tonight was really truly exasperating.

i'm supposed to call somebody a little after18:00, and i get a machine. so, i take a random guess at one of the places nobody picks up at - and get through to somebody.

this is a big basement for cheap; it seems like it's what i want. so, i'm excited to get down there.

when the landlord shows up, i take a quick run through, and it's clear i want to sign the lease. but, he seems intent on putting me through a "stress test" to ensure i'm not schizophrenic.

in some sense, it was like having an interview with a lewis carroll character - not because it was patently absurd, but because it was clearly unserious. he's trying to bait me on things like the moon landing, and jew-hating - things i actually have subtle perspectives on, subtle perspectives that can be easily smeared or misconstrued. i have no idea whether we actually went to the moon or not, and i'm not about to make an argument one way or another - but, see, this is the correct argument, because it's almost impossible to make a reasonable deduction, due to the difficulty of the evidence, all around.

i'm not really interested in the arguments against the moon landing - they've mostly been debunked. but, that doesn't prove we went; that's a classical fallacy. try to convincingly prove we did land. you can't.

i actually caught him in a few contradictions.

see, at the end of it, he's the one that sounded nuts - but i'm not sure if it was serious or not. and, i'm kind of left unsure of how to walk away from it.

if this was an honest representation of the guy, he seemed like he belonged in an asylum. but, i don't think it was; and, if he was fucking with me for some strange reason, it doesn't change the fact that i liked the unit - and that i need to move asap.

he gave me a lease with something incoherent scribbled on it and asked me to call him later on. i sent him some links, instead. i may follow-up in a day or two.

i have never been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and i'm not sure why he'd be convinced i have it based on such a brief encounter, and no evidence - but perhaps trying to work through conspiracy logic is a little bit pointless, too.

in the end, i listened to this guy rant for almost an hour.

i checked my messages when i got home just before 21:00, and the initial guy asked me to come in sunday morning.

i knew this was a trick, but i definitely don't want a christian landlord. so, i took the bait with intent. and, predictably...

"sorry. unit's been rented."

fuck.

i can't police this.

i don't want to.

i just hope we don't end up with an outburst of the plague.

i'm beginning to understand that the reason these ads say STUDENTS ONLY is not that they want students, but that they want to overcrowd the housing, and charge by the head.

white people won't tolerate these kinds of living arrangements.

but, if you can cram sixteen people into a house made for four, and the people living there have always lived that way anyways, then you've made four times as much money as you would be by following the standards of privacy we take for granted in western civilization.

the reality is that this city is quickly becoming a slum, in the third world meaning of the term.

so, i saw a small two bedroom apartment this afternoon, or tried to - a group of five indian males had beat me to it, and i walked into the negotiation.

i was hoping to secure a two bedroom apartment for $800, which was the list price. but, he decided that, if there are going to be five people living in the two bedroom apartment, he should charge them $300 each.

for utilities.

so, they got there first and put down an offer of nearly twice as much. i didn't waste my breath arguing the point. but, it helped me understand the situation a little bit better.

regardless of the size of the apartment or of the number of people in the party, i cannot compete against this. if a two bedroom is listed at $800, and they come in with a party of five at $300 each, i lose. even a party of three at $300 each beats me. if a one bedroom apartment is listed for $700, and they want to come in with a party of three at $350/person, i lose, too.

but, how did we get these thousands of indian students, all of a sudden? this is crazy.

we shouldn't be having people living in close quarters like this, but so long as they keep offering these kinds of payments to landlords, the landlords are going to take them.

they also carried forward without a lease, which is telling. these kids don't know what they're doing. and, the landlord didn't want to tell them.

to a certain extent, they're being taken advantage of. the problem here is the landlord - he should not be renting out a two bedroom apartment to a group of five students. that's irresponsible and greedy.

but, if this is what is happening, i cannot compete with it. i need to find the right kinds of landlords, instead...

and, fwiw.

i do believe i still have until the 10th to file an appeal that the rent reduction was too low. that would void the eviction notice.

i would rather leave, but i'll make a choice in two weekends.

if i do that, i will pay $525 rent on october 1st.

the reason the rent was reduced is because of the severity of the second-hand smoke - $700 was not a fair market value to pay in order to live in somebody else's filth. and, i actually believe that the court underestimated this. but, i made the best argument i could.

i think i did this once before, but let's understand what my court order actually did.

i signed a lease for $700 + hydro. i paid first & last's. and, i paid that rent for six more months.

but, the court order then did three things:

1) it ended the lease on sept 30th.
2) it reduced my rent to $525 for the last six months of my tenancy.
3) it ordered the landlord to pay moving costs.

so, the amount i owe the landlord is no longer $700/month, for ten months - but $700 for the first four months and then $525 for the last six months.

that means that i overpaid rent from april-june, by 3*175 = $525. this is the same as the amount of rent i didn't pay in july. so, i was entitled - by court order - to stay here for free in july.

as i paid last month's rent in december, i am also entitled to stay here for free for the month of september, with a balance of $175 - which i overpaid. so, that would reduce my august rent by a further $175, to $350. subtracting awarded moving costs, i have a balance of $50 to pay.

so, i am not withholding rent, at all. rather, my rent has been reduced by court order.

fwiw, the landlord has listed this unit on the market for $775, oblivious to anything that just happened. and, i hope the next tenant does the same thing.

the reason i did not pay the $50 for august is that i was hoping to move by september first, in which case the landlord would need to return my deposit - and the balance would be $650. and, if i can plan an escape in the next few days, still, i will place the landlord in collections for the balance owing - minus daily fees for however long i'm here.

if this situation is being presented differently, the people presenting it to you are being dishonest about it. it's one thing to disagree with the ruling. but, it's another to ignore it exists altogether.

it is very likely that i will pay the $50 in the next 72 hours, in which case the landlord and i will be even. the exception to this possibility happens if i sign a lease in the next 72 hours and vacate the unit promptly, in which case they will actually be required to return the remainder of the deposit.

i can have a judge explain this to you, if necessary.