The first indication that we may have made a mistake in judgement occured about 45 days after we had signed a one years lease with kelly smith and at the time her boyfriend edward kasabella jr. They have since married. They seemed like a very nice couple, he was self employeed as a truck driver/contractor and she works at the local hospital.in the contents of the lease agrement, the tenents are required to have the utilities in their names.
This was not done. Neither ed or kelly had even bothered to inform us of this. The bill for the lights comes to us and we immediately call. Kelly stated that ed was supposed to have done that, she will call him.
Just prior to the next bill arriving in the mail, ed calls and tells us that the light company wants a $400.00 deposit to transfer the light bill into his name. We compromise. We do understand that sometimes that type of payment can be a financial hardship for a family. We agree to leave the bill in our names but he must pay the entire amount the day we get the bill.
Fine until october. They fall behind lets see first he is out of work and then he gives us 200.00.in the middle of december, we get the light bills for both of their rentals and in one month they owed $500 just in electric bills.
They finally go to the pastor of their church. He agrees to send a check for one months rent. Now they are $ 500.00 in utilities and two and a half months in rent behind. A total amount $2100.00.
By april, we had had enough lies to sink a ship. One day we went by the property to find that the studio apartment on the premises that they had rented as a storage building, was occupied by a mother and her son. We had no knowledge of this. Under the terms of the lease there is no subleasing allowed. We took them to court for evection and for the monies that were currantly owed we were awarded $1569.00. They were to be gone from the premeises in 10 days.
You may be thinking well that is good. Nope, on the day we were to meet the sherriffs deputy at the property neither ed or kelly were there. Ed had called me that day at work and told me that the keys were inside on the kitchen counter and that he had everything all cleaned and the only thing he lacked was mopping the floor. Well, I thought that was good.
The keys were outside on the rock wall. The cleaning part, well let's just tell you all about it. When you pull into the driveway, the first thing that your eyes fix on is the enormous deck that is the full length of the house. A rock wall lines the driveway covered in ivy and there is a rock staircase that leads from the road, an extra lot has made for a huge yard. The house is brown with red trim.
There is something about this house that says charm. Walking up to the front door I was shocked to see the outside door covered in mud and paw prints from the dog. They had paid a $300 non refundable pet deposit per pet.
They were supposed to have 1 cat and 1 dog.
When we visited the property there was 3 dogs and 15 cats. When you opened the front door the first thing that hit you was the smell. For three days with all the windows open and fans going you could stay inside longer than five minutes.
The next thing I noticed was the ceiling fan. It wasn't the one that was ther. It was a nicer fan, true but it didn't work. Ed had left bare wires hanging out from not only that light but several others through the house. Fleas fleas and more fleas.
After 9 bombs they still werent gone. When a friend lift the corner edge of the wall paper in the bedroom, the fleas were all over it. They had went in the wallpaper, all of the wallpaper had to be removed from the home. There were burnt marks in several spots of the hardwood floors. They left a plug adapter in a wall outlet with exposed post and while cleaning someone was electricuted, causing scaring on this persons knee.
There were maggots growing on the wall in the kitchen. There was mold growing in the refridgerator, and stove. The wire to the stove plug had been sliced. He had taken the cover off of the fuse panel box and removed fuses. He had illegally run cable from the house to the studio.
Then we filed another small claim action, because I didn't know where they had moved to. I went over to the post office to see if they would give me the forwarding mailing address. They wouldn't. I called kelly to see if she would give it to me. She stated that they had gotten a post office box and she didn't know the number. She would call ed.
That evening we received a call from ed. When we told him that we needed the address so that we could send papers. He wouldn't give us an address. We then informed him that if he refused we would have no other choice but then to serve kelly at the hospital where she worked. We certainly didn't want to embarrass her that way. He stated that if we served her at work that he would come up and pulll all my hair out.
We servered her at work, after filing a second set of papers because the first set didn't get served and the court date arrived so we had to refile. Thankfully they were served to kelly that very afternoon. Then, we received information as to their address being 10 farley st. We called the sherriffs office and gave them the information.
Ed had never shown up to collect his summons. The total bill on the repairs and damages is $5000.00. Also the 1569 from the first judgement. Please don't rent to this couple. Don't let them fool you. They are cons from the word go.
0 comments