Last week, I had the opportunity to visit eviction court, though not for anything having to do with my properties.
It was an interesting experience. Eviction court is a day when nobody is at their best. Landlords are fighting to remove bad tenants, sometimes questioning their desire to be a landlord, while tenants are fighting to keep their homes, often with no backup plan. Occasionally, you get someone who just wants to get out of their lease because the landlord is a creepy peeper who digs through the dirty laundry.
Nobody goes to eviction court in a good mood.
If you ever find yourself in eviction court, here are some things to remember:
Everyone
If you don’t show up, you lose. Period. Landlord or tenant, judges don’t like waiting around. You will get the worst possible outcome if you stay home.
The first day is a hearing. The judge will either accept a settlement between the two parties, or he’ll check if there is a valid reason for a full trial. The trial will be schedule for another day. In Minnesota, that happens within 6 days of the hearing.
Don’t make faces at the other side while they are talking to the judge. Do you want to go to jail for being a smartass? It’s called contempt of court.
Landlords
Fix the mold, rot, and other habitability issues. You’ll have a hard time getting your rent back if you are a slumlord forcing your tenants to live in a biohazard.
If you’ve got an automatically renewing lease, don’t file the eviction notice with the renewed lease for violations that happened under the old lease. If you do, you’ll be handing a win to your tenant.
Make sure you lease has an eviction clause. If it doesn’t, you may not have the right to kick out your tenant for any reason.
Your tenant’s dirty underwear is not a toy for you to play with. Creep.
Tenants
Pay your rent. If you are withholding rent to get something fixed, you’ll be expected to put that in escrow the day of the hearing, so don’t spend it on vodka or a new stereo.
Read your lease and the filing. It may have a backdoor that lets you escape the eviction.
Try not to get evicted. An unlawful detainer can make it hard to rent again for a couple of years.
Dress nice. I’m amazed by how many people showed up in ratty jeans and uncombed hair. Look professional. The judge will appreciate the effort.
All in all, it’s best if landlords and tenants try to keep each other happy. The whole business relationship will go much smoother if you do.
Rumours swirl around Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian that their marriage is in trouble due to the basketball star’s addiction to recreational drugs. The couple has not been spotted together since June, and Kardashian has been photographed recently not wearing her wedding ring. On Sunday, August 25, TMZ reported that Odom had been missing for 72 hours after a dispute with Kardashian that some say was a failed intervention.
Los Angeles Hotel
On Monday, August 26, ESPN reported that Odom’s agent, Jeff Schwartz, claimed that Odom was in a Los Angeles hotel and that friends were attempting to get him help for a drug problem that the agent declined to explain further. The agent also said that Kardashian knew Odom’s whereabouts. Kardashian herself tweeted that she was unhappy with the news reports about her family, but failed to elaborate on whether the reports were true or false. ( http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9601746/agent-disputes-report-saying-lamar-odom-missing)
History of Drug Probems
In 2001, Odom violated NBA drug policies twice in eight months, apologizing at a press conference after the second offense. Odom claimed he did not have a drug problem and was only guilty of smoking marijuana. Odom often speaks of losing his mother to colon cancer at the age of 12 and his father’s heroin addiction, eventually moving in with his grandmother. In 2006, Odom’s son, Jayden, died of sudden infant death syndrome. In 2011, a cousin who Odom was close to died of gunshot wounds in New York, and just two days after the cousin’s funeral, Odom was involved in a car accident that resulted in the death of a teenager. Odom’s chauffer driven SUV collided with a motorcycle, causing the bike to go out of control and strike a 15-year old pedestrian who died of head injuries the next day. (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/02/sports/la-sp-lamar-odom-accident-20110803). Odom took a 10-day leave of absence from the Dallas Mavericks, claiming his father was ill right after the incident.
Clash over Partying
Odom Shooting (Photo credit: compujeramey)
According to insiders, Odom and Kardashian have often clashed over his partying, but that she had kept his addictions secret from her family. According to many who have known Odom well, when things are difficult for him, he likes to get away and hide, which is what some say he did when he took leave from the Mavericks and just recently when he disappeared for a few days. (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20728355,00.html) Insiders are reporting that Kardashian is contemplating divorce, which will be costly for Odom as there is a strong infidelity clause in the couple’s prenuptial agreement, and there are rumors that Odom has been unfaithful.
High Cost of Addiction
Most of the rumors surrounding the Kardashian Odom marriage are related to the fact that two women have come forward claiming affairs with Odom while he was married to Kardashian, and not due to his drug use. However, the fact that there is a strong fidelity clause in the prenuptial agreement indicates that Kardashian may be unwilling to ignore his dalliances. If it is proven that Odom committed adultry and the couple divorces, Kardashian retains the Tarzana mansion the couple share, $500,000 for every year they were married, two vehicles, shopping money and spousal support. However, many reports continue that infidelity is not the problem in the marriage, but Odom’s continued use of drugs. Odom checked into a San Diego rehab in 2012, but left after only three weeks, and insiders claim that Odom’s recent disappearance was related to an intervention, staged by Kardashian, to encourage him to return to rehab.
Regardless of whether the marriage ends due to infidelity or drug use, it appears that addiction may be a costly proposition for Odom due to the clause in his prenuptial agreement.
My first project is to start waking up at 5am. This will add an extra 90 minutes to my day, which will give me time to manage all of my other 30 day projects. I’ll be able to wake up to a quiet house, walk the dog, eat breakfast and not start every day in a rush to get out of the house. Today was my exception. After watching 2010 arrive, I didn’t get up early.
The second project is to start reading to my children every night before bed. We read to the kids often, but not every day. That’s going to change. We are also working on breaking the girls of the family bed. If I can read them to sleep each night, it will help. Good, educational family time that makes it easier to sleep every night.
These are both habits I want to keep long after the month is up.
My 30 Day Project for the month of March has been to do 100 sit-ups in a single set. Based on February’s results, I had a plan.
I will be doing 5 sets, morning and night, as follows:
Set 1: Half of my maximum amount.
Sets 2-4: 3/4 of my max.
Set 5: Do sit-ups until my abs start to cramp, thus setting my max for the next session.
I failed miserably.
It started off perfectly. My base amount was 20 sit-ups. I had a plan. I’d proven, at least to myself, that I was able to follow an intense workout plan, even through pain. I was encouraged by February’s results, so I dove in.
The first 3 or 4 days went well. I had some muscle strain, but that was expected. I hadn’t done sit-ups for years. I discovered muscles I actually hadn’t known existed, just from how they hurt. This was the good pain, the pain that shows progress. After doing the push-ups in February, this pain wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Push-ups are an excellent ab workout.
Maybe I became complacent. Either my form slipped, or I was going too fast and “bounced” through the sit-ups, but I pulled a muscle in my back. This was the bad pain, the pain that warns of fundamental problems. My form, my size, my history of back problems, who knows? One or more of those possible problems reared up to turn an excellent idea into a disaster. March’s plan got sidelined for a few days.
When my back was better, I started again. Again, everything was fine for 3 or 4 days. Then my back betrayed me, again. Another break, another try, another strain and I gave up. I made it to 50, then just stopped. Too much more, and I wouldn’t be able to tolerate sitting at my desk. Or maybe I just wimped out, afraid to hurt my back again.
I’m disappointed. I haven’t done a single sit-up in the last week.
To make matters worse, without the sit-ups to do in the morning, I’ve been letting myself snooze my alarm clock instead of getting up at 5. March has been such a slacker month.
Lesson learned: Always listen to your body. Don’t get tied into a specific routine–even one you created for yourself–if your body is demanding to stop. Watch your form and make sure you aren’t putting undue strain on anything that can cause long-term damage.
Lesson learned, part II: Push-ups are more fun and less painful than sit-ups. They will be getting incorporated into my ongoing routine.
Ending the sit-ups did leave me enough energy to get an early start on April’s 30 Day Project. The goal for next month is to declutter every room in the house: Every closet, every dresser, every drawer.
Loft Bed
To start, we replaced our son’s dresser, bed, and desk with a loft-bed that combines the three. While transferring items from the desk and dresser to the new bed, everything was sorted to make sure it still fit and was used and useful. If it didn’t meet those criteria, it was either tossed or priced and boxed for a garage sale.
In the girls’ room, we removed a dresser, the changing table, a toddler bed, a convertible crib/toddler bed. It all got replaced with a set of bunk beds and the dresser we took from our son. Everything got the same garage-sale check before it was put away.
Both of these changes easily tripled the usable floor space in each room and all of the kids love their new beds. Using the magic of Craigslist, I think we got the new furniture for 10-15% of retail, and have old furniture to add to our sale, which will further defray the cost.
This leaves the master bedroom, the bathroom, the front closet, the kitchen and our entire basement to go. Shoes and jackets that have never been worn. Books that will never be reread. Bye-bye. Some of it will be painful, but we all realize it’s necessary. We’ve already filled more than 2 dozen boxes of stuff to sell. None of it is coming back in the house. If it doesn’t sell, we’re donating it.
More to come as we progress through the mountains of crap.
The new $100 dollar bill was introduced to the world recently and Benjamin Franklin, the iconic figure who has traditionally graced the C note for decades, would, as a garish and innovative guy himself, completely approve.
What’s new about it?
The Federal Reserve added many clever designs to thwart counterfeiters. First of all, there’s lot more color. The older designs that were all variations of green, black and gray have been glammed up with oranges, copper and blues, all with the purpose of adding extra security.
A blue ribbon that runs vertically through the bill is actually hundreds of thousands of little liberty bells that change shape as the bill is turned different angles. So if you’re in the habit of giving crisp Benjamins to family members, you might want to show them how the bells change into “100s” right before their eyes. Cool, huh?
Is that a feather? No, it’s a quill. Not just any quill, it is put there, in a lovely shade of copper, to represent the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Phrases from that document are on the bill too, in tiny letters, so readers can get a micro-lesson in American history (and counterfeiters groan in frustration!)
If that weren’t enough, and it isn’t if you’re trying to one-up the bad guys, a colored ink well has another liberty bell in it. This bell changes from green to copper as the perspective on it changes, just like the 100 that’s next to it.
New textures along Franklin’s shoulder are also more than just a delight for the senses, they could also challenge any counterfeiter. Raised textures are all over the bill and makes holding a C note more fun than ever. With over three billion of these Benjamins in circulation, the government has no choice but to take every measure to protect its currency.
Franklin also makes an appearance in a watermark. If you hold it up to the light, you can see him again. What would he think of all these changes?
If you turn the bill over, besides seeing a bold 100 in bright gold/orange numbers, you’ll also see Independence Hall in Philadelphia, from the back. The back? Why would the Federal Reserve want a photo of this historic landmark where they keep the lawn mower and recycling bins? (Thankfully, they’re not in the picture.) Again, this is for the counterfeiters’ benefit. If you’re going to go to all the trouble of counterfeiting, now you’ll have to get Colonial architecture accurate. (Counterfeiting is a felony and can earn you some serious jail time. It’s not worth it, kids!)
The new $100 bill is a work of art, a technological achievement and a tribute to our great nation, and more specifically, a prominent figure in our history. Benjamin Franklin, inventor, printer, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Philadelphia’s most famous kite flyer, would probably be thrilled with the technological upgrades, the bling and all those Liberty Bells on the new $100 bill.
