Landlord

More problems with my landlord today. He hired some painters to go through the house, and didn't tell me he was having my room painted, too. I came home today to find a group of painters in my room, none of whom spoke English so communications didn't go so well, who had taken ALL MY STUFF and moved it to the center of the room. Hundreds of books were thrown in a giant pile. My papers, my drafts of my book, everything was in a jumbled mess. A 120 year old picture that my great-great-great grandmother painted of the port my family left from when the departed from Finland was casually tossed on top of a bookshelf, precariously balanced, with random books and objects resting on the glass, just waiting for someone to bump it or for something to get dropped on it. After I moved the expensive items I had to leave. I've literally never been so angry in my life. My blood pressure started to rise and I realized I was actually so angry that I might do some damage to myself, and I didn't want the poor painters to think I was mad at them (although they had tossed my stuff around, they were obviously just some guys my landlord hired, who didn't know what was going on). I walked around a lake and then called the police, and asked them what to do. They sent a really friendly officer out, who completely empathized. He told me I could sue my landlord in civil court for invasion of privacy, but my landlord technically hadn't done anything criminally wrong, although the officer, who was really bright, went into a discussion of Supreme Court cases that he disagreed with, that had stripped tenants of some of their privacy rights. He thought my landlord's actions should be a criminal offense, but he couldn't do anything about it. He also said I was handling it better than he ever would have.

I'm at my girlfriends now. She gave me some ice cream to make me feel better :)

I'm going to go through my stuff tomorrow, and deduct anything that was damaged off the rent. The pants I was wearing got a paint stain, so I'm deducting those, too. I'm not going to do anything else, although I had a talk with my landlord over the phone, the most severe rant I've ever had with anyone in my life, and I told him I was taking him to court, but I'm not. I don't have time to think of this stuff right now. I gained absolutely no feeling of moral absolution by yelling at the landlord. I almost felt worse afterwards. He's a perennial screw-up, and I know it's probably some brain chemistry issue and I honestly don't think he thinks he's doing anything wrong. Yelling was completely immature, I know, but I had to get it off my chest. I don't like the fact that I yelled at him any more than he probably likes the fact that he's always messing up.

This is a lesson for me, and a warning for anyone who jumps into a living situation without putting enough thought into it, just to save a few bucks. Money is definitely not everything.