“Jesse’s drinkin’ came before the groceries and the rent ...”
This line from The Baptism of Jesse Taylor by The Oak Ridge Boys describes perfectly the lifestyle of a guy who was once my drinking buddy. This guy was a full-fledged alcoholic by the age of 20 and for almost 30 years we hung together with booze as our constant companion.
I quit drinking in 2012 and have not touched a drop of the stuff since. It meant giving up certain habits and even acquaintances and I could no longer associate with this guy. For the rest of this piece I will refer to him as “Guy” although that’s not his real name. Those of you who are close to me will recognize who Guy is, and would I ask that you keep that to yourselves. He is, simply put, the biggest screw-up I’ve ever known, and you may get a chuckle out of some of the tales I relate.
Guy lived with his parents until he was 32 years old. He blasted the music on his stereo until all hours of the morning. Every day he drank until he passed out, with the music still blaring. His mom or dad would have to enter his room and turn the music off. When he finally came to, he was usually too hung over to go to work. He missed more days of work that he put in and never held on to a job for very long.
Every morning his mom cleaned out the overflowing ash tray and picked up the empty beer bottles. Another day, another twenty-four empties.
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How Guy ever managed to hang on to his apartment for 15 years before being kicked to the curb is a constant source of wonderment to me. His dad eventually stopped subsidizing his rent and he continually fell behind in the payments. Beer and cigarettes took priority over the rent. To make up for the shortfall in the budget, he borrowed from everyone, his lawyer sister being the main source.
One day Guy showed me a notice he’d received from the Landlord and Tenant Board. The landlord had scheduled a hearing at which they would ask the board to grant an eviction order for unpaid rent. You’d better go to that meeting, I told him. I can’t, he said - I have to be at work. Your choice, I said, but if you don’t show up they’ll probably get an order.
Some time later his sister contacted me and said that her brother, true to form, did not show up at the hearing and the landlord got an eviction order that they could enforce at any time. She didn’t have the time to look after it and was not familiar with tenancy law in any case. She knew that I’d had experience with the Small Claims Court system and because it is similar to how the tenancy board operates, she asked if I’d help.
I am neither a lawyer nor a paralegal but I had years of watching Judge Wapner on The Peoples Court under my belt. In those days you could represent Small Claims litigants as their “agent.” I helped several people win their cases against rogue towing companies. I successfully sued one of them myself and won a large judgment which included hefty punitive damages.
Guy could appeal the eviction order by applying to the board for a hearing at which he would have to give reasons why the order should be lifted. The first thing he would have to do is bring all rent arrears up to date. He would have to swear an affidavit outlining the date and method of all payments made.
He borrowed from a bunch of people, even me, and his sister commissioned the affidavit. Then he would have to go to the board’s office and pick up a package with instructions for launching the appeal.
Fast forward about a month and I get another call from the sister. No one showed up at the appeal and the board left the eviction order in place. She asked me if there was anything more that could be done.
I was astonished to learn that Guy could appeal the appeal. It was called a request for reconsideration or something like that. He would have to pay a $50 fee and provide a damn good reason why he should get another kick at the can.
Why in God’s name didn't you attend the appeal when you went to all that trouble to pay the back rent and get an affidavit signed? I asked incredulously. He never picked up the package from the board. (“I had to be at work.”) Well, for Christ’s sake. The package contained the date and time of the hearing, a Notice of Appeal to be served on the landlord and an Affidavit of Service to be filed with the board as proof that the landlord had been served. Since the landlord was not notified of an appeal, they of course did not show up.
The only explanation I could think of was that Guy did not understand the procedure. He would not have gone through the process of paying all arrears and swearing an affidavit if he wasn't serious about an appeal, I argued. The board somehow bought it. They scheduled a hearing.
This time I made damn sure he attended and I went with him. The meeting went quickly. The lawyer for the landlord explained to us how it would work. He would rise when the chair asked if there were resolutions, he would state that all arrears were paid and ask for the order to be stayed. “You dodged a bullet,” the chairman said to Guy.
A few more months passed and I got a call from Guy. He was living with his parents again after 15 years. He’d been evicted. The board had stayed the order, but not rescinded it. The landlord still had the order in their back pocket. It could be enforced whenever the landlord wanted. The very next time he fell behind with the rent, they called the sheriff, who came and changed the locks while Guy was at work.
Since then (2013), the tenancy laws have changed and there is no more appeal of the appeal. The tenant gets one shot to get it right. But the law still highly favours the tenant and a landlord can incur large financial losses if they are unfortunate enough to be saddled with a professional deadbeat.
As for the money I loaned to Guy, I had to think of innovative ways to recoup at least a portion of my losses. But that’s another story.
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