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Unwitting landlord, tenant vie for house

A disabled tenant says his new landlord has used harsh tactics to try to force him out. The landlord says he just wants to move into his home.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published June 10, 2006

Nope. It was his worst nightmare: landlord Raymond Martinez, armed with a cordless drill.

Rogers tried to close the door. Martinez put his foot in the way, then pushed past the disabled man. He was there to change the locks.

Martinez wants Rogers out of the two-bedroom, two-bath stucco house he bought in February.

Rogers can't afford to go. The lease, and law, are on his side.

Their battle has taken many forms: torn shrubs and chopped-down trees; court hearings, judge's orders; 911 calls and missing mail; allegations of threats, intimidation and harassment.

Martinez lost another eviction hearing May 26.

***

Rogers limps wherever he goes. On $764 a month Social Security disability, he doesn't get far.

It's hard to figure Rogers, 33, as disabled. The 6-foot-6 Ridgewood High School grad quit the University of Miami to pursue his dream of professional volleyball in San Diego.

A lifetime of injuries finally caught up to him; a 33-foot fall off a mountain as an Eagle Scout, a skateboard mishap and a 1999 car crash. He has degenerative discs, and a pinched nerve shoots pain down his right leg. Cortisone shots make life bearable.

He cannot work. Every new benefit he applies for costs him another.

He doesn't have much more than shelter, the 1,072-square-foot home at 7924 Mimosa Drive in Jasmine Lakes. Since September 2003, it has been his $450 a month home. Now, it is his prison.

"I'm trapped in my own house," he said.

His old landlord, John Demas, let him live in it cheaply. Demas and Rogers' divorced mother, Valerie, had been together 13 years.

Demas died June 27, succumbing to a series of strokes. He was 63. Demas and Rogers' mother had a ceremony, but never legally married.

Demas bought the house in 2002 for $62,000, according to property records. His daughter Kathryn Willey sold it to the 41-year-old Martinez for $150,000 on Feb. 24.

Martinez said he was stunned to learn there was a lease. He believes Demas' signature is forged, though a county judge has accepted the contract.

"He let the kid live there rent-free almost, with no agreement," Martinez said. "They were not paying a mortgage, and the daughter knew nothing about the lease."

Now Martinez is stuck with a $1,200-a-month mortgage payment, he said, and only $450 a month rent.

"Mr. Martinez is stressed because he's paying for a mortgage and can't move into this house," Rogers said. "But he was lied to in the beginning."

Tampa real estate lawyer John Neukamm said selling the house doesn't invalidate the lease.

Martinez said he offered Rogers two options: move or buy. Unemployed and disabled, Rogers said he can't afford the $1,200 monthly payments.

"Whose fault is that? Whose problem is that?" Martinez said. "My mortgage is $1,200 and I cannot even move into my own house."

Soon it got intimidating, Rogers said. Court and police records show why.

Rogers wrote in a petition for a protective order that he heard someone struggling with the lock March 1.

Martinez "tried using keys to open (it) up," he said.

"He was banging and prying and trying to get into the house. He called my phone, like, 35 times.

"The guy was screaming.''

Martinez has filed several eviction complaints. All have been denied. The lease is clear: $450 a month rent until May 1, when a month-to-month clause is activated.

That month, Rogers started finding someone else's mail in his mailbox: Martinez's. Both sides say their mail has gone missing.

And the landlord uses the yard as a parking lot. He leaves his pickup during the day and his work truck at night. Martinez spent six weeks driving his pickup all over the yard, Rogers said, cutting down every tree in the backyard and yanking out every bush.

"He scares the daylights out of me," Rogers said.

***

Rogers decided to give up the fight. "I am writing to give you my 30-day notice that I will be moving," he wrote to Martinez on May 24.

Martinez went for a third eviction try May 26. He lost. "He just stormed out of the room while the judge was still talking," Valerie Rogers said.

"Even the judge said I need to get out of there," her son said. "But where can you go on $700 a month?"

Martinez said he was angry. He never got the 30-day notice, he said, and Rogers didn't tell him he was moving out until after the hearing.

"If I knew you were going to move out in 30 days," Martinez said, "I would never have gone through the eviction process."

Rogers said he returned home to find the exterior vandalized, and reported it to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. Then it got physical the next day, May 27.

"I would never have opened the door," Rogers said. "He caught me off guard."

Rogers said his physical condition left him unable to stop Martinez. He called 911 and stayed on the line.

Martinez said he was going to either move in or rent out a room to pay his mortgage. "He changed the locks on me, he put a deadbolt on there," he said. "And I have every right to go into that house."

Deputies told Martinez he might own the home, a sheriff's report said, but Rogers legally lives in it. Deputies made him put the lock back.

Rogers applied for a protective order May 30. Circuit Judge John Renke denied it.

***

It didn't have to be this way, said Neukamm, the real estate lawyer.

The law gives landlords plenty of ways to evict a tenant. The law also forbids landlords from doing it themselves, what the statutes call "self-help remedies."

"I'm taking the law into my own hands, I'm going to change the locks, I'm going to turn the power off, I'm going to move onto the property, I'm going to remove the tenant's property," Neukamm said. "That's not acceptable. If you do that, you could potentially have exposure for what's called wrongful eviction."

That could cost Martinez money. The judge told him to talk to a lawyer, get help with the eviction.

***

Rogers' mom brought him home June 1 from the doctor to a new horror: no power.

Rogers says Martinez had Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative cut the power after he lost the May 27 hearing. Martinez said he told Demas' daughter the account was still in her father's name. She had the company remove it, he said, which caused the shutdown.

"The law is very clear," said company spokesman Ernie Holzhauer. "A landlord cannot use the disconnection of electric service to evict tenants or to settle a landlord-tenant dispute."

A judge issued an emergency order June 6 directing Martinez to get the power back on. Martinez said it's not his problem, and that he didn't know a court hearing is set for Monday.

But he could face contempt of court, and jail.

Rogers said the company told him only the landlord could turn the electricity back on. Holzhauer said the tenant can ask the State Attorney's Office to issue a directive to the company to restore power.

By 11 a.m. every day, the heat drives Rogers out, to his mother's or grandmother's house.

Rogers fears what might happen when Martinez learns that he has an extension cord running to a neighbor's home. It powers his refrigerator, toaster oven and fan.

"I know he'll go and find the wire and cut it," Rogers said. "That's my only lifeline."

Martinez said he just wants the house he bought. "I'm unable to move into my own home, with my own family, with children, because he's living there."

Not for long. Rogers was approved Thursday for a special mortgage he can afford. Soon he will own his own home, and be out of Martinez's.

"I don't have to worry about this guy. He can have his house," Rogers said. "I'll be jumping for joy ... if I could jump."

Times researchers Caryn Baird and Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified June 10, 2006, 08:39:43]