Cheap Bastard Wars III: Revenge of Balki

Hola Blogarinos,

Haven't posted in a while (exams, moving, etc.) and I need to bring you all up to speed. I am certain to post some ode style blogs to honour my friends who I miss very much right now, and then some Investigative Report style exposes of Thornhill and the close-minded, judgemental ghettoized community it houses. But patience. First some more roommate stories.

Of course you all remember Balki - the half roommate, half landlord mutant whose super power is insane and obsessive cheapness - a super villain who keeps on hatching schemes to terrorize my roommate Larry and I (shutting down the heat in winter, stealing Chanukah, etc. See the previous posts for further details). So here are the latest details in a nutshell:

I moved back home to Thornhill last Tuesday but before I did I had a little accident with bleach in the bathroom resulting in several fist sized spots of peeled paint on the windowsill. I know - I'm a horrible person.

Anyway, I left the damage like that and several days later I got this email:

Dear Daniel,


I just noticed the blistered paint on the upstairs bathroom windowsill from your hair bleach. I'll be billing you for the repairs, namely my time at $20/h and the replacement paint (if needed).

[landlord's agent hat off]

[Sincerely, Balki.]

Naturally I had to respond with:

Subject Line: Hell No!

[Balki],

If you'd like I will repaint myself when I come back to the house in September.

There is no way that I am paying you $20/hour to paint a windowsill - especially when you would NEVER pay anyone that much for such simple labour.

Cheers, Dan.

A response the next day:

Subject Line: painting

I'm concerned that you will get busy with school and the repair job will get indefinitely delayed. So if you chose to do it yourself I'd want to establish a deadline beyond which you'd agree to pay to have it done.

I didn't mean to highball you - I have no idea what the going rate for painting is, and that's simply the rate that I charge for my own semi-skilled labour (e.g. bike tune-up), which is in turn much less than my professional rate.

I asked our handyman and he said his minimum charge is $40 + $5 or $10 for materials depending on the kind of paint (+ paint if needed, we have some leftover from the repainting the bathroom a year or two ago, but I'm not sure it's still good). I can check into other possibilities to see if someone else might be willing to do the job for less. What price would you be willing to pay to have it done before you get back, assuming I can find someone cheaper?

[Balki]

Well, well. A ridiculous message like that deserves a ridiculous reply:

Subject Line: Several Solutions

[Balki],

I resent the implication that I won't fix the damage I caused. When I broke the window the delay was caused by a heavy workload and lack of transportation. I replaced the window and now you have tempered glass in your screen door which has increased the value of the window substantially. Likewise the window sill will be painted - plus I am probably going to be finding all kinds of things to improve the house on my job this summer which I was gladly going to contribute to the house gratis (e.g. TV, furniture, lamps, deocrations, etc) - however perhaps now I should consider hoarding them all in my bedroom and you can continue watching your fuzzy 17 inch, no-name early '80s model which inverts the bottom quarter of the screen while I keep the 27 inch late '90s RCA in my bedroom hooked up to my DVD player. Yeah that's beginning to sound like an attractive option.

Let's set November 1st as a deadline. If its not painted by then I will pay a homeless person to do it for one dollar - if you can underbid that the contract is yours. Better yet I'll have a party and convince my friends that painting window sills is fun and that they should pay me to be able to do it - just like in Tom Sawyer! Yes Shi I have friends who can get THAT drunk. You've met them. His name is Andrew.

For now just sit tight and if you want to improvise like Martha Stewart take some white Colgate (or the discount brand of your choice) toothpaste and spread it evenly over the area where the paint peeled. Let it dry over night. The effect will be virtually indistinguishable from the original paint job and it will make the bathroom smell like fresh mint.

Cheerio,

Daniel.

PS: Oh and your welcome for the food I left in the fridge freezer and pantry that I said you could eat. I'd say they're worth about one and a half hours of discount labour.

That's the correspondence so far but I can't wait to see what he spits back. I'll be ready.