"Give him hell!"

As I have previously written, my landlord is quite the dick. For the last 10 days (since May 14), we have not had working outlets or light in half of the apartment. Allie and I, since day 1 have been calling Joe (the landlord) at work, and on his cell phone, leaving many messages ( I feel bad for his poor secretary, but I guess she must get angry phone calls a lot considering her boss is an idiot.) Of course, wonderful Joe has not returned any of our calls.

I finally reached him on his cell phone on Saturday. He told me that we needed to turn off and on all the switches on the circuit breaker. Both Allie and I did that, but I guess since we are two young girl's, he thought that we did not know how to do this correctly. He came on Monday to do the exact same thing we had already done with the circuit breaker, and surprise!, it did not fix the problem.

Backtrack to 9 months ago. When Allie and I first moved in, both of the knobs on our doors were falling of the hinges. We knew that Joe would not fix them, so we each paid $10 for new doorknobs with locks on them for privacy. Joe did not like this. Apparently it is against the law. I have not listened to him to remove these doorknobs because I hate him, and I really do not believe it against the law.

So today, I finally was able to reach him. Instead of apologizing or offering a solution to our outlet problem, he starts getting on me about changing the doorknobs. I told him "We will change the doorknobs as soon as you fix our outlet problem." Then he told me again that it was the circuit breaker. He said that he is going to get an electrician in tomorrow, but I doubt it. Then again about the doorknobs. I told him "Joe, I am not going to go out of my way to change the doorknobs. We put them in in the first place because they were broken, and we knew you were not going to fix them. It is not a priority for me to change them when you have not done anything for the last 10 days about our not having working outlets in half of the apartment."

To this, he started stammering and saying that he has been trying to get in contact with me. The only number he has of mine is my cell phone, and I have seen no missed calls from this moron, and neither has Allie. He stammered a bit more, and said that the electrician would be in tomorrow, and when we get a chance, could we please take care of the doorknobs when we could.

My boss and co-workers overheard my conversation. John (my boss) IMed me while on the phone to "Give him hell!" I guess I tend to let people get away with stuff, and it was a great feeling to tell Joe off. I should do this more often!