[Lady Justice 40] - Lady Justice and the Landlords' Nightmare Read online

  Cautious landlords check past rental history to avoid renting to these creeps, but now they can’t. The new ordinance has made those with prior evictions a protected class, and to deny someone based on their eviction record puts the landlord in danger of a discrimination suit.

  “Have you consulted a lawyer about this?” Kevin asked.

  “I’ve talked to several attorneys. They all agree we might have a case, but none of them are interested in taking on City Hall. They say we’re tilting at windmills. You know the old saying, ‘You can’t fight City Hall.’”

  Clark had to add his two cents worth. “That may be true, but like Wayne Gretzky said, ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ Another sage has said, ‘If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.’ You just haven’t found the right attorney yet. One who has some guts.”

  I thought about Clark’s comment. I knew of one attorney who had no trouble going against City Hall, Suzanne Romero. She is a stickler for the letter of the law, and prosecuting attorneys know that if the cops have cut corners or they haven’t dotted their I’s and crossed their T’s, Suzanne will expose them in court.

  She had defended Ox and I when we had been framed for murder by a couple of corrupt cops, and Mary Murphy when she had been prosecuted by an over-zealous attorney for shooting a creep who had broken into her apartment and threatened her with a knife.

  I, in turn, had helped her clear several of her clients who had been wrongly accused. Through all of this, we had formed a bond of mutual respect.

  “I know an attorney who isn’t afraid of City Hall. Let’s run this by her and if she thinks we have a case, we’ll go from there.”

  Darrin smiled. “Thanks. I’m good with that.”

  I called Suzanne and later that day, Keven, Darrin and I were seated in her office.

  I had Darrin relate his sad story just as he had for us. Suzanne listened intently as he shared how the new ordinance had put his financial security in jeopardy.

  When he had finished, Suzanne took a deep breath.

  “The moment I read the provisions in the Tenant Bill of Rights, I feared there would be consequences. Your story is a perfect example.”

  “So,” Darrin asked, expectantly, “can we sue the city?”

  “You may have a case,” she replied, “but there are procedures. Before you can sue, you must file a claim with the city and have it denied. To do this, you get a claim form from the local city clerk. Often, the city attorney will be in charge of reviewing your claim and making a recommendation to the city council. Sometimes the recommendation will be to pay you, but often it will be to deny the claim.

  “In your case, the city will undoubtedly deny your claim. Once you receive your denial letter, you may file your suit.”

  “Great!” Darrin gushed. “Let’s get started.”

  “Not so fast,” Suzanne admonished. “Once we go to court, we have to have rock-solid proof that the new ordinance is the proximate cause of your current troubles. Remember, the reason the city passed this ordinance was to protect tenants who are having some temporary struggles in their life. Our job will be to prove that the ordinance is also protecting professional rent dodgers and hurting the very people who are responsible for providing housing to Kansas City’s renters.”

  “But how do we do that?” Darrin asked.

  Several things had popped into my mind while Suzanne was speaking. “I think I might have some ideas.”

  Suzanne smiled. “I thought you might.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Okay,” Darrin said as we headed back to my office, “how do you propose we get the goods on Henry Cosgrove?”

  “Didn’t you say that one of your tenants moved out?”

  “Yeah, I did, and more are threatening to move if I don’t get him out of there.”

  “So you have a vacant unit in the building?”

  He nodded.

  “Good! This is what I have in mind. We’ll put a new tenant in there. One that will get chummy with Cosgrove. It probably won’t be difficult to get Cosgrove to brag about his rent dodging. When our guy gets the conversation on tape, we’ll have him.”

  “Sounds good, but where are we going to find a new tenant who will buy into our scheme?”

  “Just leave that to me.” I turned to Kevin. “Do you happen to have one of those little recording pens at your place?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  “Good, let’s swing by your place and pick one up.”

  “What now?” Darrin asked as Kevin climbed back in the car.

  “Now we go recruit your new tenant.”

  “Where?”

  “The Three Trails Hotel.”

  “The one on Linwood? I’ve heard about that place. It’s a dump.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s my dump.”

  Darrin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You! You own the Three Trails?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Sorry. I’d didn’t mean to offend.”

  “No apology necessary. I concur completely. It’s definitely a dump.”

  The Three Trails Hotel is the other property I own. When I sold all my other rentals, no one was interested in taking on the old eyesore.

  It’s composed of twenty sleeping rooms that share four hall baths. Each room has one twin bed, one chair, and a small dresser. The rent for this meager dwelling is forty bucks a week. A landlord friend of mine once said, “Everybody has to be somewhere.” Most of the tenants are either old guys barely scraping by on Social Security checks or younger guys trying to eek out a living working out of the day labor pool. For these guys, forty bucks a week is all they can afford. If it wasn’t for the Three Trails, they would probably be homeless.

  There is a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor. It is occupied by Mary Murphy, my housemother, who runs the place and keeps the tenants in line. Although the Three Trails has a tarnished reputation, Mary makes sure everyone follows the rules. No smoking, no drugs, no cooking in the rooms, no loud noise, and no overnight guests.

  When we pulled up in front of the hotel, Mary was rocking on the front porch.

  “Hey, Mr. Walt. Hey, Kevin.” Then she spotted Darrin. “If you’re lookin’ for a room for this guy, it ain’t gonna happen. We’re full.”

  “No, Mary, this is a friend of mine, Darrin Wilcox. By any chance is Randy Davis here?”

  “Yeah, he just got back. He’d been waiting all day at the labor pool but they didn’t have anything for him today. He was really down in the dumps.”

  “Thanks, I may have a temporary job for him.”

  Randy had been a tenant at the Three Trails for the last three years. He was a good kid, but just couldn’t seem to get the break he needed to get ahead.

  We climbed the stairs and reached the second floor just as Mr. Feeney was coming out of the #2 bathroom.

  “Mr. Walt. Good to see you.”

  I was about to respond, but my words were muffled by my gag reflex.

  The pungent aroma drifting into the hall did not go unnoticed by Kevin and Darrin.

  “Good Lord!” Darrin muttered, wiping the tears from his eyes.

  Mr. Feeney, of course, was unfazed. “I was just heading down to see Mary. Ran out of toilet paper.”

  “She’s --- uhhh --- cough --- on the front porch.”

  Thankfully, Randy’s room was on the far end of the hall.

  I knocked, and when Randy opened the door, he sniffed. “Wow! Mr. Feeney is extra ripe today.”

  “Hi Randy. I might have a job for you. May we come in?”

  “Sure,” he replied, stepping aside, “I’m always lookin’ for work.”

  After the introductions, I said, “What we have for you is a bit unusual.”

  He listened carefully as I outlined our plan.

  When I finished, he just shook his head. “You mean this guy does this on purpose? Moves into a place and never pays no more?”

  I nodded.

  “That just ain’t
right. So what you want me to do is move into the building, make friends with the guy and get him to spill the beans about what he’s doin’.”

  “Yes,” Kevin said, handing Randy the pen. “You have to get the conversation recorded. This pen is a recording device. All you have to do to activate it is press the top just like you would a regular pen.”

  Randy took the pen, his eyes wide. “Well damn! This is just like 007! I’ll be an honest-to-goodness spy!”

  Then he frowned. “I’d sure like to help you, but I can’t afford no nice apartment like that. I can barely come up with the forty bucks a week for this place.”

  “Not a problem,” I replied. “You won’t be paying any rent as long as you’re there. In fact, if you get the information you need, I’ll give you a full month here, rent free.”

  His frown turned into a smile again. “Really! Wow! This is my lucky day! Thank you, Mr. Williams.”

  “You’re welcome. Now pack your things and we’ll take you to your new temporary home.”

  As we passed the #2 bathroom, Randy said, “I’ll actually be livin’ somewhere I don’t have to smell Mr. Feeney.”

  His comment made me pause and think. You don’t realize how fortunate you are until you’ve walked in another man’s shoes.

  Darrin took Randy to the six-plex. Although it was unfurnished, Darrin had a few pieces of furniture in the basement that previous tenants had left behind. It was enough to get Randy started.

  Kevin gave Randy a burner cell phone and everyday he called to give us a progress report. Cosgrove was standoffish at first, but after a few conversations he began to realize that Randy was just another dude much like himself. He began to open up and one evening invited Randy into his apartment for a beer. After that, they became quite chummy.

  At that point, I figured it was time for Randy to make his move. I coached him thoroughly on what to say and do.

  The next day, he called. “I think I got what you want.”

  I called Kevin and Darrin. We picked up Randy and headed back to my office.

  “I did exactly like you told me,” he said, handing me the pen. “I was waiting on the front step when Cosgrove got home from work.”

  I handed the pen to Kevin. I had no idea how it worked. Kevin removed a small chip from the pen, plugged it into my computer, and adjusted the sound.

  The first voice I heard was Cosgrove’s. “Hey, Randy, my man. Why the long face? You look like crap.”

  “I feel like crap. I got laid off today. No warning. They just called me into the office and said they were downsizing. I had just got enough money to rent this place and now I’m out of work. If I can’t find a job real soon, I’ll have to move.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Actually, Randy, you don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You don’t have to move.”

  “If I don’t have a paycheck, what choice do I have?”

  “You just stay here and don’t pay.”

  “But if I don’t pay, I’ll get evicted.”

  “Yes, you will, but let me tell you how it works. It will take at least three months, maybe four, for the landlord to go through the eviction process. You don’t pay another dime. When your time runs out, you just move on.”

  “Really? How do you know about all this?”

  “Because that’s what I’m doin’ right now. I paid my first month’s rent and deposit when I moved in and I haven’t paid a cent since. I know the landlord has filed for eviction, but I haven’t even been served yet.”

  “But once you’re evicted, won’t it be hard to find another place with that on your record?”

  “Not really. I’ve been evicted three times. This is my fourth. Up till now, I had to make a lot of applications before I found a landlord that didn’t check references. Now it don’t matter. The city just passed a new ordinance that says a landlord can’t keep you out because of prior evictions.”

  “Really? That’s crazy.”

  “Hey, I didn’t write the dumb law, but I’m sure glad they did.”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “Hey, look around. This place has to be worth at least a quarter mil. The landlord is rollin’ in dough. He won’t miss a few month’s rent.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “Well! There it is!” Darrin exploded. “Rich landlord, my ass! He doesn’t know that I’ve got a $224,000.00 mortgage staring me in the face each month.”

  Kevin turned off the recorder and Randy looked at each of us. “Did I do good?”

  “Yes, Randy,” I replied, smiling. “You did real good.”

  The next day, we played the recording for Suzanne Romero.

  “Perfect!” she said, smiling, “but this is just one case. We may need more in order to establish a pattern. See what else you can come up with.”

  One of the many things in the recording that particularly disturbed me was the statement Cosgrove made that he hadn’t been served with eviction papers yet.

  One of the skills that rent dodgers develop is the ability to avoid being served. If they’re home, they don’t answer the door, knowing that a summons will soon be coming.

  The way the law works, a tenant has to be personally served for the landlord to be awarded monetary damages in court. Unfortunately, the process servers hired by the court are so overwhelmed with work, they usually try once and if they aren’t successful, they return the summons ‘non est’ meaning they couldn’t find and serve the guy.

  Sometimes the poor landlord doesn’t realize that the summons was not served for weeks and then they have to start the process all over again.

  The way some landlords avoid this problem is to have the summons posted. In that event, the process server just posts the summons on the renter’s door. When that happens, the landlord can be awarded possession of the unit in court, but cannot be awarded a financial judgement. Many landlords go this route knowing that if they get a financial judgement, collection of the debt is quite iffy. Collection agencies have a meager 17% success rate collecting rental judgements.

  I had no doubt that Cosgrove was well aware of this and had been successful in dodging the summons.

  After hearing Cosgrove’s blatant confession, I wanted to give the guy a hard time. I had Darrin instruct his attorney to name me as the process server. Unlike the court servers, I had all the time in the world to track down the creep and shove the papers into his hand.

  After picking up the summons at the court house, Kevin and I waited outside the six-plex.

  “Are you planning to nail him as soon as he comes out?” Kevin asked.

  I thought for a moment. “No, let’s follow him to his work. It’s more embarrassing to be served in front of your boss and co-workers.”

  At that moment, Cosgrove left the building and headed to his car. We followed him to Happy Jack’s Used Car Emporium. The wording on the sign said, “No credit, no problem. We finance anyone.”

  “Right!” Kevin said, reading the sign. “They take a down payment from some poor schmuck, give him a high interest loan, and when the guy can’t pay, they send Cosgrove to repo the car and they start all over again with another sucker. Come on, let’s go get this guy.”

  We were just getting out of the car when Cosgrove came back out.

  “That was quick,” I said. “I’ll bet he’s headed out to do a repo. Let’s follow him.”

  Sure enough, about ten blocks from Jack’s Auto Emporium, Cosgrove pulled up behind a late model Hummer. He approached the big car, making sure he was repossessing the right vehicle.

  I was just getting out of the car when the owner of the Hummer came out of the house. He was a huge brute. He could have been a defensive lineman for any pro football team.

  He shouted at Cosgrove. “Hey! Get away from my car!”

  “Sorry, pal,” Cosgrove shouted back. “You’re three payments behind. I’m taking it back.”

  The brute came charging down the steps.
“The hell you are.”

  At that moment, I sprinted up to Cosgrove and shoved the summons into his hand. “Henry Cosgrove, you’ve been served.”

  He looked at me, then he looked at the behemoth charging down the sidewalk. The look on his face was priceless. I couldn’t wait to tell Darrin.

  Timing is everything.

  CHAPTER 9

  A few days later, I received a call from Darrin.

  “Walt, I’ve got another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “Another landlord who’s been screwed by the new Tenant Bill of Rights.”

  I had told him about Suzanne saying we would need more before filing our claim.

  “Great! Bring him over.”

  I called Kevin and thirty minutes later, the four of us were in my office.

  “Walt, this is Milo Bridges.” He turned to Milo. “Tell Walt and Kevin what you’re going through.”

  Milo took a deep breath. “I have this rental house on Euclid. I’ve owned it for fifteen years. I almost have it paid off. I’ve always been very careful who I rent to. I pay a company to have any prospective tenant checked out. But now, with this new Bill of Rights, the company tells me I can’t refuse to rent to someone based on prior evictions or criminal history. About all there is to check is their employment and I can do that myself. I don’t need to pay someone to verify where they work.

  “Anyway, this guy makes an application and his employment checks out, so I rent the place to him.”

  “And now, he’s not paying?” Kevin asked.

  “No, nothing like that,” Milo replied. “He pays right on time.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”