Why do things like this happen to us?

So that title may sound a little dire, but if anyone recalls in 2006 a bum moved into our apartment for about 40 hours. Now we have situation where we're currently living. Papa Funk and I were roommates at the time of the bum incident, and now we have to deal with this one. Management companies have got to do a better job of screening applicants.

For those not in the know I'll bring you up to speed on the state of our house. Fall/Winter there were 4 of us living here. One got married in March and hasn't been able to sell his contract. The other moved to Japan for the summer and didn't sell his contract. So since the end of April it has just been Papa Funk and I living here, and that has been quite nice.

Last Thursday Papa Funk and I were sitting at home doing whatever. I think he was watching TV I was cleaning the kitchen. It's about 11:00 pm. Someone knocks on the door to say that he's signed a contract and will be moving in and has some stuff to drop off. Ok, that's all well and good. There's a small problem to start with. He has a thick accent (he's Haitian) and some days we can only understand about 20% of what he's saying, so just figuring out the whole "has a contract" thing was kind of tricky. But that's fine, you know, people are allowed to have accents.

His contract didn't technically begin until this past Wednesday, so we told him that over the weekend we'd clear out the room (we'd been using it for storage). So over the next few days he brings over more and more stuff which starts piling up all over, and over the weekend we finally get a chance to pull all of our stuff out of the room and his stuff gets moved in.

Turns out that the reason he's moving in is because he's getting a divorce. Because his wife decided to start smoking and drinking again (she was a convert and they got married in the temple). She would also go out partying with her friends and overdraft their checking account all the time. He finally figured out that that wasn't a good situation to be in.

Also it turns out that Papa Funk knows them because they come to his work. And he knows that his wife is a little bit on the crazy side in terms of being socially/fiscally/generally responsible. He feels that she is not a person we can trust to have in our house, and since the guy is getting a divorce we figure he must feel the same way. So we tell him that we don't want her in our house, ever. And he says he's fine with that.

We help him move stuff in and get his computer set up and stuff and generally be nice to the guy. He's trying to get his life back on track and things are messy, but we're nice.

He officially moved in on Wednesday (got his key from management) and things are fine.

Thursday, (that's the very next day!) Josh and I are sitting at home in the evening and there's a knock at the door. It's his (crazy) wife saying that she's meeting him here and that she'll just wait for him in his room. Standing on our front steps with her bleached-blonde hair done up in the typical Utah Rat's Nest hairdo (gross). We tell her, No, she's not coming in if he's not here. Cause we have no way of knowing if she's coming in to steal his stuff or do something inappropriate, ya know? They're supposedly getting a divorce, which generally means people aren't on good terms with each other. So we tell her to come back when he's home.

Now remember, we told him we didn't want her in our house, to which he agreed. About thirty minutes later he gets home and brings her in, and Papa Funk and I are not happy about it. She's inside for about 30 seconds and starts demanding answers about why we wouldn't let her in; to which we tell her why and she starts talking back at us. We were getting pissed.

Unfortunately for Papa Funk, I had to leave at this point to pick my sister and brother-in-law up at the airport. I didn't get home until about 1:45, so I'll fill in that part of the story from what Papa Funk told me.

He stayed up until about 1:00 waiting for her to leave, because he didn't feel comfortable going to bed with her in the house. She and new-guy finally left and Papa Funk locked the door and went to bed. I got home about 1:45 (as I said) and brushed my teeth and went upstairs. I'm in my room reading and within 10 minutes I hear his bedroom door open (his room is on the ground floor) and then I hear the front door open. Curious, I get up and move towards the stairs to try and determine what's happening.

The way my house is laid out is that the stairs break halfway up and make a 180 degree turn. On that landing is a window. At night this window acts as a perfect mirror to the doorway downstairs between the living room and kitchen/bathroom/bedroom area. So from the top of the stairs I can see a perfect reflection as the front door closes and he walks back into his room, followed by his wife after which he closes his bedroom door. I was not happy about this, but since it was already 2 am and I had work in the morning I decided I wasn't going to go argue with them about it on the spot. I waited for about 10 minutes to see if she would leave before going to bed.

In the morning Papa Funk got up and went to work, and then I got up around 9. While I'm in the shower I can hear his bedroom door open, and then the front door open and close. When I get out of the shower he's up and walking around. So I'm about 99.9% certain that she stayed the night. He snuck her in when he thought we were asleep and then tried to sneak her out in the morning. After we very clearly expressed that we didn't even want her in the house at all, to which he agreed. Of course, since this is single housing, the fact that he brought her into his bedroom at all, regardless of marital status, means that he violated his contract.

I told him straight out when I got done changing that, "She is not allowed to be sleeping here.". To which he tried to tell me a story about her leaving and coming back this morning before I got up. Which would have fit with what Papa Funk observed, because he did not know that I witnessed her coming in and going to his bedroom at 2 am. So after he told his fabricated story, I told him, "I know she came over last night after I got home at 2. So I just want to be clear: She is NOT allowed to sleep here." So he's got to know that he's busted.

Papa Funk and I then spoke to management, because we really don't want to come home one day to find our stuff gone. She's crazy enough to do it, and she is able to manipulate him into doing whatever she wants. So if she manages to convince him to let her borrow his key, we are going to have problems. Management agrees with us (thank goodness) and spoke to him to tell him that she is not allowed to be over here. It makes us really uncomfortable to have her in our house. Then management spoke to us again and said to tell them if anything else happens and he'll be gone instantly (it's nice to have management that loves you as tenants). Luckily, since he brought her into his bedroom, he violated the housing contract and getting rid of him will be rather easy, if need be.

So, now he knows that she cannot be in our house. So if he's stupid enough to bring her over here again thinking we won't find out [shakes head slowly] he's just asking for trouble.

He's a nice guy and all, but he doesn't seem to be in the top ranks of intelligence and allows this woman to manipulate him so much. And we hate worrying if our stuff will be gone when we get home. Or coming home and not feeling comfortable because we don't know if she's going to show up or not. Your home should be a sanctuary. And for Papa Funk and I it has been for months. That peace and security has been destroyed and we don't like it. We get enough stress at work every day, and want to be able to relax at home.

Now we feel like we have to play guard duty on the house day and night to make sure she's not there. I feel like I need to stay up late to listen for the front door, because he's already tried to sneak her in once. I don't like feeling this uncomfortable in my own home. So part of me and Papa Funk almost wishes for her to show up so that he'll be gone and we can get the locks changed and not feel like this. But if he does shape up and keep her away from here, then it's only four and a half weeks before his contract ends and we'll survive.

Sorry for the long post, but that needed to get out.