Several years ago, I leased a house with a ticking time bomb in the form of a large tree in the front yard. The good news was that it cut my summer cooling bills by a considerable margin. The bad news was that the tree was still growing underground.
The lease on the house had a stipulation that the landlord would not be responsible for any drainage problems that I had. “Fair enough,” I thought, knowing that I have heard complaints from landlords about items flushed down toilets causing problems, like tampons and other miscellaneous items not made to be put down a drain.
About three years into our seven-year adventure at the leased house, the stepson noted that the toilet he was using needed additional help each time he sat down instead of standing up at his toilet. We put up with it for about six months before calling out a plumber to see if there was a problem. A few hundred dollars later, we were told that the tree in the front lawn had grown into the toilet’s drain. It was blocking solid matter which otherwise would have flushed from flushing.
“You are responsible for any drainage issues,” the landlord reminded us when we told her of the problem. “It’s in the lease.” That was the end of that discussion for a while at least.
At the end of our stay, cut short by the landlord’s wanting to put the house on the market, it wasn’t just one toilet with the problem. Most of the other drains in the house wouldn’t. When we got our notice 15 days into the standard 30 day notice period, we were more than happy to leave the place for someplace better.
It wasn’t until six to eight months later that a loophole was brought to my attention. While a landlord can impose certain restrictions, those restrictions are by the wayside when the health and safety of the occupants is at risk. Not being able to flush a toilet due to an invasion of the sewer line by a large, friendly tree falls into that loophole. The landlord in our case dodged her responsibility. Had I known sooner, I might have had a lawyer press for the needed repair.
Live and learn, I suppose.
The point of this story is that sometimes one walks into a situation which may or may not have been deliberately sabotaged by a landlord or a previous resident.
Or the previous President, in the case of the White House.
For the past thirteen or so months, the fellow we had elected President has been fighting the mess left by the previous occupant of the Oval Office. Every time he seems to have handled one problem; another crops up. And it’s always the fault of the current occupant. The former guy and his supporters are quick to fix the blame instead of fixing a problem.
It would seem that the former guy deliberately set up certain roadblocks to hamper his successor. For instance, it was noted that during his tenure, the former guy deliberately withheld aid from Ukraine (wanting the powers there to come up with evidence to smear his opponent in the 2020 election) and was a frequent basher of NATO. Just like he effectively surrendered to the Taliban, releasing thousands of Taliban fighters, leaving the execution of the drawdown of U.S. troops smack dab in his successor’s lap. And then there’s the Covid thing which was nothing more than a “hoax,” until it was too late to contain the disease. Deliberate actions. Revenge, perhaps, for losing the election?
I can forgive my former landlord for putting in a clause excusing herself from the responsibility of maintaining the drainage system of the house she owned. She had no idea – nor did I have the idea that a tree could interfere with the drain line. When people’s lives are at stake because of the actions or inactions of a “leader,” that’s the proverbial horse of a different color. What looks like deliberate sabotage needs to be addressed for what it is – and an apology at least to the people of Ukraine is in order.
We could use that apology as well.
Be Seeing You
bdharrellauthor 