Never, ever rent an apartment from a family member.  Just short of a year ago, I made this terrible mistake and it has caused me nothing but grief ever since.

   My stepfather bought a large building made up of three apartments, a flea market and a warehouse.  I was in a bad situation in terms of residence at the time, so when he offered to rent me the largest apartment, I jumped at the opportunity.  No written lease, no security deposit and less than 75% compared to what I was paying in rent at my last place.  Sounded good to me.

   Now, to be fair, I did violate one of the terms of our agreement almost immediately.  I let my mother-in law, sister-in-law, her boyfriend and their two kids stay with us because their house was condemned and they needed some time to find a new place.  I've never turned away anyone who came to me with a need.  What I didn't do was let my new landlord, the aforementioned stepfather, know about this.

   Skip ahead two months.  I got everyone moved out except my mother-in-law, whom I was told would be allowed to stay because she babysits for my wife and me and helps us keep up the apartment.  Awesome.  Unlike most men, I get along great with all of my in-laws.  Things started really turning around for me at that point.  My financial situation not only stopped getting worse, but I actually managed to start improving it despite my stepdad changing the terms of our original agreement, which ended up costing me about 20% more per month than the place I was at before, counting the utilities that he told me initially would be included in the rent.  The whole reason he claimed that he offered me the apartment was so I could save money and pay off debt.  Well, despite the fact that he went back on his word, that's exactly what I started doing.

   Next thing I know, this guy is trying to make new conditions of my tenancy, including: that I provide him a copy of my budget every month, attend his 30-minute "financial management" classes each month, force my wife (who hates him as much as one person can hate another) to attend the same, adhere strictly to his disciplinary standards for MY children, get a job he approves of (I'm a disabled veteran so I don't work), help him perform repairs on all parts of the building and get his approval for any purchases over $200 I wish to make.  If I don't comply, he won't fix any of the things that were wrong with the apartment when we got here or make any of the modifications he promised in order to accommodate my abnormally large family.

   As you can imagine, the relationship started down the path to hell at speed.  Don't get me wrong, this guy has done a lot for me and my family in the last 15 years, but I'm not about to hand the reins of my entire life over to him.  So, over the last few months, we've been back and forth at each other over these new conditions, with neither of us making any meaningful progress.  In reality, he's just being trying to make us so miserable that we choose to move out so he can go on FaceBook and sing his own praises about what a great guy he is and whine about how no one appreciates him.

   Last night, the battle reached its climax.  I got two messages from him that day which I would normally have ignored, but after months of putting up with his condescending, pontificating crap, I'd had enough.  I was being held responsible for ALL of the defects with the apartment AND being told I had to be out by the end of the month, so I lashed out.  Let the record show that I despise conflict, especially with family, so it is highly unusual for me to just go off on someone.  Naturally, he didn't respond well to my ire.  I did feel a little bad about some of the things I said, so when he responded, I opted against a blistering retort and apologized.  I reminded him of my repeated offers to pay for the damages me and mine had caused, along with a lot of other things, not because I had to but because I wanted to keep the peace.

   He spat it back in my face.

   Well, that was the straw that broke this camel's back.  Here is what followed:

Me - "So, it's "fuck it" now, is it? Have it your way, but this battle is going to be much harder fought than you think. You have absolutely no justification under the law at this time to evict me. If you take no other advice from me, take this: read RSMO chapter 441. Save yourself the embarrassment, court costs, failed inspections, health and fire safety violations, and a shitstorm of other messes. Just leave me alone until I can make my way out of here. Feel free to sue me for the damages we've caused. I'll tack that on the bottom of my list of debt and get to it if and when I can. Do not speak to me unless it concerns upcoming court proceedings, though I'll be checking with the county clerk regularly. I tried to avoid this, but now I'm going to redirect my every effort to watching you drown in a sea of debt from which you haven't time left to recover, seeing the possibility of retirement vanish while I remain a thorn in your ass for as long and to as great an extent as the law allows. Call it fair compensation for services rendered."

Him - "I hope you will reconsider those words. I have always tried only to help you regardless of how you received it."

Me - "Sure you have. Just not now, when it stands a chance of making a difference, huh? I literally offered you everything I possibly can to stop this happening, and in no uncertain terms you've told me to go fuck myself. I can hardly imagine how you expected that to go.  But hey, feel free to let me know if you ever pull your head far enough out of your ass to pry that plank loose from your eye. I'll be here preparing my case. Won't take much, since I'm already on the right sight of every landlord-tenant law and you are demonstrably not. I tried as hard as I could to prevent it from getting this far. I really did. Why did you have to spit in my face?"

Him - "Jordan , the fuck it comment was because it was time for me to sleep and I was fired of texting Not directed at you. I actually thought we might be getting somewhere on what to do about the damages. I keep saying you don't want to be around me, so go where you are happy. Now you want to fight me to stay? Do you really want to drag your kids through all that? I suggest we cool it and discuss what would make both of us happy. A war would have no winner. None."

   Amusing, isn't it, how people's attitudes change when they realize you've been pulling your punches and you're not going to anymore?  Look, I hate being THAT guy, really, but when you tell me that you are going to take action to see that my family has no place to call home, you'd better be ready for me to pay any price, to use every skill and resource at my disposal to see that you fail and that you suffer horribly for trying.  I will, without a moment's hesitation, resort to every dirty trick in the book and probably write in a thousand or so new ones of my own if that is what it takes to protect the ones I love.

   Never, ever rent an apartment from a family member.