DISCLAIMER: Please don't refer to this specific topic on Facebook as Kyla doesn't want to stir up any more trouble with her landlords until it's all sorted out.
May 6, 2009
Being this indirectly is linked to Crystal, I thought I would share a little story that Crystal suggested putting on her blog.
This morning at 10am, we had our landlords coming by to let the ATCO-Gas meter-reader in to our home to check the meter. This has been something they’ve done every few months (or monthly in some cases) for the past 2 years we’ve been living in our current residence. Well little did we know this particular time was going to be such a gong show!
Michael for his birthday on April 29th received an 8mm missile looking thing (I’m not even sure what it’s called exactly but it’s about a foot tall and looks like a mini-missile) from Tyler. We had it in our back room sitting on the floor next to our soup (as I don’t have a “home” for it yet) and this ATCO gas guy came in, saw it and freaked out! He stormed out of my house and was threatening to call the cops and telling my landlords if they did not do something he was going to take things into his hands, etc, etc. He just was freaking out through and through (I wasn’t at the house for this, just the lady landlord).
She called me and just asked if she and her husband could come by when I got home from work and I agreed. At this point I had no idea what had happened, I just assumed that the gas guy didn’t come, and they were going to be checking the meter themselves as they’ve done that in the past. So I get home, and around 4:30, they show up and I start doing my usual chit-chatty stuff with them and didn’t even notice the “not happy” looks on their face. Well they go straight into our furnace room and he taps the thing with his toe and was all “what is this?” (again, I’m still oblivious to his expression) and I was like “oh that? Michael’s buddy gave that to him last week for his birthday” and I babble about it for a second, and I am thinking he just thought thinks it’s cool or something and they are still there just to check the meter.
Well I was wrong! He proceeds to tell me the story about the gas guy and then he’s all “this is bad, this is very bad, you guys messed up big here” and my landlords are just furious! So I apologize and explain that it’s not real and it’s just a decorative piece. Michael had been sent home early due to lack of work (which I told him later was definetly a blessing from above because I don’t know that I could have dealt with this on my own – especially since I had no idea what this thing really was!) so I went and made him get out of the shower and explain to our landlords that it’s not a “live” weapon. Well that wasn’t good enough. They told us they had no choice but to call the police and S.W.A.T and whomever else had to be around. I straight up said that’s fine, do what you have to do – because really, we have nothing to hide!
So we said we’d call for them being it was our house, and then they suggested we just go to the station instead. We hopped in our vehicles and drove to the station where I went in and explained to the policeman what had happened, and we just wanted them to confirm for our landlords there was no problem with our ornament. Anyways, the police honestly seemed to care less about the situation. They looked at it and said that of course they have to assume its “live” until further clarity, but they would look into it. They were so casual about it I felt so much better. So we wrote our name/number/address down on a STICKY-NOTE (tells you how much of a “big deal” this was right? They did not even file a report!) and we went on our way.
Now, when we got into the parking lot, I went over to my landlords and said “okay, so are things alright between us now?” and they just huffed and said “I’m just not sure yet.” and jumped in their vehicle and drove off. They still anticipate that our house will be searched and this is “serious”.
I immediately called Crystal to tell her our the story. She told Tyler later, and then Tyler called Michael later to apologize/explain the story behind it. We hold no bad feelings toward Tyler as frankly it wasn’t a bad thing he did giving him it. Tyler called to confirm though that it was definetly decommissioned – his dad had found it some odd 25 years ago, and when he found it he personally took it in to get decommissioned just to be safe. Tyler has had it for 9 years, and they were cleaning house and Michael had admired it last time we were there, so Tyler gave it to him as a gift.
Where I stand:
-This caused me exuberant amounts of stress which is NOT good for someone 36 weeks pregnant.
-My landlords were extremely rude and harsh and would not accept any form of apology we offered.
-I feel strongly they want to kick us out.
-I am not sure if I did anything wrong – like, was the ATCO guy out of place? Was the landlord out of place? Were we in the wrong to have this in our home? What are my rights here?
-Now that I reflect on it, with some other “issues” we’ve had with our landlord/upstairs people, I find they are acting more like parents than landlords, and I’m not sure I want to deal with them any longer.
-This is a completely attack on my person (at least that’s how I am taking it unintentionally) and I’m really upset about it.
-I do appreciate where they are coming from, but the way they have handled things is not so impressive.
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