proba tive org archives

I did try to sleep but had no luck switching my head from learning channel to dream channel. Then I realized I was hungry as well. So here I am. I'll have to crash soon, because I've only had 3 hours sleep in the past 24.

The noise of the repair work two floors above me (noted in the previous post) continued until 9 pm. At 8:30 I called the landlord and informed her of the problem as well as the fact that it was well past the 7 pm cut off time for noise of that sort according to the noise by-law. I reminded her of the noise transmission issues in the building and told her she was welcome to come and stand in my apartment to experience them.

Her usual response was employed: Leave it with me.
A half-hour later, the guy left. Related? I won't know until/if the problem happens again tomorrow. Well, today, I guess, since the day has already rolled into a new one.

[Question] I seem to recall landlords in my past who would have called me to let me know they'd taken care of the issue and maybe, if they were really good, apologize for the inconvenience and assure me it wouldn't happen again. Does that still happen out there in Tenant Land?

The mulling over of the events of yesterday continues. The pressure of the last minute scrambling on both sides substantially affected my ability to consider the issues, possible outcomes and gather facts upon which to base my final decision to abandon my application for a rebate of rent.

Today I am rather dissatisfied. My perspective at the moment is that I took all the steps I could to ensure my application would at least be heard. My considerable efforts in preparation of the application were fueled by the prospect of the chance to tell my story. Although a request for compensation for the state of my residential unit and building was part of the package, the amount of an abatement only interested me for its punitive value. Entering into mediation was a step away from my first goal: being heard and getting my case on record.

I still think the other side should have been making concessions, as well. The attitude in the mediation session was that they were the wronged parties and that my application would fail because of it. Very likely all part of the mediation 'game' for which I was unprepared.

My legal advisors and the Mediator were measuring success in this endeavour quite differently. Namely money: how much I'd get compared to how much I'd asked for; how much liability I was risking; was the time spent at a hearing going to be worth the money balance?. Somewhere along the line speculations turned into statements of probability and started the downhill slide in my confidence.

The problems increased as the "mediation" turned into a mini-hearing for which I had none of the papers and evidence at my immediate disposal. It was a rather biased event in my opinion. For instance, the Mediator offered her personal opinion on the success of my application and gave much more focus to my withholding of rent than she ever once did regarding the landlords' documented repeated violations of health, safety and property standards and non-compliance with Property Standards orders, including the one that is being issued based on an inspection that took place two days before the hearing.

Regarding the withholding of rent, she sided with the other side', stating very clearly several times "You cannot withhold the rent." The guidelines on the ORHT site state that tenants should not withhold rent when maintenance is an issue because they may face an eviction hearing.

The Guideline entitled Relief From Eviction states: "The Tribunal must refuse an eviction if the landlord is in serious breach of the landlord's responsibilities under the Act or the tenancy agreement." It goes on to state that "the tenant may raise a breach of another obligation of the landlord under the Act" in an effort to gain relief from eviction.

I had all of that covered yesterday. In spades. The eviction hearing should not have been part of the mediation talks at all IMO. It was a non-issue that I could have negated on the original eviction hearing date, had I been forced to go that far at that time.

Most of the discussion revolved around the details of my application and a threat by the landlords' representative. He's not a lawyer, and even if it is easier to type, I'm not going to insult the legal profession by calling him one.

The threat was the only thing I didn't have enough information to put into perspective and was brought at the last minute: two days before the hearing that had been scheduled for over a month. But that's what increases the likelihood of a threat being useful - time pressures.

I wasn't worried much about the monetary side of the threat to claim costs against me because of supposed error in naming some people who should not have been in the opinion of those people and their legal rep. But my issues got lost in the concerns of others around this issue. My perspective on legal costs is that they are partly a normal risk in legal actions. I mean anyone can claim costs. Whether they get them is another issue.

At one point, I suggested a plan that would alleviate all of that concern and in hindsight it is still the best plan. It wasn't as interesting as a mediated settlement, but I would have been happy with it right then.

The remainder of the all day session focussed on the details of my application, none of which were deemed to be significant or relevant to the discussions at hand. When the question of "Why do you stay there if there are all these problems?" was posed by the Mediator, I started to get pissed off. When I am asked this question it is in essence a suggestion that despite the fact that the fault for the situation is not mine, my remaining and fighting for improvements in my apartment and building is the root of the problem and I really ought to just walk away. And as my first legal advisor stated: then they win. I do miss his involvement in my case.

At one point, the Mediator stated that the continued existence of violations of safety codes within the other units in my building was "not your issue." So, I should just be content that these problems have been fixed in my apartment, ignoring any effect that say, a fire caused by the electrical deficiencies in another unit could have on my own safety?

The naming of a non-existent corporation as the owner of the property in several leases? A typo, in her opinion. And even if it was not a typo, it didn't support my contention that the issue of who to name on my application was not clear.

And that confusing and illegal notice of the new landlords coming into the picture? Not confusing to her.

Most, if not all, of these statements were made in the presence of the other parties as well.

I have done nothing wrong but withhold the rent under extremely unreasonable circumstances. This is easily remedied by paying it, which was agreeable to me yesterday. And I have nothing to lose since, as I stated in the mediation yesterday, the down side of this tenancy has already occurred for me: paying market rates for substandard housing.

The landlords however, have done very little right - not normal maintenance, not complying with health, safety and property standards, not contract language, not respecting my rights. So why did I end up being made to feel that pursuing my application was ill advised, while an unplanned and short term move is much advised?

It wasn't until the end of the mediation that I understood that I was about to agree to abandon a second planned application regarding Tenant Rights by virtue of the inclusion in the written agreement of a statement that the agreement was the final resolution to all issues arising from the tenancy. When that was slipped in (but apparently assumed by everyone in the room but myself), my red flags were all up and waving.

I objected and was on the verge of stopping the process there and then but was alone in my displeasure and surprise and finally capitulated to pressure brought by several others against my gut feeling that this was not a good thing.

I will be looking for another opinion tomorrow.

Obviously I view the world very differently from most people and am often confused by their perspective. The effect is greater when I am not in possession of facts or experience with which to bolster my confidence in my own perceptions and instincts. The pressure cooker of last minute chaos magnifies this effect considerably.

That pretty well sums up what happened yesterday.

I attended one of the fireworks displays that celebrated Canada Day tonight. Down at the lake. It was a nice evening after a stormy day.

On the walk back to the car I recalled the following exchange between myself and the Mediator from yesterday.

She: "Why do you want to stay there?"
I: "I've been moving around a lot lately."
She: "But you've been in this apartment for two years."

I am not making this up. It really was part of the "mediation" session. Could she really have been insinuating that I ought to be ready, willing and able to move because I've been in one place for two years?

Then I remembered another. This was after I gave another reason for not to wanting to move immediately, namely that I expected to be finding work away from Kingston once I am well and didn't want to go through two moves in a few months. Besides, there's the issue of convincing another landlord that I am a good risk while I am not employed.

She: "You're not working at the moment?"
I: "Right."
She: "You have no income right now?"
I: "Correct."
She: "How are you able to support yourself then?"
I: "People are helping me."

But really. What the hell did any of that have to do with mediating a compromise in my application for a rebate of rent? Nada.

Which is what I will be discussing with a lawyer tomorrow. Mediation shouldn't involve putting either party in a proceeding on the defensive about irrelevant issues.

I've been very happily using Thunderbird for a couple of months. The trainable spam filtering feature is awesome and a fast learner to boot.

But I've just found a problem that I'm not sure how to handle. I'm hoping someone (hint, hint) will read this post and be knowledgeable enough to enlighten me, because it seems someone has devised a spam trick that defeats the filtering intelligence. I did look through all the available information I could find online. Except the official support forum for Thunderbird/Mozilla because searching there has been disabled.

Mail was sent by a spammer with my email address (the alumni uwaterloo ca one) in all of the Sender, To and CC fields. But the Displayed Names were, of course, not mine. I would have marked this item as Junk if it had been in my Inbox. Since I sometimes send myself things I want to remember for later, I have a folder for those messages and luckily a Message Filter that puts them there.

Which is why this mail item was curious - from the displayed information, it wasn't from me at all. I opened it to try to figure out what I'd messed up when I created the filter. That's when I realized there wasn't anything I could do about this kind of spam. If I marked it as Junk, my real messages to myself would be Junked, too.

So, I thought: maybe I can add to this filter so that it also verifies my display name. But I am not aware of a way to do this and have not been able to find information on the creation of a Message Filter based on any other fields in the header than those in the drop down menu for this feature.

Got hints? Or a pointer to the online resource that can show me this?

As agreed on Wednesday, I made a payment to my landlord and screens were installed this morning. I also gave him a letter listing 33 separate things that need repair in my apartment and the building and grounds and requesting the work be completed by July 28. 95% of these are violations of the Property Standards by-law, the rest covered by the Tenant Protection Act. Far too many have existed since I moved in two years ago. Some appear on the original list of the conditions then and/or on the Order to Repair issued last June.

The preparation of this letter got me back into fight mode. I needed some information about what steps I could take to undo the mess that had resulted on Wednesday. The message I left for Queen's Legal Aid went unanswered too long, so I made my way down there in person. Unbeknownst to me they were closed today.

It was 4 pm when I emerged from my legal coach's office to heed his instructions to send faxes to the necessary parties informing them of my perceptions of the tone of the mediation and my wish to reopen my application. He'd said I should get this done before EOB today.

Got it just under the wire to the ORHT and within a few minutes to the rest of them. There's more I have to do and find out and then meet with him again on Monday.

And now things are a little less tilted in my world, so I'm heading to bed to sleep much better than I have for the past two nights. I'd have a nice warm bath to sooth my nerves, but the P.S. Inspector informed me it was a possible health hazard.

Okay, so I've been taking the day off from stress. Reading.

Poking around on the web to see if anyone has reverse-engineered Sony's OpenMG application or the USB protocol they use so I can copy my orginal recordings from MD to PC (and then convert from ATRAC to wav) instead of re-recording them in real time through my sound card - Ugh! Some folks are apparently making a bit of headway, but aren't there yet. Sigh

Delved very briefly into the Tenant Protection Act and got thoroughly disgusted by the fact that neither the html nor the Word versions published online have a Table of Contents with page numbers, so I made my own copy with numbers. Now I won't be flipping through sixty some pages when I need to locate the wording of something I'm arguing about.

And chuckled over something the landlord did during the mediation on Wednesday. Way back in December 2002, I gave them a cheque for the last month's rent. For mysterious reasons, the cheque was never negotiated. In June 2003, the deposit was stipulated by the Tribunal to have been paid because they couldn't prove otherwise.

But during the 'negotiations' this past week, they first offered a package that included the deposit in the calculations. Once my side had accepted that that may be okay with us, their next move was to remove the deposit from the calculations saying I'd never paid it. I stated that it had been stipulated as paid earlier.

Here's the part that makes me laugh. Tell me if you think I'm just off balance or if it strikes you as hilarious too. The cat's no fun - she doesn't get it at all. And I think I confused my friend when I tried to explain it the other day.

With a rather agressive flourish the landlord holds up a letter I wrote that has the cheque attached to the bottom of it, thrusts it in my direction and says: "It was never paid."

So I had to say: "That looks like a cheque I wrote. Which means I did pay it."

His attitude and manner suggested that somehow I was at fault for his not negotiating the cheque before it was stale-dated.

Apparently there are no rules in mediation sessions. The Tribunal's own Rules state that nothing said there can be later used in the hearing. So you can be as outrageously inane as you wish.

The picture of his triumphant presentation of supposed evidence of my failure to pay that only proves he didn't bother to cash it is something I will remember the next time I'm up against him in court and I need to reduce my stress level.

I am still convinced that the fact the Tribunal stipulated it had been paid in the first hearing (June 2003) and that during the October 2003 hearing it was included in the calculations of what I owed plus the fact that they'd had to agree during that hearing that the interest I'd deducted from the August rent was correct means they can't change their minds now.

It'll be interesting to see if they bring it up at the next hearing, huh? I'm betting they don't want the Tribunal to know why they didn't get the deposit more than they want the money. Oh, and the package I filed with the Tribunal includes letters I wrote reminding them to negotiate the cheque. There's just no helping some people.

This front page headline and lead-in from yesterday's Kingston Whig-Standard caught my eye:

Starting at the bottom: Avro search set to begin Local News - A search 50 years in the making gets underway tomorrow as two Canadian warships leave Kingston to plumb the depths of Lake Ontario for lost aviation history.

Sounds serious, huh? What kind of aviation history would be worth this kind of effort 50 years after the fact? Why is half the Canadian Navy involved?

Okay, I exaggerated a bit about "half". Just a bit, though. It appears our naval fleet is 34 ships strong. In the Coastal Defense Vessel class, there are 12 ships total, two of which are on this mission.

"Baby Arrows" - Tiny models of airplanes that were part of an(other) ill fated government project canned almost 50 years ago. They were intentionally "lost" in Lake Ontario during testing. Of interest to Canadian aviation history buffs, but not likely many others.

The question "why search now?" wasn't really answered, at least not to my satisfaction. "Why the Navy?" was finally addressed by the last line:

Navy officials have told The Whig-Standard that their search is part of the training for navy reservists who are learning navigation and operations aboard both the Kingston and Glace Bay.

Front page. This is a military town, I'll give them that. But there must be something more important going on locally or somewhere else in the country or the world.

I got stuck in the quicksand of adjusting this blog's appearance yesterday. It was fun in that discovery sense, but time consuming. Finally had to sleep. Well, try to sleep. Anyway, it's good enough for now.

Actually, there's just way too much I'd like to change and/or reorganize behind the scenes. (CSS feels too much like assembler to me - bleh!) So, it's going to take a major bit of planning and coding and I have more important things to do immediately.

There's a low pressure system calling Kingston home right now that's making things look pretty gray out there.

I've been inside with the cat for two whole days now. I think I'll head out for breakfast where other people be.

And then ... back to getting my application to the Tribunal back on track.

Asking more people more questions has increased my frustration. So, perhaps fewer questions of fewer people would be the solution? Maybe. Today I continued to pursue what I'd started on Friday: a reset to the pre-hearing status of the landlord situation.

In my favour: I did get my fax to the people that matter (ORHT) before any official documents were produced in the matters between my landlord and I.

There is some confusion (or some other reason for differing perceptions, perhaps) about whether the agreement drafted at the Hearing Location on Wednesday last is just that, a mediated agreement between the parties, or whether it has been promoted to the status of an official Order of the Tribunal. The difference between the two has mainly to do with the availability of reopening the applications. (Which is what I am all about right now.)

At this point a lot of my success or lack thereof rests with the adjudicator and whether or not he is willing to accept my submission (fax of Friday). There are no deadlines under which his reponse is required to fall in the Rules. But the gentleman at the desk in the ORHT office thought I would get one fairly quickly. I certainly hope so.

If the answer is negative, then I can request a Review of the Order (again, presuming an Order was produced...). This will take a few weeks to process, too.

And, if I'm really tired of dealing with the Tribunal and their tilted world, I can go to Divisional Court and tell them I have been through the Tribunal's processes and found them to be unfair and unyielding and present my request for abatement there.

The biggest unknown right now is whether any of the above will keep me in my apartment as long as I have need to be. Meaning I have not the time and energy to handle legal wrangling + medical appointments + finding new digs and moving in all at the same time. In an ideal world (which I understand I am not a part of at the moment - honest!), I would be staying put until I had a real reason to move AND had found a better place AND was well enough to handle it all. The abatement was (and still is, in my mind) a wholly separate issue from my continued tenancy. It arises out of my tenancy, but does not (and should not) determine when or whether I move out.

I have asked someone with more experience than I to take a look at my application and give me his opinion regarding whether I really ought to walk away from this if the immediate relief I have sought is not available. When I left his office I felt a bit more encouraged than I had earlier in the day.

On top of three different discussions with three sets of individuals about the current project, some health care appts were confirmed (for me and Dixie), blood test results picked up, radiator folks consulted about my possessed Jeep, mail checked.

I don't think I'll be up too late tonight ;-)

I just hope it's quiet upstairs tonight. That would be a small mercy indeed.

Last week's flurry of inquiries into the Tribunal's procedures yielded nothing that would forestall the termination of my tenancy here in Kingston. At least nothing had been communicated to me except the official Order detailing the mediated settlement with the July 31st termination date.

I arrived in Ottawa Thursday to view the most promising of the rental listings in hopes of simplifying this impromptu relocation. Thanks to my good friends Patrick and Anna, I was able to continue the search right through the weekend.

Saturday night arrived without a good fit being found. As an aside, the shared accommodations rental market is a quite a mixed bag with virtually the same rent being asked for widely divergent amenities and floor space. I was so tired I was ready to call off the Sunday appointment and head back to start packing, figuring Plan B was in order (an interim move into storage with the cat in a kennel).

I'm really glad I didn't though, because it turned out to be the best fit of all. A reasonable and personable roommate with oodles of space for my stuff (and a small dog for Dixie to befriend!) who was just as happy as I to have our respective searches ended. I knew I'd like the area having lived quite happily a few blocks away with my children and animals until leaving for Virginia several years ago.

The townhouse is at Bay and Gilmour - a great area with trees and character within walking distance of downtown.

The best news is that my piano will fit (just) through the doorway into the space I have chosen for my living area, which means I can finally have it with me as well. Cool huh?

All day a blah day. The apartment genie worked its evil overnight causing my allergies to bloom. The low pressure system is still hanging around depressing spirits and energy. The mad house hunting adventure has overdrawn my energy account significantly. The blood tests done last week are not uplifting: in fact, one indicates I am possibly anemic. Oh joy.

Tomorrow had BETTER be better.

I must remember to cancel the taxi driver test I planned to take on Wednesday. You see, I really didn't expect in a million years that my application about Maintenance to the Tribunal would result in my having to leave my apartment. No, the worst case scenario I had conjured up was that I didn't get any compensation whatsoever for the negligence that has occurred here. And so I'd been planning to get back out into the world starting with driving interesting people around while I awaited my liver healing itself.

Quite a leap from there to what I am facing now: moving while coping with this condition.

What keeps me plodding ahead is the conviction that getting out of this apartment will relieve at least some of the stress on my system. I will not miss the many problems and incessant noise from the insane dog above me. Not one bit. As an added bonus, I will be in a city in which access to medical caretakers is less of a challenge. There's the increased likelihood of gaining employment outside of the transportation industry as well.

And the prospect of getting all my crap together in one place after such a long wait. These are all good things that will increase my positive energy quota immensely. Indeed, just thinking about them is good.

A whole night's rest made a huge difference in my sluggishness. There was a slump mid-afternoon, but I'm not going to let that bring me down. After all, the whole rest of the day (except for the dog barking parts) was slightly normal and slightly productive.

The taxi test was supposed to be today, not tomorrow. Oops. I did figure this out before the office opened however, and managed to cancel it early. They didn't call back all irate or anything, so I guess they forgave me.

I moved my physiotherapy appointment to make room for a potentially work-yielding conference call that will take place tomorrow afternoon. Revised my resume yet again and sent it off as well.

What else did I do? Oh - made an appointment to get a legal opinion on the pros and cons of pursuing the Tribunal application nonsense any further. That's tomorrow as well. I've pretty well decided what I'm (not) going to do, mainly due to the current energy deficiencies, but I'd like to hear his opinion as well. (Part of my legal education you could say.) Who knows? He could change my mind about giving up the fight. Maybe.

Took a break from the noisy building and went downtown. Told my friend at the Sacred Source that I'd be moving soon. Heard about her hubby's work insanity. Then spent an hour or so watching the sailboats on the water and enjoying the sun that finally broke through the thunderstorm threatening weather system.

Another night's sleep and I'll be pretty well back to effective. I hope.

In other news: Michael is blogging with encryption turned way up! I'll have to get me a decoder ring or something.

Thanks to some excellent advice last night my world is getting less obstacle rich. At least in regards to the next couple of weeks which are now almost completely move focussed.

My head's not entirely in the game today, but I did manage to rearrange my medical appointments, send a job-related (okay, might be a long shot but it's better than no shot) email and an on-line job application for a position at an extremely cool company.

Aside from the incessant low pressure system adding to the oppressive atmosphere (pun intended) here in Kingston (although, quite a bit of sunshine was able to make its way to my windows this afternoon), my ability to focus and plan and (most importantly) execute said plans has been impaired by post-physio head and neck pain.

I'm thinking I'll be cancelling the appointment that was just scheduled for next week. My already irritable nerve thing will be upset enough with the lifting and carrying of the move effort.

The dog upstairs needs a muzzle. Maybe a permanent one. I will probably fall fast asleep and not wake for a week after getting into my new digs. Yes, there is a dog there, too - but it'll be in the same apartment and I've met him and he's not neurotic at all. 'Sides, I can bribe him and/or train him to behave. No chance of that with the current constant canine commotion creator.

Congratulations to Tyla on the new job!

Psychologically speaking, what's the difference between:

1) a rut and a groove?
2) focus and obsession?

That's what I thought.

I've been gnawing on the possibility of taking one more step toward reopening my Tenant Application About Maintenance at the ORHT. [I really do have trouble with the title of the form because in my case the issue was/is Lack Of Maintenance - I mean why would you complain about Maintenance anyway?]

One of my stumbling blocks was that requesting a Review of the Order may result in the termination of the tenancy within it being reversed as well. This would mean I'd owe rent on the apartment for August 1st, since the termination date was stipulated as July 31. I've already paid rent for August in Ottawa. [Time for official requests to the Tribunal was short, what with the one month 'notice' period that I'd be needing a new place and the Tribunal's estimated 2 week turnaround time for a response.]

Then I recalled that I have an earlier Order in which the landlord (previous to this one) agreed to allow me to give 2 weeks' notice to terminate. I'm sure they hoped I'd take them up on that sooner :-)

So today, in true CYA form, I called to arrange to go to the landlord's (secure) apartment building to deliver my notice, a copy of the previous Order for his information and get him to sign the two copies of an Agreement To Terminate A Tenancy I'd prepared. On the phone he flat out refused to sign the forms, saying the Order had already terminated the tenancy. I informed him that I was attempting to have my application reopened and wanted to end the tenancy this way as well.

Intuition had (sort of) prepared me for something uncomfortable to transpire and I had tried to get a witness to accompany me (bad timing on my part prevented that) but I never expected a flat out refusal to sign the forms.

Huh. Well, I had to get the notice to him today or it wouldn't be within the 2 weeks' period required.

I came home (from my potential witness' place) and added a note to the orginal letter, along with a stamped, addressed envelope asking him to forward a copy of the signed Agreement to me at his earliest convenience. Then took the whole thing over to his building and left it jammed into a space on the side of his mail slot. [Which is, by the way a perfectly acceptable way to deliver things according to the Tribunal's rules.]

On the phone I told him I'd probably have to talk to a lawyer about his refusal to sign the forms. And I guess that's what I'll be doing. I'm still puzzled by stuff like this though.

Back to plotting the move to Ottawa.

On Saturday I took a mental health break from this apartment and attended "1812 At The Fort": an annual event at Fort Henry put on by the Kingston Symphony. The name comes from the final piece: the 1812 Overture accompanied by cannons and fireworks. It was a treat and a great night for it: thunderstorms threatening but not interfering with the performance.

A surprising addition to the program was a performance by Ryan Malcolm and his brother (can't recall his name). They did a wonderful a cappella rendition of The Sounds Of Silence. I couldn't resist quietly singing along.

This has long been a favourite of mine. It was the first recording I ever purchased way back when it first came out. The first line very nicely sums up my world at the moment and has been stuck in my head ever since the performance.

The move to Ottawa is getting underway this weekend. My children and other wonderful people who know them and myself have offered help to lighten that load.

I'll be back after the move, hopefully with a new theme song.

The new theme song. Actually, my kids will tell you it's been my theme song forever. The temporary imbalance has been dispelled and this song is back.

The bridge today is appropriate medication. The difference in my headspace is wonderfully astounding. I think we (medical team and I) have finally hit the nail on the head. At least I hope that's what's going on and not just a lovely "side effect" which will either wear off or be a cause for discontinuation next time I consult with my doctor. (Oh, and let's hope the liver doesn't cast a dissenting vote either...)

Honestly, I haven't felt this much like myself in several years.

As time waits for no medication there is still a huge time and energy crunch going on tomorrow. I'd better get back at it.

Thanks in advance to those who have taken Michael up on his offer of dinner in return for help unloading on Sunday.