It must be said.

As a black man, I hate doing business with black people! I am going to reprint a letter that I sent to our landlord after a recent incident where the appliance dude and I nearly came to blows. I won't mention his nationality (JA) as I do not want to perpetuate the stereotype that everyone from "there" are ignorant and need licks. One of my father's best friends is from there as is one of my best friends. These few bad examples are the ones that stay on people's minds because they give the whole lot a bad name. Anyhow, I have changed the names to protect myself from litigation but if you know me, I can tell you who NEVER to buy an appliance from or to have dealings with. The letter is four pages long in Word so bear with me as I cannot chop it down without screwing up the intent of the letter.

This story is from the local area. It is about people who should be prosecuted for ignorance and the people that should prosecute them. This is their story.

LANDLORD,

Please let me bring you up to date in my dealings with Jackass from JackassCo Appliances. The very first time Jackass was here, he was copping an attitude and I called him on it. We had some words and things settled down. That was when he gave me his calendar and said that if there was anything else wrong with the fridge, I was to call him. When the stove stopped working and beeping the codes, I called him and he told me then that he cannot do anything that you did not request so I had to call you. Since I knew you were away. I left it alone to see if the issue would resolve itself with the stove unplugged for a while. It continued which is when I wrote the letter to you explaining what was going on.

I was told that Jackass would be by to look after things. A week passed and still no one contacted me and Jackass never showed up so I contacted LovelyRealtor who then contacted Mr. So (sorry if I spelt that wrong but I was never given the spelling). Mr. So called me that evening and we arranged for when Jackass could come and look at the oven. Wednesday nothing happened. Thursday had the big storm that week so I did not expect to see him then. Friday rolled around and we had not received a call but Jackass arrived at the door the same way he did the first time.

I was busy doing something for a friend so my daughter let him in and he looked at the fridge first. He apparently discovered that the fridge bulb stayed on and was causing the top of the fridge to remain warm and throw the entire system out of whack. You would have to ask him why he did not discover this the first time I explained to him what was happening with it. He put a screw into the bottom door shelf to keep it from coming off and he promised to bring me a freezer basket to replace the missing one but did not keep that promise.

He then went to work on the stove/oven. He was working on it for a good while but was unable to troubleshoot the issue. He called me down to explain the issue and said that he thinks he may have to replace it as this was a complicated system and it would take quite a while to figure it out. He was going to talk to someone first on the weekend but he was not sure. He then made an arrangement with me to come back on Tuesday of this week at 10AM to either continue working on the problem or to pick it up and replace it with another unit.

On Tuesday I wasted my day sitting here waiting on Jackass to either arrive or call. I called his cell number from the calendar at 3PM to ask what happened to the appointment this morning. His stammering told me that he forgot about it or was surprised I called. He then proceeded to try to convince me that I heard him wrong and he never made that appointment. He forgets my daughter was witness to the exchange and was there to hear him say it. He then told me that he spoke to someone on the weekend and that he has to replace the unit. He then asked me if we were fussy about what kind of unit it was (i.e. does it have to be digital or ceramic, etc.) I said that we were not fussy and simply wanted a decent working unit. He agreed and arranged to deliver after 6PM on Wednesday.

Wednesday night rolls around and I plan around moving my sister from her home to ensure that someone was home from 6PM onwards for the delivery. Well, no delivery happened and, yet again, no phone call. When I called the main line today, I spoke to a woman that is the same person that came to the house with him tonight. She said that she had a family emergency yesterday and had to leave early, leaving him to fend on his own. She told me she usually does the phone calls and she apologized several times for the inconvenience. I’m a parent so I can empathize but I also work in customer service and it does not excuse leaving your customer dangling. Anyhow, I let it go as she promised that we were on the list and that he was now in Brampton delivering a washer and dryer and that for sure we would get the unit today. I told her I was home all day so just bring it on over.

It was almost eight o’clock when the multiple rings and knocks happened at the door. His impatience already set the tone for our latest encounter but I held myself in check. I had already moved the stove out from the kitchen to the top of the stairs anticipating that, like every appliance person I have dealt with before, he would want to move the old equipment out first in order to bring in the new one and to make sure his path was clear. Different to the norm again, he was annoyed that I had done so. He abruptly brought in the new unit as I held the door open and propped the door open with the stove, banging our cedar chest in the process; again I held my tongue. He then went up onto the carpet, shoes and all, and brought the old unit outside with the help of the woman with him. I could not help as he had wedged me in to the corner by the main closet with the new unit against the door.

It is when he came back in and started tossing the shoes and boots out of the way, hitting a picture sitting on the floor against the wall, that I could not take his attitude anymore. I pointed out what he had done and he had the audacity to tell me that I should have had the way cleared for him already. Really? For which day should I have had it cleared exactly? The Friday night he showed up unannounced or the Tuesday at 10AM he says he did not arrange or the Wednesday at 6PM he did arrange but did not show up or today when he arrived at nearly 8PM when I had been waiting all day long? At this point the situation escalated from mere words to shouting. I had enough of this man who pretends to be a professional business man.

I told him plainly that he had no respect for me or my time. I said that if I told him to come for 9AM, would he have waited outside with the unit until I showed up at 8PM? Of course he would not! He would have left and rightly so. So then, why is it he wants to cop an attitude with me now when he has kept me waiting for more than two days now? That’s when the woman, who had no place in the conversation, piped up about her having explained to me why he did not show up yesterday. She had no business speaking on a subject she knew nothing about because it was not the one incident but the history of dealing with him that was at issue. Things got so heated that my daughter thought she had to come down to restrain me because she had never seen me that mad. She had never seen me deal with that level of ignorance before, that’s why. I explained to her later that no matter how mad I get, I have never, and will never, strike someone first; that is not how I was raised.

He decided that he was done and dropped the stove in the kitchen and said that I could plug it in myself. When I told him that he was not finished he started up about my behaviour and how I was disrespecting him. More angry words continued as I told him to get out of my house and that he was done and I would make sure that everyone I knew would have nothing EVER to do with his business. I told him he was a poor excuse for a businessman if that is how he does business and that is how he treats his clients. He started with some Jamaican obscenities (which I can recognize and I know what they mean because I am from Trinidad) and all of this in front of my daughter.

I admittedly responded in kind as I followed him to the door. It continued with him in the street and I in my doorway as he then showed his utter level of ignorance by cussing me out, trying to belittle me because I was renting a house from you instead of owning my own house and making derogatory remarks about my weight by call me f-ing fat and more. The woman tried to interject her two cents as well but I told her she did not know our history so she cannot speak to it and that I had no issue with her until she tried to defend his ignorance. The two of them cussed me off further as they got into their truck and drove off. I won’t list everything said here because it is not important what was said (as it should not have been said in the first place) and it simply is not polite to put that kind of language down in paper.

So, after all of this, I went into the kitchen and plugged in the stove. I took pictures and attached it to this letter so you can see exactly what was delivered and how it was delivered. You will notice that the top of it is dented down (I fixed this). The oven light is not working because the bulb is missing (and the socket looks rusted). The inside top of the oven looks like grease is baked on or something. It is not easy to see in the picture but you are welcome to come and look at it for yourself. THIS is Jackass' idea of a decent working unit. Just like the issues with the fridge, he obviously did not bother to properly test and inspect all the functions on the unit before delivering it to a customer’s home. The previous oven also had a burnt out bulb that we replaced ourselves.

Even though I said we would take any decent working unit, my wife pointed out to me tonight that I cannot do that. LANDLORD, you paid your good money for the appliances. What you paid for was an electronic, ceramic-top, self-cleaning oven with a special connecting burner top, a warming drawer and multiple functions. What you have here now is a burner top, non-self-cleaning, non-warming drawer, non special function oven with a digital clock. It is no where near a comparable unit to what you originally had paid for and you should either get a refund or a unit comparable to the one that broke.

The bottom line where Jackass and his lady friend are concerned is that I never ever want to see them at our home again. There were enough things said that I consider it a risk for us to be in the same room together and I do not want him near my house or my family. I am sure he is not the type of person to do anything and that, like myself, he let his emotions get the better of him. That said, we are like oil and water and it is best to keep us far from each other for both of our sakes.

I just spoke to LovelyRealtor and she said that you will give me a call about this so I await hearing from you. I actually am sorry all of this is happening because the first time I speak to you should not be due to a problem. I want our relationship to be a good one for the time that my family spends in your house. I hope that we can soon put this in the past and move on in a better fashion.

Thank you,

Dtrini, DW, and TC

PS Further to the conversation I just had with you on the phone. I appreciate you calling me about this so quickly and I just want you to understand that we have no quarrel with you. We know that mechanical things break down and it is frustrating for everyone involved. The problem in all this has been dealing with Jackass which, once he is no longer involved with my family or this house, he will no longer be an issue.

Your offer to replace everything with new appliances is very generous. In talking with my wife (she is away in Florida right now), I came to the realization that I do not want to put you into more conflict with Jackass by returning everything. The washer and dryer works fine, as does the dishwasher. The main issues have been with the fridge and stove. So, instead of buying five brand new appliances, if you only wanted to buy two (thus saving a lot of money in the process), we would be fine with that.

As a final interesting (and somewhat humorous) note to this whole saga, I realized after all of this that Jackass and the woman seemed familiar to me. So, I looked for his calendar to see where the store was located and sure enough it was where I thought. My wife and I bought our fridge from Jackass and his wife when we were living at our old place in Scarborough when the one in the garage up and died on us. They were decent people and we thought we would do business with them again and possibly even socialize with them. I am glad that we did not and after this experience, we hope to never come across them ever again.

-------------------------------------------------

In a later post, I will update the end to this saga. BTW, TC is pretty damn strong to be able to even mildly hold me back; I was impressed. Will make cutting her ass a whole lot more work now.