I’ve been away from the blog for a while. Iva and I took a vacation to my hometown of Nampa, Idaho for five days.
The first thing we notice upon entering Idaho is the smells. We’ve grown acclimated to the thick, humid, sea-level air of Portland and the smells of trees, traffic, and transients. But Nampa is at about 2800′ and in a very dry, agricultural area. So we had forgotten that smell of onions as you cross the border at Ontario, or dairy cows as you ride from Payette to Caldwell. Then there’s the smell that lets me know I’m home — the sugar beet processing factory in Nampa. Mmmm, now that’s a smell!
It’s always hell on my nose and sinuses when I return home. We call it the “Boise Boogers.” I even got a nosebleed while I was there; my nose got so very dry and one sneeze later the blood came rushing. Does that mean I’m allergic to Idaho?
The primary reason for returning to Idaho was to appear in small claims court. Iva and I were suing our former tenant at our former home in Boise. She had stiffed us out of a month’s rent, the deposit, some utilities, and allowed the theft of the transmission from a 3/4-ton van I had parked there. Our court date was Friday at 9:00AM.
Before we had left, I imagined the worst thing that could happen. Iva had filed most of the paperwork, but I had collected all of the evidence (I’m very obsessive about filing and paperwork and financial records — I can tell you exactly how broke I am to the penny!). Wouldn’t it be awful if we drove for seven hours and then forgot our evidence? So I reminded Iva to not forget the evidence. Not to worry, she told me, as she had the folders already packed in our luggage.
So we arrived late Thursday evening in Nampa. I unpacked and discovered that Iva had packed her original folder of receipts. But I had removed the relevant documents and put them in a different folder, which, of course, she had not packed. My worst nightmare was coming true! And it was my fault for not making sure that folder was packed.
I considered calling cousin Kenny to get into our apartment, get that folder, and fax it to us. But our apartment’s main office doesn’t open until 8:00AM, Pacific Time, which is 9:00AM in Boise, the exact time we were due in court. Kenny would not have the time to get those documents to us.
So there we were, all ready for court with absolutely no proof. I flashed back to all of the episodes of People’s Court and Judge Judy where the judge mocks the plaintiffs who bring no evidence. I was going to be that rube. D’oh!
But my brother Matt, who had handled all our financial transactions with the renter, showed up at court earlier than we did (he was there to testify for us) and discovered two pieces of good news. First, our case was listed in the “default” docket, which meant that the defendant never replied to the summons, essentially all we needed to do was prove our case. Second, our case wasn’t until 11:00AM — now we had time to call Kenny!
Kenny went to our place and got the folder and took it to work. We waited at the Kinko’s for him to fax it to us, at the cost of $1 per page — yikes! Oh, well, $23 is a small price to pay to not be the ignorant rube on Judge Judy. Kenny noted that one of the documents was legal size — would the legal size paper come through OK? No problem, the Kinko’s guy assured me, their machine automatically adjusts for legal size paper.
So we waited at the Kinko’s… 10:00, 10:30, 10:40… there was no fax. I called Kenny back and he said that he was getting errors from Kinko’s side or their line was busy. However, he was faxing now and it seemed to be going through. Matt, being calmer than Iva and me at this point, suggested that we go to the court and Iva’s brother Daniel remain behind to get the fax.
In court there was only one case before ours. We got called up at 11:10AM. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. The judge went through the preliminaries, then noted that we were suing for back rent and deposit. He asked us for the rental agreement.
“Well, you honor, we left Portland and forgot that evidence. But it’s being faxed to us as we speak!” we pleaded.
“I have to have some sort of evidentiary support for your case. You’ve got nothing?” I was beginning to get a dread feeling that all the homework, the detective work in tracking down our tenant, and the drive would all be wasted. “We can reschedule this matter for Thursday…”
“But your honor, we don’t live here. We drove here from Portland…”
“Well, we can just dismiss…”
“Your honor, the documents are literally on their way as we speak…”
And at that very moment, Iva’s brother bursts through the courtroom doors, documents in his right hand. It was like a cliche-ridden made-for-TV drama on the Lifetime channel.
So Daniel gives me the documents and I find the rental agreement and hand it to the judge. He reads aloud, “Hmm, $747 rent, $400 deposit… uh, you’re missing the most important part here.” The signature block, which was on the bottom 1/4th of the legal-sized paper that Kinko’s fax machine obviously did not detect the paper size. “Without a signature, this is useless. Unless you can testify that you witnessed her signature.”
We couldn’t, but Matt could. “He saw her, your honor!” I pointed to Matt. “He handled all of the financial transactions while we were in Portland.” Matt agreed that he’d seen her sign it, and the judge said, “well, that’s good enough for me!” (It turns out that deeper in the pile of documents was her original rental application that she’d sign, which the judge told us would have been enough evidence of her rental as well.)
After he quizzed us about the rent, he told us we couldn’t sue for a deposit we never collected, but we could invoke the costs of repairs needed arising from her tenancy. I had those documents, too — landscaping costs, fence repair, unpaid utility bills. We got ’em all!
Finally, with Daniel’s testimony that he saw our van on blocks in broad daylight with a team of men working underneath it, and that he had knocked on the door and found family members home, the case was decided. The judge helped me enumerate that we weren’t suing her for stealing the transmission, but “through her negligence or outright acquiescence, the transmission was allowed to be removed.” We got everything we sued for. Judgement for the plaintiff in the amount of $2,049.78.
Now, of course, the problem is getting the money. There’s garnishment of wages or attachment of property, but both methods cost money to initiate. I have no illusions that I’ll ever see a cent of that judgement. But it does feel good to have a victory in court that proves that yes indeed, this person screwed me over and can be legally made to pay.
In other family visit news, I turned 37 on Monday. “I’m thirty-seven… I’m not old!” My nieces are turning 11 & 8 this summer and my objective opinion is that they are perfectly beautiful, incredibly smart, and infectiously adorable. My brother Josh and girlfriend Katia live in a far nicer north-end apartment than any of the places I ever lived in as a young college student. But they do appreciate the value of a case of Top Ramen. Mom & Dad are refinancing their house to complete some desparately-needed remodeling. They are still turning down my idea of painting their completely square house as a Las Vegas die. My grandmother is in good spirits and getting great care at her residential center. I printed for her our latest family calendar with all the birthdays and anniversaries, and we had lots of fun trying to pick all the relatives out among the blurry pictures from decades ago. Iva particularly likes the phot of me at age 12 with the tight NBA shorts and knee-high tube socks. I was the very model of 80’s cool.
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