This Email Left Me Speechless

See No EVIL, originally uploaded by Thru Jenns Eyes.

In the three years I’ve been running this site, from time to time, I’ve been made aware of some horrible things. The worst incident I was emailed about was a rape that took place in Shaw on Marion Street. Thankfully, an arrest has been made in the case. Since the crime occurred back in April I have been corresponding with the victim and her boyfriend every couple of months. I have not published that correspondence for obvious reasons. Today I received an email from them that truly boggles my mind. At their request I will publish below.

“Just recently we were dealt another blow. Our small claims case against our landlady to recover our security deposit was denied. Our judge ruled that our landlady’s duty to mitigate the fact that we wanted to break our lease ( ie advertise and re-rent the property) extended for the entire month of May. We told her as soon as we could contact her that we had no intention of staying in the property and in court she stated that she knew immediately that we would not want to stay in the property. Instead of being proactive she just dragged her heels for 2 weeks then offered to let us out of the lease if we paid an additional month plus taking our security deposit. We declined that offer and ended up in court, losing our security deposit.

We would be interested to see what the people have to say to the question “If a violent crime is committed in a rental property what do people think would be a reasonable resolution to terminate the lease?” Kind of a serious topic but we would be intrigued to see what kind of responses people have to see if we are being unreasonable or if our landlady just has a heart of stone.”