landlord, LANDLORD!

it was either a dramatic reading of a poem or a line from a play i heard in high school, but i can still hear the voice saying that word, more insistent and righteously angry the second time. i can relate.

landlord troubles are, i think, a universal problem. most of us have or have had landlords in the past. it's a rare soul who has traveled through life without encountering a landlord who made life difficult.

i'd lived in prague on three separate occasions before moving here to stay in october 2001. different housing situations each time. the first time i was in a panelak, or panel building. they group them together here (and throughout eastern europe) and so the sidlistes, or housing estates, as the brits like to call them, really just look like the housing projects you'd find in any major american city, constructed circa 1950-60. only here, they were constructed circa 1990-95, and it's not just the low-income types that live there. it's anyone and everyone. anyway, i never met my landlord that time because the language school i was working for arranged it. and i was only there two months, anyway.

the second time i was in another panelak, this time in one that had received the smallest bit of reconstruction. the three-plus-one (three rooms plus kitchen) had been changed into a five-plus-one when a room from the adjoining flat was added and the living room was split into two rooms. two of us lived there and our landlord lived next door. we never had any problems with him. and nothing major happened with the flat. we were only there five months.

stay number three i lived in a family home. this was not so fun. two rooms on the main floor had been set aside for renters. one was a long, narrow bedroom and the other a living room that led into the tiny galley of a kitchen; this living room was also my roommate's bedroom. and then of course a bathroom and toilet, which was situated so that it shared a wall with the family's living room. i saw that landlord most every day and had to ask him many a time to unclog our ancient toilet. not fun. but again, no major problems. there nine months.

each time i left a flat i simply packed my stuff and left. the furniture was never mine and i don't recall ever doing a major clean-up.

so, october 2001. i'm in the US planning to move to prague. my sole co-workers at the time, bill and lori, find a three-plus-one (the size i'm looking for) in a panelak right next to a high school. actually, in the same building where i lived on visit 2. it's the only place they look at but they really like it. partially reconstructed: tiled floors in the hall, bath and kitchen, and tiled walls in the bath and toilet. plus some storage areas. they suggest i take it and i do. on the way from the airport we stop at the flat, i meet the landlord, and i agree that it looks good. first hint of problem: when i ask the landlord if i can paint the walls he asks why i would want to paint the walls--what's wrong with them?

second sign of problem: when i'm moving into the place a few days later and a bunch of friends are there to help me, the landlord grills each of them on where they live, what their job is, why they are there. everyone thinks he's weird.

as the years pass, the problems with the landlord increase. he raises the rent by over $100 after the first year, and another $100 the year after that. and that with negotiation. he does some shady accounting to cover for the fact that he hadn't thought to include payment into the co-op fund in my rental agreement and demands $500 from me for it on the spot, berating me severely for having to run to the ATM to get it. (i learned later how illegal and outside our contract all of this was.) he was like jekyll/hyde when he came to town (his living in switzerland and rarely making visits made life a little easier). first he would be friendly when he walked in the door, then he would criticize my choice of decor and living style, he would be abusive, aggressive and belligerent when it came to dealing with money, and when the financial part was done and he had gotten what he wanted, he would be all smiles again and uberfriendly.

i dreaded his phone calls announcing that he was in town. he never gave much warning of his arrival on my doorstep. usually just a day. i learned to fear interaction with him and would jump when my apartment phone would ring, thinking it might be him.

at one point a few years ago i considered moving out. but the market at that time wasn't so good and i discovered that the price i was paying was pretty accurate for the area. besides, i liked where i lived a lot, and didn't really want to move. for one thing, now i had furniture!

for three years i didn't hear from my landlord, except for the occasional visit from his wife, who was always sweet to me. she would sit on my couch and we would chat and she seemed so decent and normal, i couldn't imagine how she managed to live with such a psychotic man. (i realize there is no way that i am the only person in his life who he treats this way.)

then came december. i have to admit, i don't remember the whole conversation. my czech friend/supervisor was there with me to help me with translation, because the landlord never had any tolerance for my less-than-perfect czech. funny, his wife and i would speak czech together and talk about anything with no problem, but he decided i was impossible to understand and couldn't really speak the language.

he was immediately scornful of how the place looked (never got the part about me paying for the place and therefore being able to keep it as i wished as long as i wasn't damaging anything). berated me at length about not keeping the place up to his liking (?), said he wouldn't sign the paper for my visa because we needed to renegotiate the lease contract (more $$$), and said he wouldn't replace the old windows unless i agreed to pay more money. it was an awful meeting. i really don't remember much about all that was discussed, but he and martin, my friend, left together. martin called me minutes later and his first words to me were: 'you have to move.'