One Great Movie and the Royal Screw Job

 
Not necessarily in that order.

It’s remarkable that I was just complaining about the gangbangers that own our building. It turns out that they’re in the business of extortion now.

No, not the actual gangbangers, they don’t have the brains for that. I’m talking about Fleck Property Management. Yes, that’s right, the ones who wouldn’t come and fix the smoke detectors. The people who can’t seem to change a light bulb until someone goes toppling down the outside stairs. Those same geniuses who told us that they wouldn’t do anything about our ant problem – even when the ants turned out to be termites. The masterminds who, after a visit from the health inspector, came to fix the termite eaten wall with a piece of decorative wood trim, and then never came back to paint it like they promised. The one-and-the-same folks who let raw sewage pour into my carport for a week before sending anyone to fix it, and even then, they just left the sewage sitting there to dry into a hard cement of toilet paper and poo.

I tell you honestly, if it weren’t for the health inspector, nothing would get done around here. And luckily, the health inspector is a nice guy.

Anyway, the captains of industry at Fleck Property Management have now raised our rent. It seems that doing nothing has gotten more expensive these days. Maybe they just want to add a couple more choices to the ol’ corporate office vending machine? Who am I to question, right?

I knew it was coming. Even here, in this crap-hole. The DHS gave this place a risk-factor of medium.

If you live in LA and want to see what the health inspector said about your place the last time they visited, go here or here (channel 4's link).
 
(Or go to the DHS main page to see if you can find the same type of thing for your area.)

Anyway, the bastards raised our rent $25.50! But they also did something that I’ve never heard of before, they raised our security deposit! I don’t understand how you could raise the security deposit. Seems to me like we had an agreement. I mean, should I be waiting for a visit from the good people at Ikea, telling me that I now owe an extra hundred bucks for the entertainment center we bought a couple years ago just because the price has gone up now?

On top of all that, they are requiring that we hire professional licensed contractors to clean the apartment when we finally move out. We have to get their credentials in writing and have them approved by Fleck Property Management before they can begin work. Then we have to pay the contractors for their work.

So would someone please explain to me exactly why our security deposit went up?!

It’s not going toward security, I can tell you that. If it were, then someone would stop the annoying phone companies from delivering new phone books every thirty days!

It’s goddamned robbery, I tell you! Well, they better be prepared for a fight! They’re going to fix those smoke detectors if it’s the last thing I do!

Go visit their site and laugh at their “promise” section.

Assholes!

 
Fun Fact:  On a lighter note. I went and saw one of my favorite movies again last night – on the big screen at Fox.

The Commitments! Yeah! If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you do. It has one of the best soundtracks of any movie ever made (I own the soundtrack, volume one and two). And it’s all around entertaining. Especially if you’ve ever been in a band. Marching band doesn’t count.

Unfortunately, neither Tanya nor I won a free DVD of the flick (the manager of Fox Movie Channel was raffling them off), but it was nice to see the film once again.

I got a little depressed when I noticed that The Commitments was originally released in 1991. That long ago? That was the year that I graduated from high school. It’s strange when you get older and reconcile your emotional timeline with the physical one. They never seem to match up right. How sad.

Screw Fleck!