I asked Uncle Gene if he read the part of the work order about the inspection dates. He had not, of course. Gene never reads anything he thinks he can bully his way past.
The work order was required for my master license, every word true. It also documented, with dates, the exact conditions I found in his six rental houses. Burst pipes. Leaking water heaters. And a sewer line that had been backing up into a little girls bedroom for three months while Gene did nothing.
Here is the part Gene forgot. I am a licensed master plumber, and when I document conditions like sewage in a childs bedroom, the law does not leave that to my discretion. Unsafe, uninhabitable conditions get reported to city code enforcement. That is not revenge. That is the license I worked for, doing exactly what it is for.
The honest work order, filed as required, triggered code enforcement across all six houses. And the tenants, once the city confirmed the conditions, have rights. Rent abatement for uninhabitable housing. Repair-and-deduct. Money owed back to them for the months Gene collected rent on houses with sewage and no heat.
Gene said those people do not pay their rent on time anyway, and tossed my invoice in the trash. Those people turned out to have more rights than Gene had ever bothered to learn.
That is why six tenants were on his lawn at seven in the morning with papers from the city. Not because I mailed anything. Because the conditions I was legally required to document were finally on the record, and the city acted on them.
Gene paid me the four thousand four hundred twenty dollars fast, because a lien plus a code-enforcement file is not a fight even Gene wants. And he had a great deal more than my bill to settle with the city and his tenants.
My mom used to say Gene would sell his own mothers teeth if he found a buyer. I just fixed the plumbing, honestly, and filed the paperwork, honestly. The little girls bedroom is clean and dry now. That one I would have done for free. The license made sure I did not have to.