SHIT.

[dragonlady7]

I just went to check on my savings acct balance online while I paid my bills.

Half of my money is gone.

A check for $1500 was cashed on Nov 4th.

That's the am't of the rent at the last place I lived.

Instead of returning our deposit, the landlady promised to destroy the last rent check I'd given her, as that would be easier.

In the kerfuffle of moving, I never thought to call and have that check cancelled.

I've just confirmed that yup-- she cashed that check.

A check written is good for a year. We're just within that.

I now can't pay my bills for this month, or afford the repairs necessary to get Dave's car past inspection, or afford to re-register the car which should've been done months ago.


Also, a bill collection agency just got in touch with me, and apparently the gas company has been forwarding my last bill to some unknown address for this whole time now, and has turned it over to these collections people, who have finally found me, and by now that bill is huge.


My financial life, so carefully husbanded through this long period without income, is now officially shot to shit.
Pardon me while I crawl under the bed.

Comments

[qowf.livejournal.com]

Call that landlady immediately. Tell her if you don't have a check for her for the amount, or a pile of receipts saying why she kept your deposit, you will call the nearest tenants union, call a building inspector to your old place and make sure that her life is bleeding hell through every means you can find.

Don't crawl. Fight.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I called her answering machine and wept that she had promised to destroy that check, that i hoped this was a mistake, that I'd contacted my bank, that I hoped please please she'd contact me, that I was now in serious financial distress, etc.
But I don't know when she'll call me back.

I feel sick. I can't pay my bills. We're totally fucked. It's my own fault for not having more of a cushion, for letting the unemployment go this long. I knew Dave's savings would run out, that we'd have to rely on me for a while. i'd just sort of assumed I'd be able to find a job. I haven't been. I've been looking at all kinds of things 'beneath me' with the thought that it'd be easy to find work there, but it hasn't been.

And now that it's an emergency I'm no better able to find a job than I was when it was merely a depressing necessity. There's nothing on Monster that wasn't there last time I checked. And the place I got my bartending certificate that offers job placement still doesn't have any numbers to give me.

I can't think about anything else. But there's not really anything I can do right now but wait.

[qowf.livejournal.com]

Call the local tenants union. Learn your rights. You have them.

Call the local legal aid, talk to them.

You also can call your bank and report the check as fraud. You can contest the charge and there's a good chance you'll get it back in time. I just did that with a company. File a dispute over the check.

There's lots you can do; it's good you called, but get proactive on that bitch's ass.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she never called back.

My belief in it being a mistake is dwindling.

[(Anonymous)]

Call me later. We'll work up a good lawyer letter, and scare the shit out of her.

But I would also call legal aid, and see what they say too.

CP

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Stupid question:

What's legal aid?

[(Anonymous)]

Legal Aid is a program where low-income persons are able to retain a lawyer at no cost to them. They usually are supremely qualified, yet overworked individuals. Most legal aid offices have a landlord-tenant dispute department. Dave's cousin was a legal aid attorney in NYC.

Call the Westchester County Bar Association. They should have the phone number.

CP

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Thanks. That's what I thought but everyone kept referring to it in lower-case and I was confused what exactly it was.

Well, I think I'll wait for my bank to get back to me first, and possibly for the landlady to do so as well, just to see what all shakes out of it.


But in the meantime, does anybody have any ideas for a job for me? :-/

[(Anonymous)]

Before I started law school, I applied to some temp agencies. They usually pay relatively well, yet hourly, and there is always the option of leaving if you dont like the placement.
My suggestion is Apple One Employment. They got me a job in like 2 days.

It may not be the ideal job, but it is employment, and it is somewhat flexible.

CP

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for suggesting a specific one!

I'm one of those people that has a really hard time taking a suggested idea and acting on it, if there's anything I have to do to fill in the blanks. So everyone says "temp agency" and I get worried. Last time I was unemployed I went through the phone book and called all the temp and placement agencies, and there were so many, and none of them called me back except one, who gave me a little bit of resume advice, told me not to do my hair like that, and then told me not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. This was in Manhattan, so I went and cried in St. Patrick's cathedral and put my last $5 in the collection plate at Mass.

I got my job through monster.com two weeks later, so there, but still.


But, if you have a recommendation for a specific one, that cuts out the awful-phonebook reaction...

[eggplantia5.livejournal.com]

Maybe you can get the collections people and gas company off your back if you explain that they gad been forwarding the bill to the wrong address, and so it is their fault, and not yours for not having paid the bill yet. Sometimes that works.

Sorry, I can't think of any other advice that other people haven't already given you.

It'll all work out. In the last couple of years, you have gotten into plenty of situations and always managed to work it out with grace and aplomb. Yes, I said aplomb without really knowing what it means.

Congrats on the >50,000 by the way.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>if you explain

I did tell the collections people that their phone call was the first I'd heard of this. They don't really care; it isn't their business to care. it's their business to get money out of people, usually difficult people. It's just the way life works, and the fact that they've been called in the first place means my credit rating's fucked now. So, me = not getting any loans anytime soon or maybe ever.

>you have gotten into plenty of situations

That I have. Work it out I also have. Grace and aplomb I lack, however. :) I'm not sure what aplomb means but people always put it together with grace, so I think it's one of those things you get with grace. Like maybe it's a twofer kinda deal. I don't really know...

>Congrats

Thanks. :) I've continued making good progress on that, when not freaking out or falling asleep. I wish, however, that I could pause time so I could just catch up on the sleep. I get so funny when my sleep schedule's like this.
I think everyone should get a certain amount of "pause" time in their lives. Just to catch up on sleep. Or maybe reading-- to catch up on their reading. There's never enough time for those two things.

Someday I want to own a business, and have "pause time" built into the schedule. You get sick days, personal days, and a certain number of days of "pause time" that you take just to chill out-- so you only use your sick days when you're sick, and your personal days for like doctor visits and vacations and things. Pause time is for just not getting out of bed, and for drinking hot cocoa on rainy days and staring blankly out the window for half an hour at a time.

Because you need that, for sanity.

It'd make you much more productive at work, too...

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Just read this, maybe you've gotten somewhere by now. I hope so. If not, I'm with gowf - be proactive. It wasn't any mistake. People don't make $1500 mistakes 11 months later. You won't get anywhere with her.

Call legal aid. Sign up NOW for small claims court. Get aggressive with the bank.