A strange thing happened this morning, something I didn’t think the parties involved would be childish enough to bring up. Pete instant messages Jason this morning claiming that we owe him $70+ each in back utility bills (electric and phone). I found this rather interesting, especially since we moved out on June 1st and Pete was in the apartment until the 18th. As far as I remember we paid utilities and rent (pro-rated) for the 18 days we weren’t there and called it even. Pete was also going to get the microwave and Jason was going to get the security deposit back. So, the question arises, is this magical $70 from the month of June or from the month of May and we just missed it. If it is indeed from May, then I’ll certainly pay my share. If it’s from June then we have nothing to discuss. In my opinion, I’m not going to pay for something I didn’t use. If I wasn’t there, I’m not paying for it. This isn’t ment to sound mean or threatening in any sort of way, I’m just being cautious with my money. So, if Pete would kindly produce a bill or statement saying what the utility charges are and when the payment period is, I will be more than glad to write him a check. If he’s unable to do that, I suggest he call the electic company and get a reprint. If I’m indeed responsible for a portion of the bill, I will of course pay it, but I want to make sure I am infact responsible for it first. I think that’s only fair.

There’s also the matter of the security deposit. Now, originally, we paid $300 when we moved in ($100 each) and minus cleaning and repairs, we were supposed to get the difference back when we moved out. Apparently, the check Pete has for Jason is only $48. That’s a long way from $300. To the best of my knowledge, I cleaned the kitchen, the upstair hallways, my room and my bathroom. Jason cleaned his room and his bathroom. When I left on the 1st, all of the above was clean and in a presentable manner. That means that between June 1st and the 18th, Pete only had to clean his room and the living room. Unless I’m mistaken as to the condition of the apartment, we should be getting much more than $48 back. Unless of course Pete didn’t clean anything or there was a major earthquake/flood/fire that we didn’t know about.

Now, maybe it’s just the sort of person I am, but the difference between the security deposit and the utilities seems rather nominal to me, and I would be evaluating whether or not it was even worth mentioning or just simply calling the whole thing a draw and getting on with my life especially given the fact that we’re not as “upset” about the small return on our security deposit as we rightly should be. But, that’s just the sort of person I AM.

It also bothers me that this is being brought up 4 months after that fact. In all this time, if Pete really needed that money badly, don’t you think he could have called, written, emailed, something. To me it seems irresponsible to deal with something like this and then put it on the back burner for 4 months and then bring it up again without warning. If the money was really that important, would it have been best to mention it while it was happening, or perhaps hold on to the bill so that things like this could be avoided in the future.

So, at some point this month, year, decade, Pete is apparently coming over to “collect” his money. If he’s reading this, I would suggest bringing the bills with him. I’m more than willing to give Pete every penny he deserves, and wouldn’t delay in doing so, but I want to see the bill first. Not to be mean or spiteful or anything, I just want to see what I’m paying for. I’m not really willing to give anyone a check with knowing with it’s going towards. That’s not a personal thing against Pete, I would do that with any other buisness, service or person. I’d also like to get a list of items that we were charged for from Royal Oaks (the last apartment) and see what, if any, Jason and I were responsible for. Plus I’m curious to see what they got away with charging us for.

I just thought this was an interesting little episode in the soap opera known as Savannah.