The Bastard Landlord
2004-09-03, 2:45 p.m.

I��m so mad today I could spit fire at people. Since I��m leaving Korea early, one of the things I��ve had to take care of is getting out of my housing lease. Unfortunately, my roommate, The Believer, hasn��t been any help on this front even though she speaks Korean. Instead, I��ve had to enlist the assistance of a mutual Korean friend to negotiate with the landlord.

Our friend, Mr. Lee, called the landlord for me yesterday and tried to play upon his sympathies. We��re foreigners who have been robbed and lost a lot of money and we just want to go home etc. etc. etc. Anyway, it turns out that the landlord doesn��t really manage the apartment, it��s his mother who own it. So, he tells us that he can��t make a decision until he calls his mom. I said ok and we��re still waiting to hear from him.

According to our lease, we don��t have to pay a penalty if we can find another person to rent the apartment. But, the landlord has already found someone else and he still wants us to pay the one months rent penalty fee.

This afternoon, I called Mr. Lee to find out if the landlord had called back. He said no word yet. I asked him if we should offer to pay any brokerage fees that the owners incurred to get the place re-rented, this seemed like a fair offer to me. But, no, the landlord wants the full penalty fee so he can ��do some remodeling��. Well, the apartment has been remodeled. It��s practically new inside. There��s absolutely nothing wrong with the place.

So, here��s the reason I��m mad. When our house got broken into, the landlord had to pay to put bars on the windows and also had to pay to have the windows replaced, which isn��t cheap. He doesn��t need any remodeling done, so he��s trying to screw us out of the money to pay for the window. He��s a fucking bastard! I��m so mad I could spit fire right now!

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