Real Change News | Dr. Wes: When things don’t mean what they seem

June 23, 2010
Vol: 17 No: 26

Dr. Wes

Dr. Wes: When things don’t mean what they seem

by: Dr. Wes Browning

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I’ve been frustrated in my dealings with a certain Seattle housing agency lately. I was going to keep my frustration to myself. Then I noticed a deadline approaching. I considered what else I could write about. It was all oil and soccer and Lady Gaga and oily soccer balls and Lady Gaga and balls. Dwelling on my own personal frustrations actually began to look good.

“Hey, Dr. Wes, how frustrated are you?”

Well, let me relate an incident that happened to me in the fine state of New Jersey 30 years ago. I had a beat up old car parked in front of my slum building overnight. I had to move it by 9 a.m. to avoid a parking ticket. I overslept exactly one hour and came out to find not one but five parking tickets, all from the same meter-maid/meter-lad, who must have just driven around the block between ticketings. I imagined his/her glee at discovering my crap car still there at each pass, seeing clearly how utterly poor I had to be driving such a piece of trash, and knowing with joyous certainty that each additional ticket would grind me that much further down.

So I gathered the tickets, walked calmly inside to my hovel, screamed, and broke my own hand punching my own knee in anger.

That’s how frustrated I’ve been lately in my dealings with this particular Seattle housing agency of which I speak.

I won’t tell you the name of the agency, because I’m still having dealings with them and I’d hate to mess those dealings up, but the name of the agency has the words “Seattle” and “housing” in it, and the agency calls itself not an agency but an authority. This is apt, as an experience in authoritarianism is definitely a component of my frustration.

I want to move out of where I am now into a place where I might not be kept awake all night by sirens. This agency offered such a place to me back in April. I use the word “offered” loosely. Real housing agencies show you the apartments they are offering, so you can say whether or not you’ll accept the offer. This agency, not being a real agency but, rather, an authority, said the apartment isn’t ready, so you can’t see it. Then they said, “You have to give 20 days notice at your current apartment building.” They said, “Now.” They said, “You have to.”

The way it works when you rent from real housing agencies is, they not only show you an apartment, they show you a lease, you negotiate the terms, you sign the lease and pay deposit and initial rents agreed upon, THEN they give you your move-in date, and THEN you tell the place you’re at what that move-in date is. That’s your notice.

Otherwise, without a lease, the deal could fall through, 20 days later you could have no place to move to, and your current landlord could say, “Sorry, but since you said you were going to move out, we’ve promised your apartment to someone else, so you have to leave.” This, by the way, is one of the ways people in the real world who don’t wait to see a lease find themselves out on the street.

The way it works at the authority, they repeat, “You have to.” There is no why.

The day came when I’d been shown the apartment and the lease was ready. Surprise! I was expected to move in immediately. I was even given the keys for two hours. Then I was told I had to give them back because it was discovered that I never gave 20 days notice at the old place. That’s the why of it.

It turns out, 20 days notice means nothing to these people, it’s just a formality. It would have been decent of them to tell me that before cruelly dangling an apartment in front of my face and then snatching it away.

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