Greg, Linds, Avery, and Bridger

Back in the Days of BYU Landlords

Now let the story begin.....oh and I hope you don't expect this to be some life changing event cause....well we all know I don't write those kind of stories....

I used to have a landlord whom we shall call Larry...partly because that's his name and partly because it rhymes with scary....now over the two years which I lived in the house there were many rumors circulating about Scary Larry (SL). Let me first describe him...

Larry stood about 5'5 and weighed approximately 85 lbs. He had a high pitched voice and claimed to be a Mr. Fix-it....which of course was not true. Think Mr. Roper from Three's Company.

Many of the rumors began when Larry started bringing his "representative" with him on surprise inspections for the house. Now his representative's name was Harold....and he was a Bounty hunter.....no I am not kidding...thats actually what he told us. I'm not sure if it was supposed to scare us or what but the first time my roommate heard this audacious lie she burst out laughing....he didn't appreciate that and told her so. She apologized and explained that she didn't know there was a big need for bounty hunters in Utah. He explained that he wasn't really a bounty hunter but a repo guy, and then he showed her his gun. (none of this is made up) She looked at him, looked at the gun, and then looked at Larry who was beaming. Thus the rumor that Larry was gay began.

Now over those years many things fell off, broke, or became stopped up in that house and each time we would try to fix it ourselves before calling SL because we really didn't want him in our house. But on the occasions when we couldn't remedy the problem we would call and politely ask for him to come and "take a look." Here are a few of his "quick fixes" or excuses for not being able to fix the problem.....

1. The shower head in the upstairs bathroom broke and literally would fall on our heads when we showered...not pleasant at 7 am...or ever really. We MacGyvered it with a bobby pin and a bic razor for about 6 months before he came to "fix it"...he ducktaped it to the shower wall.

2. The downstairs shower's drain became clogged. We used Draino and a coathanger and all sorts of other techniques to pull out years of hair and general grossness before calling him to let him know that the shower wouldn't drain. He came over called a plumber (which was nice of him) and the plumber informed him that his pipes needed to be replaced...I was standing there when the plumber told Larry this....so Larry told us that we would have to wash our hair upstairs and wear a shower cap in the shower downstairs so no more hair would cause stoppage. Yes...thats what he told us.

3. He put a deadbolt on the back door...because one of my roommates didn't feel safe without one...this is dumb for two reasons....1. The back door is mostly a big window and 2. Larry put the deadbolt on backwards....and no I am not kidding....we had to get a guy to come and put the deadbolt on correctly and then Larry tried to charge us for the labor.

4. My window did not have a screen on it so the summer months became almost unbearable because we didn't have an air conditioner. I called him and asked him if I could get a screen. At 6:30am on a Sat. morning Larry came and stapled chicken wire to my window. It was not stapled in any type of order and there were gapping holes in the "screen."

So when we decided to finally move out a couple of my roommates decided to go ahead and take their deposits out of their last month's rent knowing that they would never see the money again otherwise. Two days later I get a call on my cell phone informing me that I need to call Larry immediately. IMMEDIATELY!!!

So I called him back...not knowing what could be so important. Larry then begins to describe what a "nice workable landlord" he has been to us and that we have literally destroyed his trust in us. I ask him what the heck he's talking about. He said that when he came for cleaning inspections nobody was home and we had blown him off. I asked him what time he had come for cleaning inspections and he said he was there at 10:30 pm just like he had told us he'd be. I told him that we had all made appointments with him at 6:30pm and when he hadn't shown we had all gone about our business. He apologized then and told me that he thought he had called to reschedule but must have forgotten (enter great rolling of eyes) He then asked me how he could get ahold of Rachel and Melanie two of my friends/roommates. I told him I didn't know...because Mel was in China and Rachel didn't have a cell phone. He then told me that his "representative" had told him that they had taken their deposits out of their last months rent and this was against the Honor Code and he would be pressing criminal charges against them if they didn't immediately pay the remainder of the money to him. I told him that it wasn't my responsibility to tell them any such thing and that he would have to inform them of that himself. He said he understood and then hung up.

Following that conversation, I went into the living room and told Rachel what had just happened. (yeah she was sitting there the whole time :) And Rachel just started laughing. It seemed Larry had known that she and Mel had taken their deposits out of their last month's rent already and in front of Rachel's parents had told her that that made his job a lot easier and that was fine.

So Rachel decided to take her chances with the law and Melanie being in China said "Let Larry try and find me." And we haven't heard from the Scary Larry since.

The End