Paul's Comments

I don't know if this counts for much, but if there is someone who reads this who has a unit or a room that isn't really expensive that is in or near the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area that is accessible by someone in a wheelchair who wants a quiet tenant who pays his rent on or before it it is due, give me a call on my cell phone at 703-868-7654 and my voice mail number is 240-345-6675; messages left there are e-mailed to me. (Once I move these numbers will be removed from future copies of this message.)

What, am I just kidding myself? The only people who read this other than me are probably the spammers who try to excrement all over this blog. But I have to start somewhere; I'm probably going to have to move soon. I will have to move, the only question is how fast.

Apparently the prior landlord was in pre-foreclosure or foreclosure while he was renting the building holding the unit I'm living in. The property has since been foreclosed. What I've gotten 3rd party from some of the other tenants of the other units is the typical tricks financial organizations pull on the uneducated. The bank wants the property empty (obviously so it can sell it), is supposedly being so gracious as to give us a little time to move, and is claiming that the people here who rented their units from the prior landlord are trespassing.

Yeah, right. You can get away with that sort of crap with the uneducated and those who do not know their rights, which refers to people other than me. I used to work for a real estate office in California; I know the rules. I also know all the tricks that professional deadbeat tenants can use if I want to go to scorched earth defense, which I'm probably not going to use unless I am forced to do so. I'm not waiving anything and I'm standing on the letter of the law. I rented the property in good faith, paid rent promptly and have valid tenancy. Further, California is much less sympathetic to tenants and Maryland law grants several additional privileges to tenants above and beyond what California law does.

They don't call this place "The People's Republic of Maryland" for nothing. The law grants tenants in residential property certain rights and explicitly forbids as contrary to public policy any attempt to try to claim the tenant has waived those rights.

If they went me to move early, they're going to have to throw money at me. If they want to pay me to give up some of my rights, that's one thing and I have no problem negotiating a figure. But I will not simply waive them or give them up without compensation and without fighting. And I know enough about what the requirements are to make it a lot more expensive for them to fight me over it than to pay me off.

The biggest thing that bothers me is someone out-and-out lying about this sort of thing. I don't blame them for not telling us what our rights are, that's our job to know them. But to lie and commit fraud (a knowing lie made for the purposes of someone to rely upon it to the extent of causing them to take a financial loss constitutes fraud) is a personal insult to me and when I get insulted (especially by dishonesty from others) I expect compensation for their misconduct.

I'm normally a pleasant person, and I do not want to be a bastard but on this issue I will be. If I have to I go to state court to get an injunction to require they follow the rules and prevent an illegal eviction or self-help eviction or the equivalent thereof, or I go to Federal court to get protection under the Americans With Disabilities Act.

I'm also not handing out any prizes or making any give aways as to what they have to do or are required to do. I don't tell anything I don't need to; that's what they pay their lawyers to tell them what their requirements are. I'm not being paid to tell them how to comply with the law. They fail to follow the letter of the law and I fight, if necessary I go to court to enforce the rules.

I mean, I think I represent the "dream tenant" every landlord wishes he would get. I have always paid my rent on or before it's due. I don't smoke, don't make a lot of noise and I stay in my room except when I'm out to fix something or I've left the building on an occasional errand. I don't ask for much; all I wanted was what the law required me to be granted: quiet enjoyment of my unit for the time I have paid rent in advance, and basically to be left alone to go to hell in my own handbasket, e.g. to do my thing and live my life.

But the rules are clear; the new owner has the same rights, and is subject to the same responsibilities as the former owner. We'll see what happens. I'm not unreasonable and I'm not greedy; make me whole and adequate to cover what it will cost me to move plus a little extra for the inconvenience that I, as a person with a disability has as a result of having to arrange to move and I'm gone. Be generous and I'm gone like lightning; be reasonable and I can be gone fast; be cheap it's going to be very slow with a hard road to hoe for them and will take lots longer. They pull any stunts and I hit back, hard. Pull self-help and they get sued for damages, big time. They want to cut off the electricity, then I'll start it up under my name or a company name. Ditto the water, or I might just buy drinking water at a store in the interim. But I will not simply allow myself to be driven out in violation of the law; I don't grant free concessions. I can't afford to be Mr. Nice Guy; for me to move is going to cost me money and someone is going to have to come up with it; I already spent a chunk of change to move. I am just now financially healing from the move I made just a short time ago which followed the last move. I don't want to have to move again so soon, and if I have to move it will be because the lease on my unit is up or I've been paid off to terminate the lease on my unit.

The letter of the law is what I insist on being followed, or pay me to waive the requirements. You don't get them for free; and you're already going to be into a chunk of change to take the place back, they can spend a few thousand to cover my costs to let them have what they want. Or they can be scrimy and cheap and it will cost them more. It's their choice.

Again, we'll see what happens. I think what I'll do is find out if anyone left a business card so I can talk to them. Failing that, I'll go down to the County Recorder and see what paperwork is present. But I'm not going to worry about it. If they don't cross all the i's and dot all the t's and do something not according to the rules I'm going to fight, and sue if necessary, and it will be even more expensive to them than if they followed the rules and/or paid me off.

When the landlord at my last place informed us he was not going to renew the lease, I respected that as being what the law required. We wheedled him into giving us 60 days instead of 30 which made it easier for me. But I got out without fighting over it because I respect someone who follows the rules and acts respectfully. But treat me as if I'm garbage and I'm likely to make them pay me for taking out the trash to which they are treating me as.

Looks like I will have to bulk up the minutes on my cell phone after all. I might just see about changing my MagicJack so that the number is forwarded to my cell phone so I have an area code 240 number that rings to me. We shall see.

Oh well, start subscribing to the Washington Post again and check out Craigslist every day for possible places. Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to have to bulk up my cell minutes. Or I can take Vonage for 30 days then cancel the service at no cost. That's an idea and would be cheaper. As luck would have it, I have a Vonage adapter I bought once and never used. I could try it right away. But I'll wait until I have to. I have two choices as far as my cell phone is concerned; buy a 90-day extension and extra minutes for around $30, or buy a one-year extension and 400 minutes for around $125, which then grants me double minutes. I'll think about it, considering I know that I am cheap and scrimy I prefer lower-cost options.

Over a short period of time, not sure if it's been several days or it's just the last day or two, something has happened, but I'm not sure what it is. Whether it's that some burden or fear has lifted, or that something has changed to make things less of a problem, I'm not sure. But there is some sort of either a calm, or a change in conditions, and things seem either nicer, less hectic, or in some way better than they were.

I just got back from spending a few days over at my sister's place celebrating Christmas late, because she had had an injury and wasn't really ready to handle having Christmas on December 25. Maybe it's the clearing of the Christmas holiday, or the New Year's Holiday (that one I don't really celebrate over.) But anyway, I'm back at my place and somehow, things seem different. In some respects, I think this feeling came over me while I was there.

Not exactly sure what it is or was, or whether I'm just imagining it, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, I've got some ideas I'm working on and I am going to look into them now.

But I don't even know that the end of Christmas is causing this "feeling of relief" because it's not all cleared up; a Christmas present I ordered on-line on December 5 has not yet showed up. I had gotten an e-mail confirming that they accepted my order. I got a notice in e-mail that on January 2 that they were at that point shipping the item!

I purchased a couple of 1GB SD cards (because the two cheap cameras I have won't accept anything bigger) on or around December 24, and got them yesterday when I got back from my sister's place. I found the small package in with the incoming mail. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean anything except the seller's rating on eBay was 99.1% positive on 83,000 transactions. Meaning the seller wasn't exactly a newbie who didn't know what they were doing. Yet this seller could get an item to me within a week (at a price of $4.95 each), but the other company couldn't do it in three. Let's say order on the 5th, allow them 21 days, that's Christmas and a week after that to deliver it would still have gotten it to me in time. This is beyond the fact that they're charging outrageous prices for shipping, such that the alleged 2 for $15 price ends up being double, e.g. I'm getting four items shipped and it's costing me about $65.

About a minute or two ago, I heard a loud bang, then a second, then six more. This scared me for a moment, it sounded exactly like gunfire. Actually, right now I hear more bangs going off.

I was frightened. I was looking for my cell phone to call the police and report what I thought was gunfire. This was extremely unusual for this neighborhood.

Then it hit me; it's exactly midnight on January 1. It's fireworks! Yeah, yeah, technically it's also illegal here in Maryland but there's a difference. Fireworks are fun and unless you're the schmuck continuing to hold an M-80 in your hand after you lit it, usually they don't hurt anybody.

Yeah, I know, the fire department would disagree with me. Hey, I'm just trying to make a snarky comment, not be exactly accurate, okay. I know people sometimes set fires or burn people's houses down - usually by accident or negligence - through careless use (or misuse) of fireworks.

I mean, if my new computer had been working, I'd have had Dick Clark on, I'd have remembered it was New Years Eve, and the banging and popping would not have frightened me. And it's a good thing it wasn't gunfire, I tried to make a phone call and despite having 3 bars, I can't get a connection. I suppose it must be a lot of people making phone calls. I called my sister to wish her a happy new year, I got a ring then the network dropped me, but I didn't see what the message was. Probably a congestion warning.

I have one other option; I signed up for (if you know me, you know it's) a free phone service called CallingAmerica.Com (I put it in here so that when I forget again I can come back here and look) that works like Skype, that you can call people from your computer, to a regular PSTN telephone number (PSTN is telephone company talk for a regular telephone on the Public Switched Telephone Network as compared with, say, another on-the-Internet phone that is only reachable from someone on the Internet) in exchange for watching ads or hearing them or something. Anyway, I can talk for up to 15 minutes. So I'll try that.

I have said it, over and over, that I have no problem with Verizon's field people; they are, without exception, first class. They either know exactly what they're doing, or if they get in trouble, they call it in and ask for help so that they can get the job right, usually the first time. And again, they proved it.

Verizon's back office, as usual, screwed up. My Wednesday (12/17) appointment was canceled by a support person, marking the ticket as completed and fixed, without anyone coming out to fix the problem or even calling me to see if it was (it wasn't). I called back late Wednesday, to complain, discovered my trouble ticket had been cancelled, and got a Friday appointment in replacement. A technician came out and she discovered the line was crossed over with an old burglar alarm circuit. So she fixed this and it stopped causing the line to drop. And the speed went up to 512Mbps. And she even pointed out it should be higher, someone would be out to fix the line and bring it up to what it's supposed to be.

Only thing that bothers me is that now my router/firewall isn't working. I can talk to the router through its web interface if I connect to it. I can connect directly to the DSL modem, but if I connect the router to the DSL modem and connect through the router, it doesn't work, even though it did work back when I was having problems with the Internet connection. I don't like not having a firewall and (once the new Vista computer works) without a router I can't connect both computers. I have bought a switch, I think I could use that because the DSL modem also supports DHCP it might be able to handle multiple computers connected to it. I'm going to try reconnecting my router and see what happens. Another weird thing is that the DSL modem works better plugged directly into the wall socket than if it's plugged into a surge suppressor, which makes no sense. I think I'll check that next, as it's not good to have electronics running without surge suppression.

Sunday, another technician came out to fix the circuit running to the pole, and when he got finished he claimed it was the full circa 700K that I'm supposed to be getting. He runs an internal website from Verizon that says I'm getting that. But I decide to run one I think is less likely to be biased, and what do you know, I'm getting 710K download and 130K upload. (The circuit is capable of doing something like 864K but is capped to the maximum what I'm paying for 728, which is reasonable.)

Wow. I never got a 700K connection before. I have had BBC World Service radio running continuously since the connection was fixed on Sunday, and over 3 days I've not lost the connection except when I disconnected to reboot because of downloading software updates, as opposed to my old connection that always dropped for at least an hour a day and eventually was inverted and only working for one hour a day or so the last week before it was fixed. BBC only uses about 32K of bandwidth, so it's not a big piece of the service, but since it's a streaming service it's an excellent method of confirming that the connection is solid since it only has about 10 seconds of cached audio.

I went out Monday morning, and left the connection running. Monday evening I come back and the audio is still running, meaning it never dropped the connection. So it actually works and remains working. It's a nice solid service and actually works properly.

I just ran a speedtest, and I get 714/133 so it's being consistent and it works properly, exactly as it's supposed to. Verizon advertises the speed is "up to 728K" and the fact I get more than 95% of that is extremely satisfactory; the difference between what I'm getting and what the theoretical maximum I could get is so minor I don't care; it's essentially noise. As I've noted over more than twenty years: Verizon's field people are world class, Verizon's office people are worse than useless.

For the last 5 or 6 days I've been running "Prisoner Exercise" class Internet Service from Verizon Online. This is because generally the service will come on for maybe one hour a day and be out the other 23. (This is how people in prison are allowed out for exercise.) Another way to put it is to again announce that my Internet Connectivity is currently provided by Baghdad Electric Power Company.

I have a post I'll do later about my complaint to the Maryland Public Service Commission about getting (or rather, trying to get) discounted phone service. Problem is I probably can't stay connected long enough to post it considering what happened before just with this one.

Right now it's on after coming on yesterday and going out at 3PM exactly one minute before I was going to finish a transaction to add more minutes to my cell phone! I wanted to buy a $19.95 Tracfone card at the CVS at the Eastern Market Metro station, but, as usual, they were out of them. I wanted to take an extra one from another CVS which has them, but even though they have zero value until purchased they wouldn't let me have a spare one so that the next time I needed one at the store that is always out of them, I'd have it. Well, as it turned out, I got a better deal on-line; buy the 60 minutes plus an additional 90 days of airtime for $19.99, add an additional 60 minutes for $10. And since, when I bought the phone over a year ago I paid the extra $49.95 then so I get double minutes, so for $29.99 plus about $1.95 tax I got 240 minutes (and 90 days more service time), which is just barely above 10c a minute including the monthly service charge. Or I can just say I pay 11c a minute net. (You can see where I'm a really messy cheapskate here!)

But I had to have Internet connectivity to do it.

Well, anyway, back to my rant story. I was having trouble viewing a video on Tracfone's website, so I went over to a speed testing site, and for a connection to Washington, DC - a total of at most, 12 miles to the farthest point along a diagonal (I am roughly less than one mile from the nearest point to Washington, DC; if I could walk it's only about 6 blocks to the Capital Heights Metro Station which is across the street from the Maryland State Line) I am getting 137K bits per second for download speed and 132K for upload! This is ridiculous. [Note: I ran it a few minutes later, got 135K up/132 down].

Well, it's either today or tomorrow, but a technician is coming out to try and fix the problem of the connection either not being on or only staying on an hour at a time each day. (I hope it will be fixed, that is). Now the only question is whether the connection I have will stay up long enough for me to save this page or whether it will drop off before I can do* so.

*I originally ended my posting here, and I realize it's not as funny as I thought it was so I'll finish the sentence. So now I wait, as a prisoner, for the grant of execution. (I already have a stay; Verizon's Internet is out for 23 hours a day, as I stated!). I forgot whether they set my appointment for sometime today or sometime tomorrow. I think I'll scam the hearing-impaired service to call them (by using my computer) and check instead of spending my cell minutes on an 800 number call. [Update 12/26/2008]Note to myself: Uh, Paul, exactly how do you 'scam' the hearing impaired service to call someone (so you don't have to pay for the call) when you don't have Internet connectivity to connect to the hearing impaired service over the Internet?[End Update]

The last call to Verizon Online ran up 27 minutes of talk time to get a technical person to take a trouble ticket and discover they can't fix whatever is wrong in the office.

I can't simply call using my (unlimited calling) MagicJack phone service because I knocked the UPS off-line again the other day when reorganizing my room and couldn't get the plug back into the wall in time to save the power (as I said, the battery is low so I only have about 2 minutes of save time), so the new Vista computer (HP ST3220N) was shut off, and, as usual, doesn't work because I can't seem to get it to start up again. (Magicjack still won't work with the XP machine I'm using right now to post this message.) Looks like I'm going to eventually have to spend money to get whatever is wrong fixed. But at least, now that I know it makes no difference as far as the switch is concerned, I have the front face plate back on 3220.

Until I have 24 hours continuous, uninterrupted connectivity with Verizon Online I'm not canceling the technician call if it is for tomorrow. If the technician gets here and it's working again I'll point out that it wasn't before.

If I was paranoid I'd say Verizon Online was (1) punishing me for filing a complaint with the Maryland PSC; (2) running the service for perhaps 1 hour a day so they can claim the service is not totally dead and thus I'm still liable if I terminate the service; (3) doing this intentionally. But it is wierd that the service is now mostly off instead of being flakily failing for some amount of time each day.

I noticed some other sleazy little item; in the (printed) terms and conditions for the service (that come after you order it) they claim that if you're going to sue them you agree that you have to do so in Fairfax County, Virginia. Cute trick. It might be arguable that only applies if one is suing over the quality of service as opposed to fighting the billing of the termination charge. Or that it's reprehensibly onerous to impose such a condition over a minor issue. Off the top of my head I can't remember the term lawyers use where a contract term is so manifestly unfair as to be on-its face unreasonable. Oh yeah, unconscionable.

Maybe I should just complain and try to get it waived rather than sue. But I'm just mad enough to do it since it probably won't cost me anything and I can make Verizon have to spend money over the issue even if - or especially if - I force them to re-litigate the issue if they win on the provision requiring someone to sue them in Fairfax County. So they'd end up having to defend the case twice, over a $79 termination fee.

But that whole issue would only come up if I decide to cancel the service, possibly because I want to try and get it added to discount phone service.

In the mean time I need to write a program to monitor my connection, basically pinging a known good site - like Google or Verizon's WWW22 website - once a minute to show that the connection doesn't work. (Perhaps also pinging my firewall or the DSL modem to show the problem is not in any of my equipment.) That way I can show the connection is dead almost all the time if I do have to go into court over the service effectively not being provided at all vs. being so slow as to almost be as bad as dialup. So I need to get some IP addresses while my connection is still hot.

For the record, I found something interesting. I got two addresses for www.google.com: 64.233.169.147 and the more common one 64.233.169.104. Without www it's 74.125.45.100. Verizon.com is 192.76.85.245; pinging that address times out! www.verizon.com is 209.170.110.52 and the infamous www22.verizon.com translates to e3.g.akamaiedge.net (which I knew that Verizon uses Akamai to host their webserver) 72.246.32.29.

I am amazed that at the moment the connection is still hot and hasn't crapped out on me again. Perhaps it's one of those suspicious pathological - if that's the right word - illness type conditions where as soon as you go to a doctor the problem stops; since Verizon is sending a technician out the connection spontaneously improves so when the tech shows up the service works fine. I don't know. But I think I'm going to leave the trouble ticket in place, I can still complain about the really slow connection even if it doesn't die between now and whenever he or she shows up.

I wrote the above around noon, and saved it. Then I wrote the following one paragraph (off line) which was originally part of the previous paragraph:

I do not know if this paragraph will ever be posted; (I probably should have expected it but I hoped the connection would last another 30 seconds) as soon as I wrote this paragraph the connection went belly up and I don't know if it will come back or the connection is out for bad for the day. (It's obviously not out "for good." as this is at least bad if not terrible!) I'm writing this off-line; when the connection returns I will post it.

I am posting this and the following at about 11:40pm when the connection came back up. While I was off-line I did what I was thinking of doing: I wrote a program that logs the connection state by doing a continuous 'ping' of a few public websites once a minute. When it got a connection, it started another program to play a sound. So I'd know to the minute when it came back.

Oh, you might say, it took Verizon's technician from whenever they showed up until now to get it working? No. Verizon's tech never showed up, they never called, and they closed the ticket saying the problem had been fixed without even calling me and without actually fixing the problem.

When 7:30 this evening came by, I called Verizon Online to find out about why the person didn't show up by 7, and got a new trouble ticket and a new appointment, this time for sometime Friday between 8:00 AM and 7:00 PM same as it was supposed to be today. And burned through 41 minutes of cell time. It was a damn good thing I was able to get on line earlier today long enough to buy more minutes, as before I bought an additional 240 today, I only had about 35 left.

With the program I wrote I now knew within one minute when the connection came back up. I have the program running still so I'll know to the minute exactly when it comes crashing down again. The only bad thing about is that it steals focus each minute for about 3 seconds so whenever I'm typing I have to click on this page to get focus back so I can finish.

Well at least there's one nice thing about the service returning the connection is better; as of 12:05AM Thursday I'm getting 447Kbps down, 132K up.

I'm probably going to bug them several times between now and then to verify that my appointment is still good and to let them know I'll be concerned about the technician stiffing me again. I used to think I don't believe in violence but this attitude toward customers makes me understand why some letter carriers have "gone postal."