Dear Martin Story by Nancy Neville (The Hoarder Tenant)

[Account Closed]

Dear Martin

Martin was a 57 year old male. He was single and said he took care of his sick mother who was in a wheel chair. He appeared to be a shy little man and somewhat boyish. His Italian accent was cute, and he was indeed likable, not only to the neighbors, but to my husband as well, and everyone kept after me to rent to him, and so I did, against all my better judgment.

About two weeks later, my husband goes to Martins apartment to check out the bathroom ceiling that had been damaged from a leak from the upstairs apartment and what my husband found was extraordinary! It turns out that Dear Martin was a “Hoarder”. Only two weeks into renting this apartment he had junk piled half way up the walls in every room loaded with boxes of diapers, soaps and shampoos and oven containers of food. My husband took pictures for evidence and I sent a letter to him . Dear Martin…... and everything was fine for a little while, so we thought.

It was February now and we get a call from our upstairs tenant stating that she hasn’t any water so my husband meets our handyman at her apartment and finds all the pipes are froze in the basement. They find that a window has been opened and is cracked. My husband and our handyman knock on Martins door to see if his pipes were frozen but there was no answer, and being an emergency they let themselves in finding Martins pipes frozen as well but not busted and that Martin had turned his heat completely off. My husband turned it back on and I wrote another letter to him. Dear Martin…..

A few days later Martin calls and tells me that he tired of my Dear Martin letters and tells me that his furnace doesn’t work and that it is a piece of junk. That he called the utility company out to look at it and that they told him that it needs a control panel. So, I call our Heating Contractor and he goes over there and installs a Starter Kit after checking the furnace out. After he leaves a few hours later I get a call from Dear Martin.

He tells me that our Heating Contractor is an Idiot, that the furnace is still a piece of junk and the furnace is blowing out cold air and that he called the utility company back out to check the furnace again and they said the furnace was working okay, and that they were an Idiot. And that he is going to fix the furnace HIMSELF! Right then and there I knew I would not be renewing his lease (he was on month to month). So I send him another letter….Dear Martin….

I send him a 30 day notice to quit terminating his tenancy with us, making his last day with us April 1st. But in March the upstairs tenant calls us again and says that her washing machine is not working. When our handyman went to check it out, they find that all the fuses and wiring were tampered with. That the fuses were in different boxes and that the electric box was sitting on the floor.

Martin finds our handyman in the basement and goes up to him and tells him he’s an idiot, but our handyman, very easy going, ignores Dear Martin and walks outside to his truck and notices that Martin is building a huge picket fence in the backyard that would duplicate the fence around the Alamo. So I send him another letter….Dear Martin….

Once again I get a phone call from Dear Martin and he says, “Nancy, this is your Dear Martin, with that funny little accent he had. “I’m calling from the devils house and the Beast, and I’m not done with you yet!” He tells me that the guys who are installing a new roof on the house are idiots and illegal Mexicans and that they won’t listen to him tell them how to do their job. That they are idiots. He tells me that I kiss the tenants butt upstairs and she pays less rent than him and that it isn’t right. (Her rent is actually higher than his). He tells me he is going to dismantle the furnace because it’s a piece of junk and that he is going to change the locks and LOCK US OUT! And that the reason he is building a fence in the backyard is to keep John and myself out of the home.

A few days later he sends me a Cashier’s check for $1600.00 to pay his rent in advance 4 months, despite the fact I sent him a 30 day notice to quit terminating his tenancy with us on April 1st. I deduct March’s rent from the money and return the rest with another letter…Dear Martin.

When he receive my letter he calls back and says, “This is NONSENSE! I am a good tenant. I pay you 4 months in advance. You are an IDIOT! We will just let the Judge decide if you are wrong or me. I told him that this isn’t a case of me being wrong or you being wrong. It is a simple case of me not renewing your lease. I don’t want to rent to you anymore. You have to move. But he still insisted we go to court and so we did.

When John and I arrive at the court house and enter the court room, I was shocked to see how crowded the court room was. It normally is crowded, (about 300 tenant court cases heard each day at this court house) but today was even more crowded. And I was surprised to see Dear Martin standing next to the wall of the court room with an old lady in a wheel chair because I had never seen her before. And he was in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt while the old woman was in a heavy woolen coat that look like it was made in Russia with a babushka wrapped around her head, muff, mittens and was slumped half way out of her wheel chair, most likely from heat exhaustion as it was a terribly warm day out and even warmer inside the court room, with all these people. Luckily John and I found a seat and waited for the Judge to call our case.

While waiting for our case to be called we kept watching that old lady. She looked horrible. So wrapped up and hanging over her wheel chair. She never moved. I looked at my husband and asked, "Is she dead?" And he said, "I don't think so". But we really didn't know.

When our case was called I went up to the front of the court room and took my place at the Plaintiff’s Table, and Dear Martin started to push the wheel chair with the old lady through the narrow gate leading into the interior where the plaintiffs and defendants stand. But the wheel chair was too big, it wouldn't fit, and the more he tried to shove her through the narrow little space, the more she bounced from left to right and almost flipped right out of the wheel chair and almost on her head!

The Judge jumped off of her chair and across the desk and shouted, ‘What’s going on here”! You can’t bring that wheel chair in here. Then she looked at me and I said, “Your Honor, I don’t even know who she is”, and she looked at Dear Martin and he said, “She’s my mother, she my mother”, and I said, “Your Honor, that is not his mother, his mother lives in Italy”, so the Judge made him leave her outside the gate where the onlookers were seated.

Finally the Judge gets herself situated and she says to Dear Martin. “Your landlady has chosen not to renew your lease why haven’t you moved”. Martin replies. I am a good tenant. I pay my rent. She have no reason to make me leave". The Judge says to him. "She doesn’t need a reason to not renew your lease. You have 10 days to move." He says to her, “But I am on a year’s lease!” And the Judge looks at me with a glare in her eyes. I said, “Your Honor, he’s on a month to month". She looks at him. “But I pay my rent 4 months in advance". She looks at me. “Your Honor, I sent him back his money and showed her the check I sent him. She says to him "She sent you back your check". He says," but not all of it", and she says," No you owed her for April". He says." I NEED MORE TIME!" The judge says" that depends on your landlord and asks me, do you wish to give him more time, and I said, "no your Honor", and she says to him, "she doesn’t want to give you more time. You have 10 days to move!" I said thank you your Honor and as I turn to leave he shouts out, "But your Honor she locked me out"! Once again she looks at me with a glare, and I said," You’re Honor I never locked him out, my husband and I haven’t even been by the house at all since all this started". She once again told Dear Martin "you have 10 days". And when he tried to protest again she had the Bailiff remove him from the court room and as the bailiff is removing him he is shouting with his finger in the air, "I will appeal, I will appeal all the way outside the court room and into the hallway where there were a ton of people waiting their turn to get into the court room.

While out in the hall waiting for our Judgment, Dear Martin comes up to my husband (his final mistake) and says to him," I will appeal". My husband, cool, calm, and collected says to him, ‘Look, the Judge gave you 10 days to move and by God you’re going to be out”. If you knew my husband you would know that he is a man to be reckoned with and Dear Martin must have sensed it because he backed off, got out of our way, and he did move. Thank goodness my husband didn’t have to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Nancy Neville