitlin?
[499] Yeah, that's me. How are you?
[500] And do you have a picture of your family on your show?
[501] No, is that NKT -O -B?
[502] What is that?
[503] Is it in sync?
[504] This is no doubt.
[505] No doubt.
[506] Oh, nice.
[507] Of course it is.
[508] She looks like a little child from our angle.
[509] She was at that time.
[510] Yes, this is Big Sisters Hot Topic Tee from like 1990 -something.
[511] Oh, love it.
[512] Anyways, you have a bad landlord.
[513] Oh, do I?
[514] And it was when I lived in Los Angeles.
[515] I was there for four years.
[516] I came home during the pandemic.
[517] And the reason why I came home right when it started was because of my super fun landlord experience.
[518] His real name is Ryan, but he made us call him Attila.
[519] Okay, can I ask what part of the city this is in?
[520] It was in MacArthur Park.
[521] Oh, okay.
[522] And he was technically the property manager.
[523] He lived on site.
[524] It was like an old Victorian, really close to the red line.
[525] And his mom owned it, but it soon became evident that she just didn't really know what to do with him.
[526] And so she gave him this job and he wreaked havoc.
[527] He renamed himself after Attila the Hun, and that's what he made us call him.
[528] He didn't have any East Asian ethnicity to warrant the Hun distinction.
[529] He was Korean.
[530] Oh, okay.
[531] I think the Huns are up in Mongolia.
[532] But, okay, so he's going by Attila the Hunt.
[533] I'd already been warned about him, so I moved into a room in a house that was full of people I knew.
[534] But literally the first day I moved in, he had a. come in to our apartment to take care of some pigeons that were in the attic.
[535] And literally an hour later, he leaves.
[536] And I see one dead in my roommate's bathroom skylight.
[537] He had killed them by spraying them in the face with like poison and wind decks or something.
[538] And then left it there for like a week.
[539] Ew.
[540] You know, clearly he's struggling.
[541] People would often think that he was like a homeless man that wanted onto our property.
[542] And I'm like, oh, no, that's Satilla.
[543] I give him money every month.
[544] He would be like always shirtless.
[545] He had a missing front tooth.
[546] Did he spend any time across the street in MacArthur Park scoring?
[547] No, because his drug dealer came to him.
[548] Oh, God.
[549] It was a white Mercedes with tinted windows that'd come like on the dot every two weeks.
[550] Oh, okay, great.
[551] And this little pipe would always be on like the front porch or something.
[552] So he was smoking math, I'd imagine?
[553] I think so.
[554] I originally started all feeling very bad for him because I was like, this person clearly is a lot of issues.
[555] And my roommates at the time had been there for over a year already, would just dig into him all the time.
[556] And at first, I'd be like, you guys.
[557] But things progressed just more and more.
[558] And then I'd learn that he was quite impendictive.
[559] Things really became problematic when I became the person of the house who, like, turned in the rent check.
[560] Because other people had moved out and you were moving up the responsibility ladder there.
[561] Yeah.
[562] So he got my number.
[563] And that's where things got pretty weird.
[564] He was already kind of a character.
[565] When I'd give the rent check, he would reenact whites he'd been in for me. You know, he'd be like, then I did this.
[566] And then I did this.
[567] And I would be like, dude, it.
[568] just please take this rent check.
[569] Like, I got to go.
[570] My roommate, Greg, he had to move back home to New York.
[571] And Attila got extremely mad about that because he didn't ask him first.
[572] That was like, I quote, like in a text message.
[573] And he just lit out on us.
[574] We started getting notices on our door for like he could enter in 24 hours.
[575] Thinking like two weeks he put up 22 notices on our door.
[576] Oh my God.
[577] Making up reasons to come in and trying to use fear and intimidation to get us out of there.
[578] was very sensitive about his manhood.
[579] So like, someone didn't ask me. So he just went off.
[580] I had seen him do this to two young women that lived below us.
[581] One day, they just looked so scared and were out in like a week.
[582] It was kind of crazy.
[583] So I started contacting my tenants unions because he was trying to evict us, even though he technically didn't have a right, which I learned.
[584] And then COVID hits.
[585] He's on the property with us.
[586] And that's where we were like, oh, no, because things had just started getting weirder.
[587] One day I woke up at like 1 a .m. to him screaming my name and calling me every name in the book saying that he's going to burn our apartment down.
[588] Oh my God.
[589] Oh, he's on one.
[590] Yes.
[591] That time I did call the police.
[592] Yes.
[593] And it's always so funny when they would interact with me and then they'd be like, okay, yeah, we'll go check him out.
[594] And then they go talk to him.
[595] They come back to me and they're like, you weren't lying.
[596] Like he's got probes.
[597] And I'm like, yeah.
[598] My bedroom had the back door to our parking and his back doors through his bathroom.
[599] And and they shared the same stoop.
[600] Oh, no. I would hear all this.
[601] Him going in and out.
[602] It was wild.
[603] So, yeah, COVID hits.
[604] And so we were like, we're leaving.
[605] We're not paying this last month's rent.
[606] That could be our security deposit and we're getting out of here.
[607] Tried calling the police on us.
[608] From January to March, things had gotten so bad.
[609] I counted.
[610] I stopped texting him in January.
[611] He had texted me over 200 times.
[612] I'd wake up to like 30 texts and just rambling about himself.
[613] Then back to like us.
[614] What kind of things was he updating you on about himself?
[615] He, like, entered a karate tournament or something?
[616] Sometimes.
[617] It was stuff like that.
[618] It was everything from what he wants to do to how he's feeling and back to, like, insulting me. It was clearly some kind of bender, and it was just train of thought.
[619] Yeah.
[620] Oh, boy.
[621] It got really, really bad.
[622] We all got out of there so fast.
[623] I think by the time I left, my roommates, both left, like, two days after two.
[624] It got so bad, like, he said he was going to find me and that he was a Freemason and that him and his brothers were going to, like, track me down.
[625] With the powers of the Illuminade.
[626] Pretty much.
[627] But I ultimately got granted a restraining order against him because he wouldn't leave me alone.
[628] Really?
[629] I want to stop calling, texting, emailing.
[630] And it was all through Zoom because it was start of COVID.
[631] And during the hearing, he sat in my old room in my old chair and, like, showed me the room.
[632] I want to go meet him.
[633] No. We're close.
[634] No, you are not to do that.
[635] He's a character.
[636] Actually, because I had filed a police report from the time he had gone to our back door and I had the report that, he'd text all these times.
[637] They actually took a case on my behalf against him and they represented me and I believe I technically won, but they said that because he'd been sent to court so many times that they didn't want to do anything but like counseling for him and thought that was just a waste of time.
[638] So they just dismissed it.
[639] He probably needs a treatment center.
[640] Yeah.
[641] Probably first and foremost.
[642] Maybe a couple.
[643] Yeah.
[644] A nice long term inpatient.
[645] Did he ever try to fight any of the boys in the apartment?
[646] He didn't, but he always would say that he could and, like, would describe, like, I could punch you in the jaw and then, like, the head.
[647] Oh, like he's eight years old.
[648] He was 100 % like a man child.
[649] Well, I'm glad you got away from Attila, the Hun.
[650] Wasn't false advertising, as it turns out.
[651] Well, it was wonderful meeting you.
[652] Thanks for telling us that story, and I'm really hoping I bump into him.
[653] I would love to chat with him.
[654] I want to know what's going on.
[655] I would love your take.
[656] I'll start cruising in MacArthur Park.
[657] I got a good enough description.
[658] You're not allowed to go there.
[659] I think I can figure it out.
[660] All right.
[661] Well, Caitlin, thank you.
[662] you so much.
[663] It was really great meeting you.
[664] It was a nice to meet you guys too.
[665] Thank you.
[666] Yeah.
[667] All right.
[668] Take care.
[669] Oh, my Lord.
[670] You're like held hostage in your own apartment.
[671] This makes your sitch a little more palatable.
[672] You had a nosy.
[673] Yeah.
[674] Now you can't even say anything about it.
[675] I mean, I guess I'll say he passed away a couple weeks ago and it is really sad.
[676] Yeah.
[677] It's one of those weird things because he was a bit cranky and nosy and eye rolly.
[678] But now that he's past you feel it in the building it's a bummer it really is then just it goes to remind you be patient with people yeah just like take it easy on people a little bit all right let's talk to mara kate mara kate mara oh the way her sister says it though not her it's not mara it's mara right hello is this mara it is mara oh wonderful and was there a third party in the room it's my friend jill She's a huge fan, so she really wanted to say hi.
[679] She came for moral support.
[680] Oh, okay, wonderful.
[681] Was she involved in this landlord debacle?
[682] She was around for all of it.
[683] She wasn't there for the actual landlord debacle.
[684] So we'll keep her quiet as much as possible.
[685] Okay, good luck.
[686] Where are you at in the country?
[687] I live right outside of Hershey, Pennsylvania.
[688] Oh, of course.
[689] I went there as a child.
[690] Okay, so tell us when and where this happened.
[691] It happened in.
[692] Palmyra is the name of the town that we live in, then town over from Hershey.
[693] I guess it all started when we found out that we were pregnant with our second child, which was in 2017, and we decided that we needed a bigger place.
[694] We spent months looking, finally found a place on Craigslist, which probably should have been my first red flag.
[695] But we went and looked at it, and it seemed great.
[696] So in April of 2017, I was six months pregnant, and we also had a four -year -old.
[697] Hands full.
[698] Yeah, oh, yeah.
[699] So we move in.
[700] Everything seems okay at first.
[701] So in August, we start to have some electrical.
[702] issues.
[703] And we contacted the landlord.
[704] Landlord says, I think it's just like an issue with the electric company.
[705] It's not in the house.
[706] And we're like, maybe.
[707] So we contact the electric company.
[708] They come out.
[709] They look at it and they're like, we think it might be on our end, but we also aren't convinced that it's not an issue with the house because no other house on the street is having issues.
[710] Fast forward to August 30th, I give birth.
[711] He six weeks after that get sick.
[712] He's in the hospital with RSV.
[713] Oh, no. Yeah, it was a rough time.
[714] We Get home from the hospital after a week of staying there 24 -7 with our infant.
[715] My parents had come to help us take care of our other son.
[716] And my mom is making dinner the day we get home from the hospital.
[717] And she's like, your stove isn't working.
[718] And I was like, well, that's weird.
[719] And then I went up to use the bathroom and our upstairs, turned on the light, and all the lights in the downstairs start strobing.
[720] We contact the landlord, and he's like, I'll send over an electrician.
[721] It might be tomorrow.
[722] And we were like, no, it really needs to be as soon as possible.
[723] So he sends over the electrician.
[724] Electrician is drunk.
[725] Oh.
[726] Smells of booze, slurring words.
[727] It's kind of a mess.
[728] So the landlord gets there and we were like, this man can absolutely not do any electrical work on our house.
[729] He sends him away and he says, we need to replace the electrical panel in the house, which is a pretty hefty project.
[730] So he ends up begrudgingly replacing the panel himself.
[731] This man is not an electrician.
[732] Oh, boy.
[733] Oh, boy.
[734] So also, I must add.
[735] This is a four -bedroom duplex.
[736] We don't have access to the basement.
[737] He has it padlocked from the outside and nailed shut from the inside.
[738] So we were like, all right, that's kind of weird.
[739] But we were just in baby world and kind of let it go.
[740] He fixes the electrical panel.
[741] Things seem like they're okay.
[742] So now we fast forward to the week of Christmas, so 2017 going into 2018.
[743] Two days after Christmas, we start to lose heat in our downstairs.
[744] We contact the landlord once again, and he's like, I'm away.
[745] You have heat in the upstairs, so just kind of deal with it.
[746] Just live in the upstairs.
[747] So New Year's Day, January 1st of 2018, he comes to our house.
[748] And he's like, when I lived here, we did all of the plumbing and all of the work ourselves.
[749] He's like, and a pipe for the heat runs outside of the house.
[750] Now, mind you, it's like between zero and 10 degrees this whole week.
[751] He's like, I'm going to have to thaw the pipe.
[752] I was angry and had.
[753] zero faith in this man. My husband says, go to work.
[754] Let's have some faith in him.
[755] Let's get you out of the house so you don't quarrel with him.
[756] Yeah, and it was like bound to happen.
[757] So go to work, which is about two minutes away.
[758] And I was there for maybe about half an hour to 45 minutes.
[759] I didn't have my phone on me. I was doing stuff and one of my employees comes up to me and says, hey, your husband's on the phone.
[760] He seems like really upset.
[761] I thought it was weird because he never called me at work.
[762] And he's like the house is on fire.
[763] Oh, boy.
[764] Oh, too.
[765] I don't even remember driving.
[766] I like appear back at our house and I walk up on the front porch because I'm just seeing red.
[767] I also knew that at that point they were in a neighbor's house and they were warm and safe.
[768] So I see my landlord first person standing there and I said what the fuck happened.
[769] Right.
[770] He puts his head down and walks away.
[771] It says nothing to me. Oh.
[772] Doesn't even address it.
[773] Come to find that the landlord was sawing the pipe for the heat with a blowtorch.
[774] He lit all of the insulation and the floorboards in our living room on fire.
[775] And it went up through the walls and it was a mess.
[776] We also found out that in this locked and nailed shut basement, he had drywall and other insulation and all kinds of stuff.
[777] So he let all that on fire.
[778] So in the melee, after everyone is safe and we kind of get settled, my husband and him have some words and my husband says we are moving out as soon as possible.
[779] Before the fire trucks had even left the house, we got a text message from the landlord to me and my husband saying I acknowledge your moving out and as long as you have all of your property out by January 20th, then I will return your security deposit after he lit our house on fire with my husband and my two children inside.
[780] Oh my God.
[781] So we immediately know we need a lawyer because at this point it's like he's evicting us for lighting our house on fire.
[782] We had nothing to do with this.
[783] We contact a lawyer.
[784] We had renters insurance, but he's like, we're going to make a claim on his homeowner's insurance because he's at complete liability for this whole situation.
[785] The lawyer contacts the homeowner's insurance.
[786] He says to us, I need detailed list, all of this stuff.
[787] Long story short, he says, leave all of the damaged property in the home.
[788] Take none of your personal belongings that were damaged.
[789] Leave it all there.
[790] We're like, okay, so we moved everything out.
[791] We found a place, luckily, within a week to move into.
[792] We successfully had an actual home that wasn't on fire and had heat and electric that functioned correctly.
[793] We get a certified letter from the landlord telling us that he would be keeping our security deposit of $1 ,300 and also charging us another $700 on top of that for nail holes and paint for the home that he lit on fire.
[794] Oh my God.
[795] Contact her lawyer again.
[796] Luckily it all worked out and he with a strongly worded letter contacted the landlord and said absolutely not.
[797] Oh and it was $50 an hour for his labor as well.
[798] Oh, my God.
[799] Which clearly it would be himself since he's doing everything.
[800] Yeah, his own labor.
[801] Uh -huh.
[802] We were going to pay him $50 an hour to repaint.
[803] Oh, boy.
[804] What a disaster.
[805] All while you have a brand new baby?
[806] It was too much.
[807] It was pretty awful.
[808] But, I mean, it all worked out in the end.
[809] And luckily, we had a village, so they really helped us kind of rally.
[810] I'd be curious who moved in there.
[811] I'd want to, like, drive by and see who's living there and just chit -chat.
[812] Like, how's it going in there?
[813] We had a rough go of it there.
[814] Are you doing any better?
[815] I had said on numerous occasions, I was like, I just want to write a letter and leave it in the mailbox.
[816] And my husband's like, let's just let it go.
[817] I'm afraid I'm the you in my relationship.
[818] Well, after listening to your podcast for a very long time, I would probably agree with that.
[819] I'm so sorry that all happened to you, but of course, I appreciate you telling us that story.
[820] Shame on that dude.
[821] I hope he's minimally hiring some skilled laborers.
[822] Well, last I had seen him, he I don't think is renting anymore.
[823] He works at our local load.
[824] Oh.
[825] Okay.
[826] Well, he's getting more familiar with like hammers.
[827] Hopefully not giving anybody advice on thawing pipes.
[828] Oh, true.
[829] I probably would have used the same method.
[830] Really?
[831] Yeah, blow torch on a frozen pipe, maybe.
[832] I guess I would have been a little more mindful of what I was also blasting, I hope, but who knows?
[833] At least a knot around insulation and, you know, wood.
[834] Yeah, and a family inside, maybe.
[835] Maybe ask them to go over to sizzler or something for a couple hours when you work on this.
[836] I mean, anything would have been better than his method.
[837] Thank you so much for telling us that story.
[838] Please wave to your friend for us.
[839] Yeah, thank you.
[840] Okay, take care.
[841] Bye.
[842] Oh, okay, well, we've had some moments of gratitude.
[843] Yeah, yeah, and I want to dedicate this to Stephen.
[844] Okay.
[845] Stephen is my landlord that passed, and he was a good man. You know, I had an apartment for 10 years, but there was no landlord.
[846] I have the owners live in the building.
[847] and then there's also a landlord.
[848] That's so curious.
[849] So actually the nice man who passed was an owner.
[850] When I'm hearing these stories, I will say it was telling about who I was.
[851] I never called to complain about the cockroaches.
[852] I just kind of like knew this is never going to get solved.
[853] Well, you also knew the building.
[854] Like it didn't seem like the type of building where they were going to come help.
[855] Not with eight people living below me unless they were to get rid of them, which I didn't want.
[856] I had versions of all those landlords in Chicago.
[857] You did.
[858] Pretty much.
[859] I've had some fiery landlord.
[860] L .A. in general, though, is a little more on the up and up.
[861] There's renter's rights here.
[862] No, my bad ones have been here.
[863] We had one where I'm pretty sure the landlord's brother was living in the garage.
[864] Okay.
[865] Sometimes we'd see him in his jam jams.
[866] Oh.
[867] And his Jimmy Jammies?
[868] Yeah, walking in the backyard.
[869] Does he live here?
[870] Right.
[871] Or is he doing some painting in there and wanted to wear his jam jams?
[872] We had one of those in a van.
[873] in the parking lot behind our apartment in Chicago.
[874] Oh, he was living in the van and managing the place.
[875] He was doing drugs in the van.
[876] Yeah.
[877] Sounds like drugs are a good companion piece if you're a landlord.
[878] Because really, you don't have to go anywhere.
[879] You're at work.
[880] Yeah, that's true.
[881] All right, well, I love you.
[882] Love you.
[883] I wish everyone out there with a bad landlord, some reprieve.
[884] Sounds terrible.
[885] Do you want to sing a tune or something?
[886] We don't have a thing song for this new show, So here I go, go, go We're gonna ask some random questions And with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions On the flyer rhymed dish On the flyer rhyme dish, enjoy