Rental Agreement

The complete rental agreement (which contains the legal rental agreement I will use) is found at http://troutlily.net/rentalagreement.doc

The first questions concern the tenant's background and are reproduced here.

Rental Agreement Date:

RESIDENTIAL LEASE/RENTAL AGREEMENT
(For use in the State of California)


PARTIES: LANDLORD______________________________________


TENANT(S)_____________________________________

_____________________________________


PROPERTY ADDRESS: 333 Kingsley Avenue, Palo Alto, California, 94301

BACKGROUND. An answer of yes to any of the following disqualifies you as a prospective tenant. My two-year old neighbor is proficient at smelling out liars and she will cry, get scared and want to go home to the comforting arms of her strong father when she hears anyone lying. I myself am no good at discerning lies so please answer the following questions truthfully. Please notice that after the 20 background questions, there is also a Tenant Agreement to complete.

Have you ever been evicted or sued in civil court as part of an Unlawful Detainer Summons?

Do you use more than one alias?

Are you on parole?

Do you talk aloud, bark, holler or whimper when alone and when locked in your room with the cartoons playing on cable TV and windows shuttered in full daylight, or when in the bathroom with the hot water running full blast and getting splashed all over and you have no plans to mop up the water, either in garbled high-pitched, incoherent response to something you read or in response to a conversation with a person or entity who is transparently not present?

Do you prefer to keep all your food and dishes in your room, including leaving the half and half in quart boxes on the windowsill in full sun until it curdles and begins to emit foul odors, said odors seeping through the crack under the door from the bedroom you are in, into the kitchen, where someone might be cooking?

Do you leave rotting, crusted food on pans you put back into the cupboard, or in half gallon plastic bottles you put in the pantry, or in bowls in your room, until said food is good and dried onto the surface?

Do you throw out in the garbage the dishes you use that belong to the landlord?

Do you cut phone lines that lead into the landlord’s house? Do you establish phone service on an unused phone line that happens to be in the house, under the landlord’s name, using the landlord’s extra phone that you found in a kitchen utility drawer, running up large bills calling 540+ numbers in a month (most calls being of duration one minute)?

Do you puncture a landlord’s bike tire?

On the second day after moving in, do you raise objections when the landlord, having failed to do a proper screening, attempts you to fill out a rental form as reproduced below, and asks for ID and confirmation of employment and referral, saying that this change in rental agreement constitutes the landlord’s violation of original agreement?

On the third day after moving in, do you ask for a reduction in rent based on your conclusion of the bedroom’s unhabitability (for example, a delay in installing cable service or phone line) although you were aware of said situation when moving in and in any case you’re not exactly entitled? When I said that cable TV was included, I meant you could watch my TV from my couch as long as it wasn’t all the time and we had am amicable pattern of mutual TV usage? It was wrong of me to assume someone could live without TV for a week until cable TV was installed but the fact of the matter is this situation was disclosed.

When rent is due, do you say that the job you were counting on didn’t come through yet but you’re sure it isn’t the offing and you’ll pay $50 now and $950 on Friday for a hamburger on Tuesday?

Do you use a roll of toilet paper daily?

Do you wash, in running fiercely hot water and copious amounts of dishwashing liquid, plastic bottles of water that you bring home because the tap water is suspect?

Do you use the window onto the back patio garden as ingress and egress, taking your bike in and out with you, damaging the paint?

Do you clumsily install large hooks on closet door and fasten with chain and padlock to prevent anyone from opening the door?

Do you ineptly install little eye-hook lock on the bedroom door leading into the kitchen?

Do you wait until the landlord is gone before you emerge from the bedroom to wash up, have breakfast, etc? Do you sneak about at all times?

Do you occasionally leave a large plastic water bottle, top cut off, with a few inches of urine and some damp toilet paper draped over the top, on the side patio, near the kitchen door?

Do you post notices “Streaming Video in Progress” on each of the two doors leading into the bedroom, despite having neither camera nor computer, and despite the fact that videotaping people who happen to come within camera “sight” (as if a camera were in reality set up) is illegal under federal law without express permission of those being videotaped?

Purposeful striding as Alesia loads van on way to airport, May 14, 2009

Streaming Video in Progress

The story of how Alesia Besson invaded my house, used my resources and refused to leave. A morality play in 5 acts. This blog is being started at the beginning of Act IV. You are invited to write Act V - alternate endings to reality. I will document Act V as it happens in reality and we can see which gets to the end of the story first.

Act I. Planet Alesia Comes Into Orbit

Act II. Potatoes

Act III. Streaming Video in Progress
Enter Bronitsky.

Act IV. Every Orifice is Clogged