Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be nice to people, nor to enter into a business deal in good faith. These kinds of things don't happen to us frequently but I know how hard Hubby works to do the right thing for people and then to have him abused in this manner rankles me.
Monday night during dinner he got a call from a woman who has a slumlord as a landlord. She's been without water she says, for 2 months. She's fed up with the inept attempts on the part of the landlord's grandson to fix the problem and she's willing to pay Hubby to do the job so that she can take a bath and flush the toilet again. So on Monday night he leaves the house right after dinner and doesn't get home until almost midnight. Then he goes back and in that downpur that we experienced yesterday, spends 10 hours working outside until he gets her running water. No money has exchanged hands, just a debit card number that will not be good until November 5, when her Social Security check goes into the bank. We didn't have a problem with this, it was a prior agreement that occured before Hubby started work.
Today, shortly after noon I received a call from the property owner stating that they were in the process of making the needed repairs to the well so that the tenant could have running water again. When her grandson arrived he found Hubby's work, and stated that it was not what was necessary and that what Hubby did was preventing him from doing his work. Mind you, the tenant stated that she had been without running water for close to two months. During that time, the grandson had come, worked 1 hour, told the tenant that he needed to get more parts and left. He did this every other day, and she was without water. Hubby worked 14 hours under some very trying conditions and when he left, she had water.
Anyways, the landlord stated that the work Hubby did was unauthorized and that she wanted us to remove our materials so her grandson could fix the job right. In New York State landowners have the final say on what does and doesn't occur on their property. I don't understand what the objection was, she wasn't being asked to pay the bill, the tenant was going to take care of that. She ordered us to remove our materials from her property and to not set foot on her property again. I notified Hubby, and then made arrangements for her grandson to meet with Hubby on the property in question because I didn't want any further accusations. We didn't want to do it, but what else could we do?
While he was on his way up there the tenant kept calling me asking for Hubby's cell phone number. I don't give it out and told her he'll be there to take back his materials within the hour, she could talk to him then. She threatened to call the Department of Health and Adult Protective Services because removing these items leaves an elderly man without running water. I told her she should have done that within days of the failure on the landlords part to repair the problem. Never occured to me that she meant to report Hubby. That's exactly what she did.
I received a call from Adult Protective Services from a man who was not very nice at first. It became apparent that the tenant complained ONLY against my husband. After 2 months of no water, never mentioned the landlord's failure to adequately correct the situation, just complained that my Hubby had removed his materials because he didn't get paid, thereby leaving her without running water.
I was furious, absolutely furious. I told her twice that the landlord was refusing to allow us to leave our materials there, even though they knew she would be without water if we removed them. I have no idea what she thought she was going to gain by this. After talking to the investigator and explaining the entire situation we both agreed that this wasn't morally right but the landlord does legally have the final say in what is and isn't on their property. Plus, he even said my husband was out the amount of money owed for the work done.
The adult protective investigator feels that we got caught in the middle of some kind of landlord/tenant dispute. I feel that there's more going on there than we know about and since we can't tell whose doing what to who we are better off out of it. The tenant claims she's been left waterless for 2 months. The landlord claims she hasn't been paid in 3 months. Hubby has a total of 14 hours labor in this mess for which he will never see a dime, plus he was accused of abusing the elderly man that lives there. I'm angry and flabbergasted by the whole deal. I think we need a new line of business, one that doesn't include having to deal with people.
