{"id":30557,"date":"2023-04-19T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=30557"},"modified":"2023-04-13T10:08:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:08:30","slug":"red-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/19\/red-tag\/","title":{"rendered":"RED TAG"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nWhen a <\/strong>rent check<\/span><\/span> bounces, the bank charges me. I<\/em> didn\u2019t bounce the check. Am I supposed to ask my tenants, \u201cIs your check good, or is it tissue paper?\u201d<\/p>\n

Eve, a tenant, ran a beauty parlor and was a chronic check-bouncer. She once screamed at me: \u201cMy freaking check is good! Why don\u2019t you put it in! I hand-delivered it to the manager yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bank charges me<\/em>!\u201d I said. \u201cI just called the bank. The teller said it was no good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eve was<\/span> at the bank. The check was now good, she claimed. And I had just gone to city hall and filed an eviction on her for $100. Now Eve owed me $100, plus the rent. I said, \u201cOK, I\u2019ll put the check in if it\u2019s good.\u201d\u00a0I would eat the $100 filing fee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe check<\/span> is <\/em>good!\u201d she said. \u201cI pay my rent and I intend to pay it until the end of my lease, at which point I\u2019m out of here! And you haven\u2019t fixed the back screen door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfair what-about-ism, Eve. I said, “I\u2019m evil, I know that. You don\u2019t like me, and I don\u2019t like you.\u201d I hung up and called the bank. The check was good.<\/p>\n

Peace and<\/strong><\/span> prosperity.<\/p>\n

Then next month Eve was back in Bounce City. At the eviction hearing, she cried and walked out, wailing, \u201cI\u2019m crying just like a girl!\u201d The bailiff red-tagged her; he taped a red writ of restitution to the door of her store. She had 10 days to move.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t. She paid <\/span>her rent. She was legally evicted, but not real-life evicted.<\/p>\n

The following month Eve didn\u2019t pay her rent or show up at court. She called and told me her \u201cbaby daddy\u201d wasn\u2019t giving her kid enough money. Also, the store\u2019s electric was off.\u00a0She hadn\u2019t paid the bill.\u00a0She couldn’t cut hair without electricity.<\/p>\n

That was her problem. The bailiff gave her a second red tag.<\/p>\n

My locksmith<\/strong><\/span> picked the beauty salon\u2019s front door lock, re-keyed the cylinder ($142 for the pick job), and I walked in. Everything was gone — the barber chairs, wash stations and wall cabinets. Ripped out.\u00a0The red tag was still there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  When a rent check bounces, the bank charges me. I didn\u2019t bounce the check. Am I supposed to ask my tenants, \u201cIs your check good, or is it tissue paper?\u201d Eve, a tenant, ran a beauty parlor and was a chronic check-bouncer. She once screamed at me: \u201cMy freaking check is good! Why don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30557"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30559,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30557\/revisions\/30559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}