UN - believable.
The cacophony of lies spewing from Mary's mouth in the courtroom - just incredible. Too many to list. The thing that made my jaw drop is that she had taken pics of the work she had done - and included ALL the work I had done on the east side of the house - a thing which she had nothing to do with - as part of HER work!
Because Mary and I bantered back and forth for quite a while through email, there was a lot for the judge to take in. As Fin so aptly noted a while back, I don't envy that judge. I started from the beginning when she moved in and went all the way through until today. Mary started her lies - threw in some truth here and there - but was obviously getting emotional - erratic and confused. SHE confused the judge several times. The way she speaks and tries to explain things is VERY confusing. The judge sat back at one point, looked at Mary and said "I'm confused. I was with you all the up until" the point that she started going on a safari excursion of lies and make-belief. We travelled through Africa and probably parts of China in this incredible, made-up story of hers.
At the end of it - and darn it went on a long time - the judge found for me. My court costs and partial rent. She had was trying to convince the judge that she owed me NOTHING for the month of January, I was adament that she owes me the full amount for that month. The problem is, back in - October I think - I wrote her an email that - was ill-advised. The email was intended to show Mary how far off she was on her figures, and then I said something like, let's say that this is all true - and that I DID give you $200 for 2 months in rent concessions. The judge took that literally and gave her the extra couple of hundred in concessions.
Live and learn, is what I can say about this situation. I actually wouldn't be opposed to having someone living here doing some amount of work for a specified amount of rent off. But - it would all have to be very detailed and spelled out to the extreme on the rental agreement. Again, the reason I didn't include it on the rental agreement with Mary is because she said on the day she came over here, after I told her I had deleted that Craigslist ad with the offering, that she didn't want it anyway. Otherwise, I would have clearly spelled out on that agreement the terms of the "work for reduced rent" and there would have been no questioning it.
She denied in court - in a very animated fashion I might add - that I had said that I would only go $100 off. I told her that even though she said she didn't want it.
Now? $200 judgment and the writ of restitution can be issued in 5 days. Another $103 bucks to do that. I figure I will be forced to do so, unfortunately. The judge offered to her to pay me in court, right then and there, and that would satisify the judgement - but she said she didn't have any money.
Now, she's eventually going to come back here, undoubtedly, and then what? I have NO clue. What kind of stuff might she start? Or will she ask to stay? Or does she even understand that she has to leave? I am starting to understand now that it's the way she sees things that convalutes her thinking. I don't know what to think about her. I'm afraid things might get ugly - but that's just me. She's been acting very nice in the last few weeks. I have video surveillance on 24 hours a day, recording. If she comes in here - I will be standing right in front of it. Must find my mini-cassette recorder in case - just in case - she starts something.
Ahhh, found it. It's a small electronic gadget that gives me much comfort - the audible recording of anyone saying whatever.
I could say that I am switching gears and moving on to something else for today, but I can't. Court was intense. I had to find a lot of documents in a short period of time. I was ready, but still. Mary started speaking very fast - she was extremely agitated. The experience wasn't bad just because of the judge. He had a difficult task in attempting to sort out all of this mess and I can say that I was happy with the result. It ain't as much as I wanted, but just to get any judgement - $200.00 - was enough, especially with the check in the box near the bottom of the document we both received at the end stating that a Writ of Restitution will be issued after 5 days. That state does that to allow the person time to get their stuff and get out. I do NOT want to have to deal with Mary's stuff.
Okay, I'll try to do some gear shifting. I was over at Benita's blog yesterday and she was asking about the house fire. I understand that there are numerous new readers here and I would like to document that day and all that happened as much as memory serves. The day was more like a streak of light - it all happened fast and things came into play very quickly to help us out. The city of Phoenix definitely has a good plan for this kind of emergency.
Anyway, I bid you all well and maybe c'ya later.
ben
