they fucked up within hours: i have two more examples of harassment, just this evening.
but,
things are different, now: i have a paralegal that has at least taken a
couple of courses to run it through, and he has to tell his clients
whether or not these things are worth doing.
they are
minor concerns, in isolation: removing an air freshener from my window
sill, changing the speed of the fan that i won by court order so that
it's barely working. neither of these actions cost me anything. more
importantly, refraining from these actions doesn't cost the landlord
anything - but carrying them out could cost her a whole lot.
any decent paralegal should look at the situation and say the following,
"well,
jessica is correct: you cannot be vandalizing her window sill, as it is
an extension of her living space. anything on the sill is her property.
removing an item from the window sill is the same thing as removing an
item from her apartment. and, she won the court order on the fan, too,
so you should basically never touch it, for any reason. if these
situations were one-offs, this would be a waste of time. but, they are
part of a pattern of harassment that could land you in a lot of trouble.
this isn't worth fighting, and this isn't worth doing. you should sign the paper - and you should leave the fan alone, and leave items on her window sill alone, too."
that
is dramatically more productive from my perspective than getting into a
stupid shouting match and dragging the thing to a judge.
but,
i don't expect this to evaporate tomorrow. it's going to be the
paralegal's responsibility for the near future to get these people to
start acting like grown-ups. it could take a long time. but, in the long
run, if the behaviour is slowly corrected, the issue is resolved.
otherwise, we go back to court within weeks - and i'll do it, because it's the pattern that matters, not the precise issue.