Life's not fair

The first few weeks of 2008 have been testing. This week particularly. Wranglings with our idiotic and greedy landlord Korhan Gumus and his enforcer, the managing agent Sefa Aykac, reached a head when our water was turned of in a deliberate attempt to get us out. This comes after a series of threats and abuse.

Korhan has failed to increase rent in accordance with regulations since Ayla moved in. It's now laughably small and even if it had been raised with inflation it would still be modest. On the couple of occasions he has attempted to increase the rent it has been by a huge amount. The last time was via a lawyer and he wanted it quadrupled or we had a month to vacate. We also pay a large service charge to the managing agent for the maintenance of common areas and water.

It turns out the water bill has never been paid by either Sefa or Korhan accruing a debt of 2000YTL. When the water company arrived to cut off the water, Sefa deliberately pointed them to our stopcock and meter. They clamped the taps, cutting off water to only our flat meaning we had to pay the whole debt to have it put back on. It was only after Ayla turned on the water-works at the waterworks office after two hours arguing that they advised we smash the clamps off. But they're still coming round to cut off the whole building if all the tenants can't find the whole 2000.

What is not fair is that they landlord and his agent can act in such a gross and shabby way, that we should suffer because of their greed - where has all the service money gone from 4 flats?- and that they have got away and we have had to pay the bill twice.

But all this is nothing compared to the truly terrible and upsetting news I received from home concerning a dear friend. Recently he was diagnosed with terminal cancer after a few months of what doctors thought was a trapped nerve.