Topic: TIME FOR SOMEONE TO DIE IN A FIRE.

[Quemaqua]

So I got a raise about a week ago.  Things haven't been so rosey lately.  My grandmother passed away, which has stressed out my mom and my close relatives given a lot of family stuff I won't get into, and things have been just generally unpleasant.  It also looks like after 2 years Julia and I are finally going to realize that she isn't getting on disability because our lawyer is a fuckwit and a fraud.  He basically just stopped returning our phone calls and emails and nobody knows where he is.  For all we know he might be dead.  So... great.  2 years of effort all for nothing.  But the raise helped.  It worked out to about just under 80 bucks a month.  This was going to be a big help for us.  It isn't a ton of money, but it more than pays for a couple bills that we were considering sacrificing.

Now we aren't dirt poor.  We do okay, but this is almost greatly due to our almost complete lack of debt.  If I wasn't such a douchebag with a million hobbies, we might do a little better, but my toys are small by necessity, and the new TV thing that's been covered in another thread is mostly because the old one has been slowly dying for a while now and we don't know how long it'll last.  Figure may as well get something decent since it's going to cost a fair bit to buy any TV, and there's no point wasting the money in another lousy one.  We have to use savings to get it, of course, but it seemed within reason since I got the raise.  Maybe it wasn't even so reasonable, but we were able to justify it because we were finally feeling a little better about finances.

So today I get a slip saying we missed a certified letter.  Damn, I hate that.  Last time we missed a certified letter was when our last apartment told us they were kicking us out and turning the joint into condos.  So I go to the post office, get my letter, which the clerk takes about 10 hours to find and then process because she doesn't know how to use the computer, I sign for it using the electronic touchpad which doesn't work even in the least bit and makes my signature look like a child's scrawl, I get into the parking lot on my way back to the car while opening the letter, and then about 12 people look at me funny as I scream obscenities at my letter.

I'm now going to have approximately five bucks LESS a month because my apartment raised our rent by $82.

I'm going to fucking hurt someone.  I want to scream and tear a hole into something with my teeth.

[idolminds]

ow, fuck. That hurt just reading it.

[gpw11]

Motherfuckers!

About the lawyer, can you get a hold of your local bar association?  They usually do take dipshit lawyers pretty seriously and you might get some sort of a refund, a recommendation of further action or even just have the guy's license suspended so he can't fuck with anyone else until they investigate it.  As for Julia not being able to just walk in and get disability, I don't know the situation and you probably don't want to get into it, but either way it's bullshit.  She wants to work and can't because of whatever medical condition - this is why we have welfare states in the west.  Not so people can have 13 kids on your dime or so they can smoke crack all day and get treated like a victim. 

And the rent?  Did they justify the increase at all?

[JacksRag(e)]

Yea, what was the purpose of the increase?  I was always under the impression that when you signed a lease and whatnot, that the rent remained what you paid for it for the time of the lease?  Unless I am sorely mistaken, then I will uh just stop.

[Cobra951]

The way leases usually work is that you get a one-year lease, and then the terms continue after that month to month.  There are still guidelines for things like rent raises, and I doubt the landlord exceeded those.

The lawyer thing you definitely should be able to address.  The bar association might be your next step, as gpw said.  Julia's case for disability can be addressed as well, regardless of past fuckwit lawyers.  The red tape is a bitch, but it is not endless.

[Quemaqua]

I can't get a refund because we didn't pay him anything.  We won't have lost money, we'll have lost a lot of time and effort.  A lot of disability lawyers get paid a percentage of whatever back payments the client is owed after the court deems them worthy - the lawyers don't get jack if you don't.  At first we thought he was just being shady, taking as much time as he could so as to get a bigger chunk of our back payments (they pay forward from whatever time you became disabled), but now it seems he just can't be bothered with us any longer.  We may still be able to proceed with a hearing, but without guidance, what's the point?  We'll pretty much just lose.  These people are unbelievably vicious.  I mean, they have to be.  Everybody in the country wants a free ride.  They have to do what they can to ensure only the deserving get it.  They do a pretty fucking bad job of it, but still.  We could just get another lawyer, maybe, but that's hassle even if there were no other complications, but finding someone that takes people with Julia's condition is all but impossible.  That was this guy's specialty, to a degree, and even he had only been on maybe 6 cases like it.  He basically took our case out of the "goodness" of his heart.  He didn't need it, wasn't necessarily going to get a lot out of it, and there wasn't no guarantee we'd even win.

As for the rent, there was no justification for the increase.  It was just "Sorry, normally management tries to eat the cost of whatever difficulties come up, but sometimes we have to raise the rent.  So we did."  We're not on a lease, we just pay month to month.  We never even signed one for this place.  It was one of the only 2 bedroom places in a good neighborhood that we could find where there were vacancies, so we jumped on it.  I really, really wish we hadn't, mostly because of the whole neighbor debacle you've all heard me bitching about for ages now.  That's mostly died down, though I can hear the stupid fucker down there talking right now as I type this and they've been banging around for the last couple days.  I sincerely hope it's because they have to move out into the street and die.

[Pugnate]

I was going to make a joke about asking to borrow some money, but then I read to the end.