Trashin' Miss B

My mom called me last night and told me she was having problems with our tenant. Our tenant – I can’t recall her name, let’s call her “B” – didn’t take the recycle trash out in the winter and instead put it in the basement (and my mom pays for the recycle bill even though she doesn’t live there that often), and my mom came to Wisconsin and found this mountain of frozen garbage in the basement, so she had to wait for it to thaw to remove it, and when it thawed… you can’t believe the stench. Miss B accused my mother of harassing her daughter when the fact was Caleb asked her daughter to rake leaves with him and she said probably later and then when later came he called her and asked if she would come out and rake leaves with him and she said no and then my mom had to discuss our utility bill problem with Miss B and called their house but she had gone on a date with her boyfriend leaving her daughter alone at home and the daughter said she wasn’t home. So the next day Miss B went to the manager of our house and told him that my mother was harassing her daughter. How ridiculous can one get? My mom kept using Chinese proverbs to illustrate her point and I thought, wow, Chinese proverbs sure are useful. There’s this one called “The wrongdoer makes claims first”, which basically says that the person who was wrong would go to the judge and make excuses and slander the other person first. The problem was that Miss B up and decided she wouldn’t pay any more utility bills the moment my mom left America 2 years ago and we suddenly got a new agent who didn’t know better. She told the agent she would contact my mom (who was in Taiwan, duh!) and ask her to rearrange to agreement about paying gas bills. She never did, obviously, the phone bill woulda been hell and our new agent peacefully assumed that she did so he put the gas bill into our deductions from rent along with tax…etc. The thing is we had a signed contract with Miss B that while my mom was living there my mom would pay 60% of the gas bill and Miss B would pay 40%, and vice versa while my mom was not living there, my mom was always a very reasonable woman and will overlook a lot of small payments unpaid or minor problems with our tenants. But what happened is that it adds up to more than 1500 dollars that we just can’t ignore, I mean, that could be my brother’s or my educational fund! My mom never looked to make big money out of renting our place and it’s rent hasn’t changed much since we started renting out, but it’s not exactly exciting to know we’re having minuses on the house that we don’t use that often anyway. Miss B claims she wouldn’t pay for that much, and the agency wouldn’t admit their mistake since my mom is a foreigner and can’t make them notice her. I think she should sue them but hey, that’s harsh and if we boot them out how long is it gonna take until we get a new tenant? My dad tells my mom to swallow it but I think that’s a very ostrich approach. If you don’t get that matter resolved Miss B will think we’re easy to circumvent and cut slack on other things. For a man that’s as brilliant as my dad, I can’t believe he’s so turn the other cheek, literally. My mom would still give our tenant credit where credit is due though, mom said Miss B usually paid her bills without murmur and when my mom got here and discovered she violated the contract by raising a kitten and told Miss B that she was allergic to furry animals so if she raises a cat in the house she might be responsible for my mom’s allergy attacks (not attacking the cat, I mean, health problems) she got rid of the creature in a week. There is a reason that was stated in the contract, woman! Miss B said in her defense that most of the heating went into the upper rooms (which is where we live) and so she needn’t pay that much for gas (It’s only 60% when we’re not there, for cripes sake!). Stacey, my host mom’s daughter who is studying to be a lawyer, told me my mom should definitely sue them. It’s a scary thing to sue people, I don’t think people who sue each other can still be cordial to each other, especially since watching those court shows where all those concerned are humiliated in public, or at least in front of each other. My mom could threaten to sue but the image of my mom telling Miss B that, well, mom doesn’t strike as a very threatening person. It would feel like she were just telling Miss B, like she were telling her about her daughter playing with Caleb, an ordinary thing that Miss B would most likely ignore. It just makes me realize how vulnerable my mom is here and I just want to go over there and help her talk to people because they assume she’s brain-dead or something just because she can’t speak English very well and dismiss her. But I know I shrivel in front of adults also. I’ll have to learn to be more aggressive. I just wish I could help her.