The building was managed by Irving Properties which is headed up by a man named Jim Gray. Gray and his team of lackeys quickly established themselves as a hands-off kind of management company. And by that I mean they were pretty much deadbeats.

But for the most part, it was a very liveable apartment. It was old--built in the early 1900s--and so had its quirks; old pipes and cranky windows. As long as nothing went wrong in the place, I was pretty happy with it (exclusing the noisy punks living next door).

Isn't that what we tenants want, ultimately? A nice little apartment to hang our hats in? A working stove on which to boil our rice? A warm bedroom in which to escape a cold Minnesota winter? Is that so hard for landlords to provide? I guess it is when you are a slumlord like Jim Gray.

My first experience with poor management of the building came that winter. With temperatures in the teens, the radiator in my bedroom sprung a leak one night. Luckily I was napping on the couch in the next room and woke up to the apartment filling with steam! A jet of water was springing from a previous leak which had been poorly-repaired before I moved in, arcing a couple feet in the air to land on all my journals! I staunched the scalding flow with towels and called my friend Marc for backup. The emergency repair guy for Irving Properties lived a few blocks away and he came over and did something and declared that the water was shut off to the radiator. Wrong...ten minutes later I was calling him back. They ended up disengaging the entire radiator from the piping, sending water down the insides of the walls of the apartment below me.

Irving Properties promised to fix the radiator quickly, but the coldest months of the year went by and they did nothing, despite my polite requests. About a month after the radiator broke they tried to fit in another radiator, but it was too small--they just left it sitting in my bedroom.

Finally, I wrote to them, quoting a Minnesota statute stating that landlords had to make such necessary repairs within two weeks--not two months--and the next day, wouldn't you know? They found some time to fix my radiator.

Fast forward to August of 2005. The building begins emptying out. Tenants vacate but no one else moves in. Curious, I write to Irving Properties to inquire as to what is happening. Are they planning a condo conversion by not renewing leases? No answer. By November, the building is a dark, empty, unsafe, almost uninhabited site...just me and one other tenant, a broken security door, and floors full of unlocked, empty apartments.

Construction began soon after Christmas. Now in Minnesota, there are laws governing condo conversions...

Tenants must be given a proper, written Notice of Condo Conversion 120 days before they are expected to vacate, and no disruptive construction can begin until all tenants have vacated the building. In my case, my "notice" was a knock on the door from a woman named Denise Murray. She informed me that they were going to begin construction immediately and hoped to be done in two months. My little shitbox was going to be sold for $139,000. I almost laughed in her face. As a subcontractor of Irving Properties, she had no idea there were even tenants still in the building. Oh and by the way, she said, her workers didn't speak English so I shouldn't try talking to them. She left with a flippant "See you in the 'hood!"

[Tip: To prospective tenants in Minneapolis...know your rights! I cannot stress this enough! Minneapolis together with the state of Minnesota have very good laws protecting tenants against landlords entering your apartment without notice, against condo conversions, against violations of privacy, rules about returning deposits, repair work, etc. Visit the Attorney General's website for advice as well as online listings of Minnesota's statutes. Visit the website of Minnesota Legal Services and download their exhaustive .pdf, "Tenants' Rights in Minnesota" which is extremely helpful.]

Thus began two months of absolute hell. They didn't have the proper permits for the work they were doing, but that didn't stop Irving Properties from construction work--hammering, plumbing, buzzsaws--all day and even on the weekends, beginning at 8 or 9 am. They refinished the floors, creating noxious fumes for a couple weeks in my apartment, in the middle of February, which caused me to keep my windows wide open all day and all night, with fans running. I couldn't use my gas stove because of the fumes, I broke out in a rash and had to go to the doctor, and finally it became unbearable and I had to leave the apartment for a weekend.

It was absolutely awful. The only thing that lightened the mood was being as inconvenient as possible (within the law) to Denise and her husband as they tried to put lipstick on a pig around us. They added cheap cabinets and bathroom fixtures, refinished the floors, and put in a dishwasher. Big fucking deal. Every time I passed by this merry band of shuckters I felt sorry for the saps who'd be plonking down thirty year mortgages for one of these things.

[Tip: The City of Minneapolis runs a pretty good hotline for tenants with questions about how to deal with landlords. Click here for their website; they're pretty informative!]

I finally found a new apartment early in the spring and expected my full security deposit back toute de suite (I fucking scrubbed that place, despite knowing they were just going to move in a few days later and tear it all up). At the end of their grace period, Jim Gray and those motherfucking bastards at Irving Properties sent back my deposite, minus a bogus charge. They claimed I had overstayed my welcome in the old apartment, vacating the place at 5 pm instead of 12 pm. They charged me $50 an hour--a total of $350!

I sent Irving Properties a nice, curt fuck you letter, and quietly prepared legal action. When a landlord like Jim Gray dicks you over like this, you can sue for damages beyond the simple return of your deposit. Fortunately for Irving Properties, they wised up and sent me the remaining money within ten days,

[Tip: Hennepin County offers free walk-in legal advice for low income renters! And for everyone, Hennepin County offers free walk-in legal advice on any topic (but feel free to ask them about slummy landlords--I did!). They are great!]

I'm happily living in a new apartment these days...costs a bit more but it's beautiful inside and the landlords really take care of things. It's so weird to have repairs made, like, the next day!

So if you are thinking of renting from Irving Properties in Minneapolis or any other landlord, think twice...I'd hate for you to suffer my fate.

Do you have a story to tell about Irving Properties? Send me an email me and I'll post it on here!