Landlord

My landlord emailed me this morning. He was asking about a "precious sculpture" that he had found when he was digging around in my room. Backstory: the sculpture was a high school art project of his son's (a son who is now out of college), that involved him making a mold of his clawed hand, and painting it lurid green. It was hung on the wall, and I came home one day to find it had fallen and chipped. This had obviously happened before, as there were other chips on it. I put it in my room, intending to glue the chips back on, frankly glad that it was off the wall. He found it while digging through my shelves during a massive invasion of privacy I blog about in this post. As a quick recap for those who don't want to read about it: he sent a team of inexperienced painters into my room on Sunday, without my permission or knowledge, and competely trashed my room, spattering paint over everything, because there was some apparent dire need to paint that weekend.

This was my reply to my landlords current email:

Jack [name changed],
I'm deducting the following items from my rent this month:
$75 - jeans ruined by paint
$75 - sheets with paint on them
$200 - work relating to cleaning paint from the following items: shoes (2 pair), dresser, bed. Some of the paint is unable to be removed from my bed. I've included in this cleanup assosicated with the complete trashing of my bookshelf, which is my filing system for my research.

In about two weeks, I'm also commencing a lawsuit against you. I don't have time, now, because I'm trying to finish a novel, efforts that are constantly impeded by your management of your property. I expect to ask for around $2,100 for invasion of privacy (per fine structures set out in MN statutes), and half my rent back for the time I've been living with you, because of your complete negligence of duties. Total: ~$5,000

Furthermore, I will be posting a letter to the IRS, informing them that, as far as I can reckon, for the past ten (10) years you have collected monies for rent, and I don't believe you have paid taxes on them. I will inform them that at my current rate (x2 for double occupancy) the delinquent amount could be as high as $144,000. That constitutes somewheres around $45,000 in back taxes, not to mention interest, fines, and other sundry enforcement. Several of your past renters have agreed to supply affidavits testifying as such. This is, of course, not something you have to worry about if you have paid your taxes appropriately.

As to the "sculpture" (the high school art project) I came home and found it like that one day. The reason it's in my room was because I intended to glue it back together, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Best Regards,
Starving Artist