#landlord services attorney

[lawofficeofryansshipp]

Martin County Eviction Attorneys | 561.699.0399

Martin County Eviction Lawyers If you’re a property owner in Martin County, Florida, grappling with tenant problems, consider Law Office of Ryan S. Shipp, PLLC for reliable legal support. Our seasoned team specializes in both residential and commercial evictions, adept at handling the nuances of landlord-tenant law and delivering prompt, effective solutions. Why Opt For Shipp Law For Eviction…

[larcomelegallimited]

Solicitors in Waterlooville, Portsmouth | Larcomes Legal Limited

Specialist Financial Settlement Legal Advice

If you are looking for financial settlement advice or have questions regarding points raised in this article, our specialist family law solicitors in Portsmouth and Waterlooville can help. We have the knowledge and experience to help you and your family regardless of the complexity of your situation. We will explain all the options available to you and ensure you are aware of the costs involved, guiding, and supporting you through every step of the process.

Remember, you can talk to us in complete confidence and gain reassurance from speaking to someone who understands your situation.

Please note that this article is not intended as legal or professional advice. This is a general news article only and updates to the law may have changed since it was published.

[miragelaw01]

Need expert legal assistance for eviction cases in Los Angeles? Our experienced eviction attorneys at Mirage Law specialize in landlord-tenant disputes to ensure your rights are protected. Learn more at https://miragelaw.com/.

[anarchywoofwoof]

i'm sorry.. what?

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia Municipal Court is resuming evictions as early as Monday, saying landlord tenant officers have now received training on use of force and de-escalation tactics.

landlord.. tenant.. officers?

"Though the sheriff has the power to serve evictions, the task is usually handled by a private force hired by a court-appointed attorney known as the landlord-tenant officer. These private security contractors — who are often armed — have long been a part of the local eviction system."

so landlords have their own private military? this is class warfare

This follows the court suspending all evictions in July after multiple tenants were shot during evictions over the past several months. In one incident in March, a plainclothes landlord tenant officer shot a woman in the head. In another incident in July, police said a woman was shot in the leg. A spokesperson for the court's Landlord and Tenant Office said evictions will now be conducted in teams of two officers who have all received Pennsylvania Constable training.

this is LITERALLY class warfare

The LTO is funded by service fees from landlords and not taxpayer money. Fees to landlords will increase from $145 to $350 to cover the additional staff, training and insurance costs.

and who the fuck do you think is going to end up ultimately paying those fees in the end? where do you think the landlords are going to get the money? you're just giving them an excuse to raise the rent. oh my god this country is a complete and total failed state.

[cbs]

[hoofpeet]

hey! just some advice on finding an attorney, oftentimes your local bar association has a referral service that you can utilize, check if there's a legal aid place near you (might not be able to help with your problem but they might have insight on who can or where to go), make sure the attorney you talk to does not charge for a consultation or you are aware if they do, and the ones that pop up on google first are the ones that have paid most for advertising (not necessarily bad options just be aware of that) -- no need to respond just passing along advice i have been given

My dad actually has pretty solid benefits at his job-- one of which being free legal consultation, so we've already been in contact with an attorney for a while (since the landlord has been harassing us for the last 5 months) . Atm I'm more worried about paying for some sort of van/long-stay hotel in case we do get kicked out

[beardedmrbean]

SAN FRANCISCO - The former executive director of a San Francisco nonprofit was arrested Tuesday on dozens of felony charges related to misusing over $700,000 of public funds, the San Francisco District Attorney's Office said.

Kyra Worthy, a resident of Richmond, has been charged with misappropriation of public money, grand theft by embezzlement, submitting fraudulent invoices, wage theft and writing fraudulent checks while she was the head of SF SAFE, a 48-year-old nonprofit aimed at enhancing safety and crime prevention in San Francisco through community organizing, prosecutors said.

Worthy's theft and mismanagement led to her getting fired and the nonprofit abruptly shutting down in January 2024 with no assets.

An investigation into the extent of Worthy's misuse of funds began after an audit by the San Francisco Office of the Controller revealed that the nonprofit misspent at least $80,000 in grant funds from the San Francisco Police Department on expenses such as luxury gift boxes, a Lake Tahoe trip, parking fees and permits and ride-hailing services.

Worthy, who was hired at the beginning of 2018, allegedly used and stole more than $100,000 of SF SAFE funds for her own personal use during her tenure with the nonprofit. She is accused of spending $90,000 on a home health care worker for her parents in North Carolina and checks totaling $8,000 to her landlord. She designated these payments as community meeting expenses and part of a safety project for District 10 of San Francisco, the District Attorney's Office said.

Even as the nonprofit was running out of money, Worthy allegedly spent lavishly on parties and gifts. In 2022 and 2023, she allegedly spent more than $350,000 of SFSAFE's reserve on luxury gift boxes. She also held an event called "Candy Explosion" in October 2023 where she is accused of spending about $100,000 of the nonprofit's funds on desserts and ice cream, a taco truck, a petting zoo, event planners, a climbing wall, bouncy houses and "mobile luxury restrooms."

Additionally, she allegedly spent about $56,000 of the nonprofit's funds on aa SF SAFE holiday party.   She is also facing 24 felony counts of wage theft, prosecutors said.

She received more than half a million public dollars from the city's Office of Economic and Workforce Development and allegedly never paid it to employees of partner organizations including Bay Area Community Resources and Calle 24 Latino Cultural District as was agreed in a contract.

Worthy is also charged with four counts of submitting fraudulent invoices to the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, falsely indicating that she had paid full wages and taxes to all employees related to this contract, prosecutors said.

Worthy allegedly stopped paying payroll taxes for 27 employees from September 2023 to January 2024 when the nonprofit ceased operations. Over the course of four months, the alleged wage theft totaled about $80,000, prosecutors said.

Months of investigation led to Worthy's arrest after accumulating 34 felony charges.   

[womenofnoise]

Moor Mother - Circuit City back cover

Transcript below cut

Reverse Gentrification of the Future Now

The present realities of housing for low-income people living in Philadelphia are located temporally-spatially near the one in Circuit City. We are experiencing an affordable housing crisis, and this crisis is exacerbated by the average of 22,000 eviction filings each year and the unknown number of illegal evictions.  In my work as Managing Attorney of the Housing Unit at Community Legal Services, where we provide legal representation and advice to more than 3,000 low-income tenants a year, I hear countless stories of tenants who face racial, sex, gender, family, ethnicity, and disability discrimination from landlords; stories of tenants intimidated into not complaining about substandard housing conditions that exacerbate health and safety problems; or tenants who received eviction filings from disgruntled landlords that have resulted in virtual blacklisting from future homes and opportunities for stability. Growing displacement and mass evictions of entire buildings of often low-income residents is a particularly vicious form of eviction that has widespread health and economic impacts, and destroys economic, cultural, and racial diversity in neighborhoods. Mass evictions, often unexpected, further aggravate the city’s shortage of affordable housing—existing affordable housing units are often lost forever, putting pressure on resources and housing stock elsewhere in the City and concentrating poverty in particular neighborhoods.

Compounding these issues is pervasive housing discrimination –  single mothers and their children, seniors, Black people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and people living with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by evictions and lack of access to safe, habitable, and affordable housing.  Tenants face systemic and individual discrimination at every stage of the process – they are barred from getting into a new home for discriminatory reasons, and often kicked out of their homes for those same reasons.1 The ACLU, for instance highlights how “women of color bear the burden of eviction,” noting that women of color made up 62% and 70% of the tenants facing in eviction in Chicago and Philadelphia respectively.2 These and other instances of structural inequity related to housing disproportionately impact the City’s poor, Black and Hispanic populations live in racially concentrated poverty.3 This loss of housing has a distinct racial impact, where 63% of African-Americans live in project-based housing compared with 44% of the city’s population, and where African-Americans are disproportionately more likely to carry severe housing cost burdens in the city.

These types of inequalities are often framed in terms of spatial inequality and displacement from location. However, as Helga Nowotowny notes, “power, exercised by central authorities, establishes itself over space and over time.”4 (emphasis added). Hierarchies of time, inequitable time distribution, and uneven access to safe and healthy futures inform intergenerational poverty in marginalized communities the same ways that wealth passes between generations in traditionally privileged families. Sociologist Jeremy Rifkin says that “temporal deprivation is built into the time frame of every society,” where people living in poverty are temporally poor as well as materially poor.”5 For example, time poverty is routinely used to penalize marginalized people in the justice system, where being ten minutes late to court can mean losing your job, kids, home, and freedom. Time and temporal inequities show up at every step of the eviction process, for example, from the short or fully waivable notice requirements for termination of a lease agreement, to the time required for an evicted family to vacate a unit that is severely out of line with the time needed to secure new housing.  Inevitably, marginalized Black communities are disproportionately impacted by both material, spatial, and temporal inequalities in a linear progressive society, with many Black communities forced to occupy “temporal ghettos” as well as spatial ones.  

Circuit City considers both the implications of time and of space involved in privatization of public housing, gentrification, displacement, and redevelopment. There is no set year or place in the play, but instead a layering of multiple temporal spaces.  The residents of Circuit City  are integrating the time(s) of redevelopment, privatization,  and hyper-gentrification, into the pre-established temporal dynamics of the community, layered over and within the communal historical memory and the shared idea of the future(s) of that community. Nested within those layers are individual, subjective temporalities and the lived realities of the residents, at odds with the linear, mechanical model of time on which Circuit City and its external spatial-temporal constructs are etched.  It takes as its central provocation a practical strategy for achieving a Black flight, a reverse gentrification, and inverse displacement, and the conditions necessary for temporal autonomy and spatial agency.  Circuit City is presented using Black Quantum Futurism praxis as a critical framework, fusing Afrodiasporan philosophies and rituals with quantum physics, recovering artifacts of Black temporal consciousness, and dismantling oppressive social temporal constructs.

[coffeebleeds]

The law might be slow and not always fair most of the time, but u hurt a tree and you’re facing the power of Tree Law. This just makes me think Alfred really likes trees. The IRS works hard, but tree law works harder

//There are a few areas of law that the US just goes particularly hard on and it's never the areas you would expect. Tree law is a meme-worthy example, but a few of my personal favorites include:

Mail Fraud

Social Security Fraud

Tax Fraud

Constructive Eviction

Ground Support Rights

Employment Discrimination

The first three are the agencies who no one really expects to do much, but who whack people witch big fines and jail time well after all the evidence has been gathered. By the time the postal service catches you, you might as well confess.

The other three are much more in the vein of tree law. Constructive eviction is a favorite in my state in particular because it's the best hammer we have against shitty landlords. My state authorizes a tenant who is locked out of their apartment to get three months of rent as a penalty from the landlord. The one time my firm got a constructive eviction case (they are rare because the deterrence is strong), I swear I saw some of attorneys start salivating. We love cases where we can slam landlords into the dirt. Big fans. Ground support is similar in that you can get a huge amount of money if someone's excavation causes your land to collapse.

All lawyers have their Thing. Mine just happens to be employment, divorce, and landlord-tenant. My roommate loves criminal defense. Our friend group now consists of a public defender, a divorce attorney, a patent lawyer, a bankruptcy clerk, a tax attorney, and an estate planner. We all love very different areas of law.

But we all love Tree Law.

[reidio-silence]

When poor tenants were faced with the decay of their buildings and the disruption of services as the abandonment rate accelerated during the late 1960s, some, rather than suffering in silence until the situation became unbearable and then moving, turned to the central strategy of the tenant movement, the rent strike. However, many of those facing incipient abandonment did not achieve the results they hoped for from the withholding of their rents: rather than giving them the leverage to persuade their landlord to improve their living conditions, this strategy often hastened his exit, leaving the tenants still cold in winter but with a large collective bank account. By 1969-1970 some building organizations were responding pragmatically to this situation by spending the rents they had collected to buy oil and make urgent repairs. However, since the experienced leaders of tenant organizations -- notably those associated with Met Council -- initially regarded such tenant seizures of de facto control as too risky, this strategy was not fostered or publicized at that time. Later, as experience in these isolated buildings taught movement leaders that tenants were not, through this strategy, inviting eviction, its use spread rapidly until, by the mid-1970s, it was the most common form of rent strike.

Meanwhile, several activist professionals -- priests and lawyers -- had suggested that one solution to the abandonment problem was to cede abandoned buildings to their tenants, thus creating low-income cooperatives. They raised the hope that owner occupancy could reverse decay and even curb the prevailing civil unrest by giving the poor and alienated a stake in the system. Some of these professionals, each originally acting in isolation, took the initiative in putting these ideas into action. The first low-income conversion to tenant ownership was initiated by a Harlem church in 1963; the second, sponsored by a lawyer, commenced in 1967; others followed rapidly. At this point the concept attracted the attention of the city administration, and in mid-1969 Jason Nathan, HDA administrator, created an exploratory cooperative unit within the Office of Special Improvements (OSI) and staffed it with eight college interns -- but gave them no resources, budget, or support staff.

In February 1970 Robert Schur, a West Side lawyer who had been prominent in promoting the plan, was appointed head of OSI and, having secured the promise of a budget for the purpose, pledged to get a co-op program off the ground. Schur utilized the Municipal Loan Program, which had been designed by the city to help landlords rehabilitate their buildings, and the federal Model Cities Program, to provide loans to tenants for the purchase and rehabilitation of deteriorated buildings. This cost was to be paid off, at low or no interest, by the new tenant cooperators. The extent of rehabilitation was usually curtailed -- "moderate" rather than "gut" -- in order to limit costs and typically was restricted to the "major systems" -- plumbing, wiring, heating, the front door, and roof. All the co-ops were required by the city to incorporate as Housing Development Fund corporations, which imposed income limitations. However, the majority did not take the second step of registering with the attorney general as formal cooperatives and thus avoided the costs of issuing a plan/prospectus and of allocating shares. Content to remain informal co-ops, they granted all tenant cooperators an equal vote at meetings. With Schur, able and committed, in command of an enthusiastic staff, the flow of would-be co-ops in the pipeline strengthened considerably.

— Ronald Lawson, The Tenant Movement in New York City (1986)

[mariacallous]

In the fight to regulate short-term rentals, New Orleans had a novel idea—it would hold a lottery. The plan was simple: Carve up the city into blocks and use a hand-cranked lottery machine to draw numbers, allowing one rental property per residential block. For the winners, the prize was a license to keep listing their property on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo. For the losers, despair.

But the controversial rules, enacted in March 2023, led to just one lottery before being temporarily halted by a federal judge in August. As the city awaits a final decision, short-term rentals in New Orleans have been left in limbo. The city has said it is no longer accepting applications for the short-term rental licenses it requires hosts to have, nor is it renewing existing ones. And, until the court makes a final ruling, the lottery balls have stopped spinning and the city has halted enforcement of its latest licensing rules.

The limbo stems from an ongoing lawsuit against the city from a short-term rental services company and a group of hosts who were unable to even enter the lottery due to narrow licensing rules.

Like many popular tourist cities across the world, New Orleans has a lot of short-term rental listings. On Airbnb alone, there were nearly 7,000 listings in early September—the majority of which were whole-home or short-term rentals, according to Inside Airbnb, a housing advocacy group that tracks Airbnb data. That’s about one listing for every 54 residents. By comparison, New York City had one Airbnb listing for every 220 residents before it enacted a sweeping law that caused the number of listings to plummet.

The average rent for an apartment in New Orleans is around $1,350 per month, but the average price per night of an Airbnb in the city is $198 per night, according to Inside Airbnb. That’s nearly $6,000 per month if booked each night. Officials say there are nearly 9,000 short-term rental listings in New Orleans, though the city did not answer questions from WIRED about how it tracks that number. More than 200 of those have been added in the past month.

Dawn Wheelahan, an attorney representing those suing New Orleans over the lottery law, disputes the idea that the city has too many Airbnbs. In a court document that uses city data, Wheelahan mapped which blocks would have multiple short-term rental applicants, and found most only had one applicant, while more than 50 blocks had three or four applicants and only one block had five applicants. “I just don’t see that there’s any proliferation” of short-term rentals, Wheelahan claims.

Whole-home rentals—the sort of bland and luxury stays that have become popular for travelers— are the ones perceived to eat away at housing stock, and can be owned by big-time landlords. New Orleans has tried and failed to stamp those out. Last summer, a federal court blocked another New Orleans law intending to ban whole-home, short-term rentals, ruling that it interfered with interstate commerce by barring people from out of state from owning and operating rentals in the city. Under the new, halted rule, people can own out of state, but there must be a host living on the property.

New Orleans wants to see the lawsuit resolved so it can “provide certainty and stability in this area of law for all citizens of New Orleans,” says Ashley Becnel, the chief zoning official with the city’s Department of Safety and Permits. The city maintains that the laws enacted this year “are constitutional” and “[it] is hopeful that the injunction will be lifted in the near future.”

In New Orleans, housing advocates say short-term rentals are hurting local residents—many of whom work in the tourism industry—and pushing them farther from the French Quarter, the city’s hub of bars, restaurants, and clubs. But residents fighting against the proliferation of short-term rentals face a Sisyphean task.

“It’s an industry that requires a lot of work to regulate, because [the short-term rental companies] don’t want to be regulated,” claims Allen Johnson, president of the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association, a neighborhood group in the district next to New Orleans’ French Quarter. “It’s not really an industry that you can come to some sort of settlement with,” he argues. When one attempt at regulation fails and another is introduced, Johnson adds, there are new plaintiffs ready to challenge them. “It’s starting to feel like a game of whack-a-mole for legislatures.”

And for short-term rental hosts, the confusion and erratic shifts in regulation bring frustration and financial loss. Elisa Cool Murphy, a real estate agent, was operating a small Airbnb attached to her home in New Orleans. She says she entered the lottery for a license this summer before the court put a pause to the law. Like some other hopeful hosts, Cool Murphy was pitted against her own neighbors to compete for a lucrative short-term rental license.

Cool Murphy has a small suite on the property where she lives. She put the place—just a kitchenette, bed, and bathroom—on Airbnb. It’s not the kind of property a full-time tenant would likely lease, she argues. She says she took it off Airbnb temporarily due to the changing licensing requirements. The chaos around the lottery and the subsequent court delays have “needlessly caused a lot of anxiety and stress to people,” she says. Cool Murphy put the little suite back online in October after learning that the latest licensing rules weren’t being enforced.

Smaller short-term rental hosts like Cool Murphy say the New Orleans rules unfairly shut down dependable side hustles. Before the new rules were enacted, Airbnb hosts in New Orleans made a combined $114 million in 2021, with an average host earning over $16,500, according to the company. Airbnb also positions itself as a source of income and tax revenue for hosts and cities; in 2022, the company said it collected and remitted around $23 million in tourism taxes in New Orleans alone.

Airbnb isn’t involved with the current lawsuit, but the ruling would have implications for the company’s hosts. “The majority of hosts in New Orleans share just one home, and one-third say the income from home-sharing has helped them avoid foreclosure or eviction,” Nia Brown, an Airbnb regional policy manager, tells WIRED. “We believe there is a path forward to craft a sensible alternative to the current rules and hope lawmakers will bring all stakeholders, including our host community, to the table to find common ground.”

The saga in New Orleans is the latest example of a city trying to wrest back housing and calm rising rent and property prices. It’s been a problem around the globe ever since companies like Airbnb made short-term rentals a lucrative alternative for landlords.

In Florence, Italy, lawmakers recently voted to ban new short-term rentals in the city center. New York City began enforcing a strict law on short-term rentals earlier this month. The change immediately led some 15,000 short-term rentals on Airbnb to either disappear or convert to long-term listings. The move is seen as a test: If America’s biggest city can stamp out illegal short-term rentals, it sends a loud message for other cities looking to do the same. But the latest languishing court case in New Orleans shows just how difficult it can be for cities to wrap regulations around the unwieldy short-term rental industry. As it sits in limbo, the bookings continue.

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[lawofficeofryansshipp]

St. Lucie County Eviction Lawyers | Law Office of Ryan S. Shipp, PLLC

St.-Lucie-County-Landlord-Lawyers Are you a commercial or residential landlord in St. Lucie County, Florida, facing tenant issues that require eviction? Look no further than Law Office of Ryan S. Shipp, PLLC. Our experienced team understands the complexities of Florida eviction laws and is committed to helping property owners, landlords, property managers, and investors, navigate these…

[rachelkaser]

Masonry Monday: The Case of the Hesitant Hostess

A penniless drunk is entangled in the murder of a hostess who was blackmailing a rich man, which is in turn connected to a much larger crime operation. Perry Mason’s only hope to clear him is the victim’s roommate, but she proves to be a very mercurial witness.

*Trigger warning: This episode depicts a faked attempt at suicide, as well as implied sexual harassment. Some viewers may find this disturbing. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact emergency services or the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.*

Who’s Who

Perry Mason’s client: Albert Sanders, a drunk with a tragic history whose unfortunate habit of lingering around the dance hall gets him in hot water

The victim: Kim Lane, a beautiful dance hostess who planned to get rich off of blackmail money, though it’s not clear just whom she was blackmailing

Suspects: Frederick Archer III, the landlord of the Danceland ballroom, who was the victim of Kim Lane’s blackmail and a mysterious robbery Martha Rayburn, the manager of the ballroom, whose alibi for the night of the murder that isn’t as solid as she’d like others to believe Inez Kaylor, a hostess at Danceland and Kim’s former roommate, who may have kicked over one too many rocks for someone’s comfort Joseph Gibbs, a hard character who runs a modeling agency that sends the dance hostess around the world for unknown purposes Larry Coles, Danceland’s part-time bouncer and college ball player, who seems to be infatuated with Inez

The Setup

It’s a late-night dance at the Danceland Ballroom, with hostesses around for single men to dance with. The bouncer crosses the stage and extracts a drunk derelict from a potted plant, throwing him out of a back door. He warns the man, Albert Sanders, not to come back. The bouncer greets another man named Frederick Archer III on his way out of the back. Archer passes Sanders, still drunk, and stops at a car. A beautiful blonde sitting inside arranges with him to pick up some money and says she can “keep a secret.” Given his rage, she’s clearly blackmailing him.

Later that night, the blonde woman, Kim Lane, is lounging in bed when her roommate, Inez Kaylor returns home. Kim, a full bottle of wine down, dreamily plans on living the high life, to Inez’s confusion. Inez talks about doing their overseas modeling assignments, saying it’s the only reason she sticks at the dance hostess job Kim got her. Kim makes veiled references to “the operation” and says Inez will have “just invented security” when she gets a clue. Kim also says the next night is her last night at Danceland.

The next night, Inez enters the office of Martha Rayburn, the manager, saying bouncer Larry Coles sent her in. Inez wanted to talk to Mr. Archer initially -- she says Kim left the apartment that morning and never came back. She also says Mr. Archer and Kim were dating, but Ms. Rayburn stiffly reminds Inez that Archer is married. Inez asks about Kim quitting and mentions Kim’s references to an “operation” and “security.” Rayburn tells Inez not to worry about what Kim said and get back to her job.

Inez passes Archer going into the office, and briefly overhears him talk about being held up at a red light by a man with a gun (Rayburn interrupts before she can hear more). Sometime later, Albert Sanders snoozes in his house trailer when two police officers barge in and demand to know why they found a wallet in his trash can and where Sanders hid “the gun.” Sanders protests his innocence and says he doesn’t have a gun. The officers haul him downtown.

Enter Perry Mason, Attorney at Law

Perry Mason is shown into Sanders’ holding cell and introduces himself as his attorney. While Sanders didn’t request him, Perry was in court during his arraignment and volunteered to take his case pro bono. He checked on Sanders -- his wife and children died in a car accident eight years previously. Sanders was driving, and blames himself for falling asleep, but Perry points out that was only because he’d driven for three days straight for a job, and to go easy on himself. Sanders regains a spark of hope and agrees to work with Mason. He says the police wanted to know why Fred Archer’s wallet was in his trash can. Sanders says he never saw Archer before.

In Rayburn’s office, Perry asks Archer about the details of the crime: The person with the gun held up him and a lady companion -- Rayburn says it was her -- but Archer failed to report the robbery. A nearby druggist saw the whole thing and called the police. Rayburn says she was feeling unwell and didn’t want to talk to the police. Archer tries to say it wasn’t a big deal, but Perry protests it is to his client and leaves. He reunites with Della, who spoke with the hostesses -- all of them had a rehearsed story, and very eagerly reported Rayburn wasn’t in the club the night of the robbery, meaning she was likely with Archer.

Back in Perry’s office, Paul reports he took a different tack: He befriended Larry Coles, a football player at the local college who works part-time at the club as a bouncer. According to Coles, they didn’t question one person: Inez Kaylor, who was fired on April 16th -- the night of the robbery. According to Inez’s former landlady, Rayburn did the firing in person, meaning she had to have been at the club. Perry asks if they can get her to be a witness at Sanders’ trial. Paul says he’ll try -- Inez moved to Vegas after being fired. He’ll send an operative to track her down.

At the courthouse, Faulkner arrives with Inez, who is eager to cooperate. Paul asks her about the details of her story: Inez insists Rayburn fired her that night, and she was at the ballroom. Paul goes into the court to inform Perry that Inez has arrived. As he leaves, a nasty-looking man gets up from a nearby bench and heads in Inez’s direction. Rayburn is on the stand, testifying that Sanders is the culprit. Paul confers with Perry, then goes back outside to fetch Inez -- she’s not there. He has to break the news to Perry as he’s trying to corner Rayburn, and Perry gets the case deferred until Monday.

The Murder

Several boys are playing ball in a trainyard, when one goes to fetch a foul ball and discovers the body of a blonde woman laying in the grass. Back in the office, Perry suspects that Inez didn’t just ghost them. Della goes to check on Paul’s progress in the search, when Lt. Tragg arrives. He reports that the boys found the body of Kim Lane in the trainyard and the evidence suggests Sanders is the culprit. Kim’s purse and jewelry were missing, and they found them in the chassis of Sanders’ trailer. Now Sanders has to contend with charges of armed robbery and murder -- and he’s up against Hamilton Burger.

Perry explains everything to Sanders, who says he didn’t know Kim or Archer -- he only hung around the ballroom for the music. Perry presses him, and Sanders admits he found the purse in his trash can. He has a fit when he realizes how much trouble he’s in and tries to run, only for Perry and the warden to stop him. He sits and sobs that he can’t catch a break. Meanwhile, Paul arrives at an apartment and rings the bell. Inez answers, and Paul’s not letting her get away this time. As he enters, Larry Coles thanks him for bringing back Inez and leaves the apartment.

Paul asks Inez why she ghosted them at the courthouse. She tries to deflect, but Paul isn’t letting her forget her reluctance may cost Sanders his life. He asks if Archer and Rayburn got to her. When she won’t answer, he hands her a subpoena and says they’ll do it the hard way. Inez takes a handful of pills and storms into the bedroom. Paul looks at the bottle: Sleeping pills. He kicks open the locked bedroom door just in time to see Inez drive off in a car below the bedroom window.

Perry arrives to the apartment full of police, but Tragg doesn’t seem concerned. The residue in the bottle is sweet, meaning Inez faked the whole thing. After the police leave, Perry tells Paul to have Rayburn and Archer shadowed until they find Inez. He calls the office and asks Della to get two rush tickets to Vegas. He has a plan: Kim was buying a mink coat on time, and Inez was wearing it after she disappeared. If he can buy the contract for the mink, he has the right to repossess it and therefore enter her Vegas apartment.

The Investigation

Perry and Della arrive in Vegas and are allowed into Inez’s apartment, but don’t find a trace of the mink. Perry pays the building manager to leave them alone in the apartment, and he and Della begin pulling the place apart. Later, Della reports Inez has a lot of foreign-made clothes. There’s no reason for a dance hostess to travel that much. Della goes through the mail and spots a postcard from Universal Model Agency to Kim Lane. It reads, “This is a confirmation of position open -- report 20th of this month.” There’s no address, so Kim must have known where to go.

There’s a scrape at the door, and Perry hides Della in the bedroom. The mean-looking mug from the courthouse enters, letting himself in with a key. When Perry goes to call the police, he pulls a gun and orders Perry to face the wall. Perry does, but Della spies the man taking the postcard and leaving the apartment. Perry says this Universal Model Agency might lead them to the murderer. Back in LA, Della goes to the office of the Universal Model Agency and is told to sit and wait.

The secretary goes through a roster of models, and another model enters and reports in from her trip to Rio -- she’s carrying a black purse. Della waits while the secretary walks out for a moment, but takes a peek at the roster of models when alone. The boss’s door opens: It’s the mug from Vegas. He instructs Della to do a spin, and approves of her appearance. He asks if she’s alone in the city, and she senses he’s getting a bit fresh so she pretends to be married. He immediately dismisses her from the office.

The Trial

Mason is cross-examining Martha Rayburn at Sanders’ armed robbery trial. He asks if she had been to the ballroom, but she again denies it. Burger objects that Mason is repeating himself, and the judge sustains it. Della enters and reports her results: Most of the girls at the model agency are connected to the Danceland Ballroom, and Paul’s checking on the name of the boss with the gun. She also notices that Rayburn’s purse, which she’s been toying with the whole trial, is the same one the model from Rio was carrying.

Perry asks Rayburn about her relationship with the dance hostesses -- Rayburn says it’s just business, and she doesn’t give them gifts or bonuses. Perry asks her about the purse, which the judge okays over Burger’s objections. Rayburn says it’s a custom-made piece, and no one else could have one unless she commissioned one for them. Perry asks if she’s seen the newspaper photos of Kim Lane’s personal effects -- he points out that Kim Lane’s purse is identical to her own. Rayburn tries to say she gave the hostesses the handbags, but Mason points out she just said she didn’t give them gifts, and Rayburn has no answer.

Back in Perry’s office, Paul arrives with Kim Lane’s purse, which he secreted out of headquarters for a brief time. Della inspects the purse closely -- it’s a little on the bulky side. Perry empties the purse and inspects the mirror inside the top flap. Behind it are traces of a pale powdery substance that gives all three of them a grim look. Perry asks if Paul got the name of the head of the modeling agency: Paul says his name is Joseph Gibbs. Perry wants to call him as a witness. He gives Paul back the purse and asks Della to do some shopping before court the next day...

In Summation

Not that I would ever accuse Perry Mason of having a penchant for taking in strays, but it’s remarkable how often one of the greatest (and likely most expensive) lawyers in Los Angeles makes himself available to take on the cases of the lowest and pitiable people in society who can’t possibly afford to pay him. That’s not a diss, by the way -- I love Perry for it, because it shows that though he can probably command the attention of ridiculously rich clients, he’ll give his services away to the people who really need it.

You know how I said back in “The Case of the Empty Tin” that Doris Hocksley was the most pathetic client so far (a destitute, widowed single mother trying to care for a child with special needs)? Well, if Albert Sanders doesn’t have her beat, it’s not for lack of trying. He holds himself responsible for the deaths of his wife and two children because he was driving after three days spent awake to try and secure a job, and his one current source of comfort -- the music at the dancehall -- indirectly leads to him catching first a robbery, then a murder charge. It’s no surprise he’s close to giving up before Perry comes to his aid.

This episode is based around a business that doesn’t really exist anymore -- at least in America, to the best of my knowledge -- ballrooms with dance hostesses. In case the episode didn’t make it clear through context, these were open dance halls where men paid young, attractive women to dance with them. Hostesses (also called “taxi dancers”) usually charged a few cents a dance and would try to attract a regular clientele of men who would dance with and sometimes talk with them. In case you’re wondering, it wasn’t typically a profession that involved sex work -- but that wasn’t completely out of the question.

From what I’ve been able to research, dance halls with hostesses were more common in the 1920s and 30s, and women from poor families would work as hostesses to earn what money they could (and it apparently was a lucrative profession for some). Dancers could often use their charms to beguile their regular patrons into giving them more than their usual fee, including gifts and cash. I can easily see how women like Inez and Kim would make it in that world, and I can also see how a place like Danceland could be a seedy front for organized crime.

I cut off the recap earlier than usual because the final fifth or so of the episode is about unraveling the criminal conspiracy that led to Kim’s death, and I can’t describe it without making it obvious who the murderer is. However, there are two things they reveal at the end: That the whole thing is a heroin-smuggling operation, and that Inez was secreted away by the perpetrators. I mention that because I want to emphasize how very messy this episode is, and how little sense it makes if you think about it. I’ll try not to spoil, but there are certain aspects of this case that aren’t explained at all, or the explanations are so contrived as to beggar belief.

Here’s one minor spoiler: They never actually reveal who held up Fred Archer that night, and it’s somehow just a coincidence that the purse and wallet he lifted from Archer both wound up in Sanders’s trash can. I’m willing to believe that Sanders is just the unluckiest SOB on this green earth, but I’m not willing to believe that the random, unnamed thief somehow dropped the items (including a purse laced with heroin) into the trash can of the same drunk who frequented the victim’s place of work.

As for Inez, they also never reveal just what it was her captors had on her that made her leave the courthouse despite being so eager to testify only moments before -- nor what made her so hostile to Paul Drake when he catches up with her. In the end, they manage to handle the case entirely without her input, so it makes the extended subplot to find her, find her again, and drag her back into court kicking and screaming feel like wasted effort.

Again, this is another minor spoiler, but I also question the way the drug enterprise is supposed to work. We’re shown that all of the models/hostesses that work for the crime ring carries an identical boxy black purse around. Yet it’s not in the purse itself where they secret the drugs, but behind the mirror built into the flap of the purse. I don’t claim to be an expert in 50s-era drug smuggling, but the amount of powder that would fit behind that mirror without being suspicious doesn’t look like it would be enough to offset the costs of sending the models all over the world. Though I do recognize Gibbs’ good taste in selecting Della to be one such model.

The final scene of the episode is one of the cheeriest, at least given the circumstances of the case. Perry and Della both tease the crap out of Paul, who says they’re going to give him a complex, and he reveals that Perry got Sanders a job at a record shop so he can listen to his beloved music and still earn a living. While I take issue with Della complimenting Perry on “solving” the robbery -- because he really didn’t -- it is kind of him to make sure his client’s quality of life improves even after their legal relationship ends.

The Verdict

Judgement: ⚖ (one scale out of four) This messy case refuses to explain itself and leaves many of the biggest questions of the crime unanswered. While Perry’s dedication to his pitiable client is commendable, I find the rest of the case too unbelievable and the side plot about the titular character takes up too much time.

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Transform Your Home Into a Rental Property

Transforming Your Home into a Rental Property: 10 Essential Costs to Prepare For

If you're planning on turning your primary residence into a rental property, there are several costs you need to consider. From increased home insurance to legal fees and property management costs, there are many expenses that may not have been on your radar. Don't get caught off guard by unexpected costs - read on to learn more about what you can expect when you switch to being a landlord. It's time to start budgeting for the financial realities of renting out your home.

Home Insurance

Your home insurance costs will likely increase when you turn your primary residence into a rental property. This is because you will need additional coverage for things like loss of rent and liability for tenants. Be sure to shop around for the best rates and make sure you have the coverage you need.

Maintenance and Repairs

As a landlord, you are responsible for maintaining the property and making any necessary repairs. This includes everything from fixing a leaking faucet to replacing the roof. Be prepared for unexpected repairs and budget accordingly.

Legal Fees

You may need to hire an attorney to help you draft a lease agreement and handle any legal issues that may arise.

Marketing and Advertising

You will need to advertise your rental property to attract tenants. This may involve placing ads in local newspapers or online and paying for signs and other marketing materials.

Taxes

When you turn your primary residence into a rental property, you may no longer be eligible for a homestead exemption on your property taxes. This means that your property taxes may increase.

Property Management Fees

If you hire a property management company to handle the day-to-day tasks of being a landlord, you will need to budget for their fees. These can vary greatly but expect to pay anywhere from 8-12% of the monthly rent for their services.

Tenant Screening Fees

It is important to carefully screen potential tenants to ensure they are reliable and take good care of your property. This may involve paying for background checks and credit reports.

Cleaning and Staging

Before you begin showing your rental property to potential tenants, you may need some cleaning and staging to make it more appealing. This may involve hiring a professional cleaning company or purchasing new furnishings.

Tenant Move-in and Move-out Costs

When tenants move in or out of your rental property, you may need to pay for things like cleaning, painting, and repairs. Be sure to include these costs in your budget.

Vacancy Costs

It is inevitable that there will be times when your rental property is vacant. Be sure to budget for these periods and have a plan in place to minimize the financial impact.

Conclusion

By keeping these costs in mind and budgeting accordingly, you can be better prepared for the financial responsibilities of being a landlord. Remember to consult a financial advisor or attorney for additional guidance on managing the financial aspects of renting out your primary residence.

Turning your primary residence into a rental can dig deep into your wallet. Leaf Management is here to help finance the costs of turning your primary residence into a rental property. They can provide guidance on budgeting for the various expenses you may encounter as a landlord and help you find the most cost-effective solutions. We work with landlords to develop a financing plan that meets their specific needs and goals. Don't hesitate to contact us.

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