I’ve learned a new little phrase from the fiance of the woman who just moved out of this place–my new apartment. “T.I.P.” which stands for “This Is Peru”. Whenever something doesn’t make sense to me or contradicts my mental faculties or cultural upbringing, we say T.I.P. Like when I had to go through five different employees when buying my USB stick I mentioned the other night in a previous blog post, the reaction my friends here had when they heard that was T.I.P. So, readers of this blog who are going to frequent it, get used to the phrase because I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot.
A key example of what I’m talking about would be how today, I finally moved into my own place, and tried unsuccessfully to get my deposit back from my old landlord. As predicted, they had some totally self-serving reason riddled with nonsense for why they gave me back as little of it as they did, and felt perfectly justified in their minds for ripping me off. Most Peruvians expect to be ripped off by their landlord and tend to opt out of even paying their last month’s rent, based on the anticipation that they won’t get their deposit back anyway. Last year when an American moved out, he barged into my room pretty livid, because he had just tried unsuccessfully to get his deposit back. When I asked him why, his response was “just total bullcrap”. But the main thing was allegedly, because he’d slept there all year, they now needed to replace his mattress with a new one. Apparently mattresses need as frequent changings as a newborn baby’s diaper, but, T.I.P.
So knowing they would probably attempt this on me since I stayed with them for 16 months, I was fortunate in that I wasn’t going to be leaving flush on the end of a rent cycle. I was paid up til the 21st of June, and then they agreed to take the final 12 days out of my deposit, which was $250 for the first room I was in (which was forty dollars cheaper than the one I moved into 3 weeks later, and stayed in since) and therefore I could minimize the amount they ripped me off.
They decided to change the rate on me–and according to them I “always knew” the nightly rate was what they arbitrarily made up–and went to nightly from monthly, conveniently costing me $14/night each night I stayed after the 21st. So she–the mother of the landlord, who did the dirty work today with me–subtracted that from the deposit and only gave me $70 back. I told her since I paid $290 for the room, it should have been less than $10 per night if you divide that cost by 30 days. At any rate, for them to have charged what they did, the common sense thing to do would be um….I don’t know–to actually TELL me or discuss it with me. She kept insisting that “business is business”, and that I “knew” the nightly rate was $14. I kept reminding her I had no reason to have known this since they have never told me, and other gringo friends who have stayed were always charged different amounts like $11 or $14 for renting rooms in the house. But she held her ground–which didn’t come as a surprise, this being the same lady who insists routers need to be turned off for 4 hours a day despite an employee from the internet company trying to explain to her they don’t.
She even had the nerve to cite other “favors” they did for me like fixing the hot water every time I complained about it not working (as if it’s not their responsibility to or something?), or how they are doing me a ‘nice thing’ by not charging me to replace the mattress that I “wore out from sleeping on for a year” (don’t mattresses last like 20 years???). I cited the cable not working for the last 6 weeks, but how I ‘paid” the same rate for it. She didn’t even come upstairs with more than $70 to give me, so I’m not sure how much longer I could have kept arguing about it if she didn’t bring more money. Funny how they find any excuse to charge me more, but don’t agree when I suggest lowering or discounting the rent when one of those very same things they’re charging me for isn’t working!
At any rate, I got worn out after about 20 minutes of this battle of the wills. She clearly had the will power to stand her ground longer than I since they’re used to doing this to all the gringos that rent from them, I’m just the latest…but I really can’t argue as well in Spanish as I can in English, because she just cut me off so much, it was hard.
*Sigh* I miss living in a culture where the threat of being sued causes people to do the right thing, but I’m so glad to finally be moved out. I wish I did it months ago, but the location to move into never came up until this month. The new landlord is a lot more pleasant, and the previous tenant, my friend–whom her and her husband coined the T.I.P phrase I’m ripping off, told me she never had any problems.
And so a new season begins. Other than being on a relatively busy street with traffic all day, I think I’m going to like this a lot better.
