Last night, I found out that the Chinese price on my
apartment is 5,000 RMB, I’m paying 10,000, and the real estate guy said that we
couldn’t bargain because the owner was out of town. I was supposed to pay the deposit today of
30,000 RMB, but they actually wanted 38,000 RMB, cash. I refuse to walk around with that kind of
money, it’s unsafe…everywhere. So, I thought
I would have a friend and his Chinese friend, i.e. interpreter try to bargain
down the rate before going to the bank, together, again, I’m not getting that
kind of cash together and going for a ride on a subway, or taxi.
Next thing you know, things are out of control, everyone is
yelling, and that’s when I find out that my rental agent was taking a huge
kickback for the deal. His English went
away during this time as well. We argued
for a good 2 hours, the owner left, and the real estate agent decided to go
talk on his phone on the balcony for an hour.
At this point, we decided it was time to escape the contract. There is a clause in the contract that if you
don’t pay the rent within 5 days, then they keep the deposit. I figured that that was a 4,000 RMB lesson,
and I could afford to do that. The real
estate agent stopped talking to us, and the owner was nowhere to be found, so,
we got up and left, took all of my baggage and went out to catch a cab. On our way out, the real estate guy, Standy
Li, (never ever use him, I will post his name, company, email address, etc
later on, at the bottom), said that he was calling the cops. We ignored him and walked out.
We hailed a cab, shoved all of my luggage in, and climbed on
board. Meanwhile, outside the cab, the
landlord, her friend, the real estate agent, and some random old guy (a
witness, maybe?) were yelling, standing in front of the cab so that we couldn’t
move. We offered the cab driver a 100
RMB tip to get us out of there, he tried reversing, and the landlord’s friend
ripped open the door. So, obviously we
weren’t going to get anywhere.
We unpacked the cab, and put all my luggage on the side of
the street to wait for the police. Our interpreter
was still with us, thank goodness, and he was giving me advice, along with Thomas,
also very grateful, and I think that this experience is going to cost me in
favours for the rest of the year!
2 hours later, the cops showed up. The landlord told her story, the interpreter
told ours, and the cop said that he didn’t care, didn’t want to get involved,
and walked away.
20 minutes later, a car pulled up, and I was told to get
into the back. (I’ll post pics of me
arrested in the back of the car later). The
interpreter came with me, and Thomas hailed a cab with my girlfriend, Mei. He dropped Mei off at a hotel, I don’t know
what it’s called, I’m writing from it right now, I have no idea where we are,
we’re just nowhere near the hyatt, so I can’t be found by the real estate agent
and the landlord. We got off at the
local police station, and met with a mediator.
It turned out that he has no authority, so a captain-ish mediator was
called in.
We had been at the cop shop for about 3 hours by this time,
and Standy decided to leave and send his partner in to deal with all of the
craziness. His partner walked up to us,
told us he had a foreign lawyer that he was going to call, and started yelling
at us for being bad people, talking about how there are laws, blah, blah, blah,
I’m protected, you’re going to pay, etc.
We went back into the room and argued some more. They turned to me and asked at this point
what I thought that the apartment was worth.
I told them that I didn’t want to live somewhere where my landlord would
have hard feelings against me. I still
don’t think that it’s a good idea. They offered
to settle if I paid them another 6,000 RMB, but for that price, I could get a
lawyer and have him take them apart. Their
willingness to keep changing their offer for the contract breach fee told me
that I was in the right, and that they didn’t have a chance. I have no idea if that was a reality, or if
that’s just how I feel after 4 hours in a police station.
Thomas called one of his contacts here, he’s not a lawyer,
but he’s high up in the city, I’ll leave it at that. This guy showed up with 2 big friends, they
were all wearing casual clothes, and leather jackets. They walked in, yelled for 15 minutes, and
got everything taken care of. The mediator
filled out a report, I signed my name (kind of), and stamped my fingerprint on
it.
I’m out of the contract, and tomorrow I need to change my
phone number. Apparently, because I’m a
foreigner, and nobody knows how to find me, the hassle will go away. Because they hadn’t officially charged me
with anything, they couldn’t hold me, so Thomas’s friend said, “just walk out”,
and we left the police station.
The amazing part? It’s
9 pm right now. What a long, long
day. I need to go out and socialize, and
thank a pile of people who made everything work out in the end. I’ll have to look up Standy’s contact stuff
later, I have to go now.
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