I have lived at this address as a tenant of Marietta M. Gray for 11 & 1/2 years. I fully admit that I have had a history of paying my rent late, and that I have had terse conversations with Ms. Gray about her conduct and treatement of my family & me since we have lived here.
Not long after we first moved in a mentally ill (bi-polar) cotennant removed my personal garden hose from a common area. I askded for it back and he became hostile and threatening. He started complaining about my black lab Jasmine pushing against the fence and barking at his dog. Finally he left a threatenng letter on my front door. I asked Ms. Gray to intervene, and to fix the decrept fence that my dog was pushing against. Ms. Gray's resonse was to tell me to get rid of my dog, or move out. She refused to repair the fence, and my dog was taken to the pound. The final result wa a derrogatory later placed in my tennant file that I had a dangerous animal on my premises that had to be removed under threat of eviction.
Another time we realized that they had mislead us to beleive that the vents in the upstairs bedroom were functional. This realization came when we found out our bedroom in the winter got down to freezing or below, and more than 120 degrees in the summer. Later we found out that the entire house was not insulated at all. They refused to do anythng about it.
In order to deal with the crippling heat in the rest of the house we had heard taht by placing blocks of ice in the swamp cooler you could cool your house down better. To that end we placed frozen tupperware containers and milk jugs full of water, and anything else we could get our hands on that were frozen. The cooler broke down and the handy man, Roger Pocock, came out and fixed it. He then went back to Marietta and told her that we stored food in our swamp cooler. This resulted in a derrogatory letter placed in out tennant file that stated that we had to be warned not to store food in out swamp cooler as it was unhealthy and unsanitary etc.
We called them repeatedly to fix the old and cracked wiring and unenclosed light switch (under the leaking sink) for the garbage disposal, and all Mr. Pocock did was wrap it in electrical tape. Ultimately I rewired it myself.
When the floor in the living room caved in the first time Mr. Pocock came out and cut a hole in the carpet with a razorblade knife and made the repair. When he was finished he replaced the carpet my hammering it down with a hammer and nails.
About four years ago I installed at my cost 9 different new light fixtures as part of a renovaton job I did so I wouldn't have to be embarrassed when in-laws came for the Christmas. Six months later one fixture, on a very steep dark stairwell, stopped working. Roger Pocock said it ws because I had used the wrong lightbulbs and said it was my fault and that he couldn't fix it. I have fallen down these steps in the dark on a couple of occasions and put my hand through the the wall at least twice to keep from falling. They blamed me becasue i installed it, but now admit that they can't fix it either, and it is still out today.
The putty around an upstairs window cracked and became so old and brittle that the window was in danger of falling out. One of her repairmen came and put wood screws in at the bottom of the frame to hold the window in place. Ultimately, about two years ago, it fell out and shattered all over the first floor roof.
This past June we called Marietta because the AC unit was not cooling properly (it doesn't even cool the kids' rooms at all because I expect the vents are all corroded, like the ones in the floor they already had to stop using). A service call was made. The guy sprayed the cooler down with a garden hose and said it was dirty from lack of regular maintenance. He also said that the tree branches that were growing into it were not helping. Although the letter Maritta sent claiming I stored food in my swamp cooler also ordered me to not go on the roof, she asked me to go up and clean the branches away from the intake vents and the fan were all kinds of debris as falling into.
A month later it still was not working so we called for service again. I told Marietta then that I could try spraying it with the hose as the guy told me last time. She got upset and said that I should never do that and she talked to the repairman and told him the same. He came out the second time on 8/28/08 and did some type of service.
On 9/11 my son opened the upstairs bedroom door and it fell off the hinges and hit him in the head. I got angry and called Marietta and said that I was sick and tired of the shape this place was in and that if they didn't come and start making repairs immdeiately I was going to start sending her certifed letters documenting my repair requests, and that I was through talking to her on the phone where I couldn't prove what was said or promised. I told her my son had been injured and enough was enough.
Marietta responded by making two hostile phone calls (which she states were merely "direct") and said someone would be out Monday the 14th to begin making repairs. On Saturday 9/12/08 I received a bill for the AC service on the 28th of August stating that it was my fault becasue the upstairs window was out and it out a strain on the AC unit.
I got angry and called her and told her that I was thoroughly offended that I was upset about the unlighted stairs, falling and almost injuring myself, the window etc. Etc. Etc., and that my son had been hurt, and her response was to send me the AC service bill and blame me for the window being out. I told her that I also dod not appreciate the manner in which she spoke to me on the messages she left, and that i did not want to her to call me anymore. I told her to send me a letter.
The next day she called my wife and made derrogatory comments about me saying I had left abusive messages on her phone machine. My wife pointed out that our son hd been injured and that I was upset because her response to this was to send us a bill for AC repairs a month earlier.
I called back and left a message telling her that I was filing complaints against her such as these, and that when I said not to call (for 11 years talking to her personally has got me nowhere) I meant at all to anyone in my family. I also told her that I expected to see the hole in the wall repaired where i fell down the stairs in the dark.
Her electrician Kevin was at my house today on 9/17, and we had our little silky terriers in the bathroom while he was working in the house. He stated he was through going outside and that we could let our dogs back into the yard. After about 15 minutes he went back outside (without telling my wife) and came back in and said that one of our dogs had bitten him but that it was no big deal as it was only a scratch. Later we found a card on our door from the local animal control saying that we were under investigation for a dogbite.
Over the years we have put up with Marietta threatening to raise the rent everytime we ask for a needed repair. She says, "You guys pay really low rent..." and then nothing gets done and we have always been afraid to push it. She also mentions that she did us a favor by allowing us to pay our rent late for quite a few years. However, the contract says if we pay late we pay a late fee, which we did. She did no favors, we followed the contracts terms.
Another favor she claims she did was putting the heating/cooling AC unit on the roof. This again was no favor. The thermostat went out in the winter and for three weeks we had no heat. The heating company said that the vents under the floor were all rat eatedn and should not have been being used at all as it was extremely hazardous. They also said the thermostat had been hooked up illegally and was not properly vented. Putting the AC unit on the roof was cheaper than making eveything legal. It was no favor.
When we had a swamp coler it caught on fire and when the FD came they said it caught fire becasue it had been illegally installed.
When we complained about the 120 degree plus heat in our upstairs bedroom Marietta told us that if we didn't like it we could move. When we tried to move the gentleman we were going to rent from came back and said that she had showed him all the letters in our file, and that County Mental Health had paid our rent becasuse I had suffered from depression at one point, and that he could not rent to us.
She put anothe lett in our file when the light burnt out telling me that I was not to do wiring jobs in the house, after I had already installed 9 other light fixtures and wired up a workshop in the backyard.
Did I mention that both the swamp cooler and AC leaked so badly that water ran inside the walls and there are clear rustains where they ran out of the lightswitch and down the wall?
Or how about the fact that when the upstairs toilet overflows sewage goes down inside the floor and runs into the flourecent light fixtures in the kitchen downstairs and then sewage runs out of those into the kitchen floor?
Marietta Gray is a cruel heartless liar who only does things in her best interest for as little money as possible. Cracked dangerous wiring, unlighted stairwells, holes cut in carpet, caved-in floors, lies and derrogatory information that keep you stuck in a dump that she either won't repair, or does such a crummy job you just say forget it, I'll do it myself.
Tomorrow I get to find out if the dogcatcher is going to take our family pet we've had for 9 years away because Kevin claims she bit him. We never saw an injury and Delbert the dogcatcher was already off by 3:30 when I tried to call him.
She retaliates by sending you a month old AC service bill when you threaten to document repair requests after you child is hit in the head by a falling door, and sends the dogcatcher to take your pets when report them to county agencies.
After I finish this I am talking to the EPA about asbestos, lead (this is at least a 50's era house, if not older) and the mold growing on the outside wall of my bedroom, which I am suspecting is growing on the inside too.
I am more than certain that there will be more to add to this complaint as Marietta has already made two retaliatory low-blows in this most recent demand for adequate repairs. Ultimately I think she is either going to try and evict us for having another "dangerous animal" (we never did see the bite on her repairman Kevin, and he himself said it was only a scratch that didn't even break the skin!) or they are going to tell us we have to get rid of the dogs.
When another previous family, the Feemstra's had a pit bull that killed our cat not a word was said...
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