I know this may be little more than stating the obvious, but don't let people borrow your car. I had a roommate about 4 years ago, and it's one of those situations where I keep saying "If only I hadn't lived with that asshole..." I've had one brief problem with drugs, and it was a direct result of him putting it right under my nose, literally, when I was depressed. I refer to that time in my life as the "dark ages," before I switched careers or got my act together. I kicked the drugs quickly enough, I give myself credit for that. I haven't touched it since. I still did them long enough to lose a job because of it.
Getting back on the subject, he had some kind of problem with his car. He got in an accident, and I think he was driving drunk, but I'll never know. Because it took way too long to fix, abnormally long to fix. So he drove my car for what was supposed to be a week, and then it was six weeks. Then my cd player stopped working, then I got a mysterious yellow-colored ding in my rear fender. But that wasn't the worst of it.
At some point I got a bill for an unpaid parking ticket. He said he didn't know anything about it. I moved out. When you come home and find your roommate doing lines on the kitchen table with a handful of scummy teenagers, it's time to go. And as time goes on, I got more notices about unpaid parking tickets. I paid a few. I knew there were a few left.
Today I got a notice from the RMV because I'm due to renew my license in 6 weeks. It listed about 6 unpaid parking tickets, plus one unpaid excise tax (for those non-Massachusetts residents, excise tax is a tax on your car that the city charges you, just for having your car, that you already paid taxes on, just to make money), which I have to pay before I can . So having spent part of the afternoon chasing down these tickets, paying most of them, including fees, I estimate he ran up over $500 in parking tickets during the time he had my car. And never told me. What did he do, tear them up? Admittedly he paid my portion of the rent for a few months when I couldn't hold a job, but I'm not sure that excuses it. It's like stealing someone's wallet and then helping them find it. To say nothing of the dirtbags he let into our apartment who stole from me.
And this is all today, after I brought my current car in to have it fixed because it's been stalling - and it's only a 2004, so it's not old, and it's not a piece of crap. It started stalling after I lent it to another person, and I thought it had something to do with the grade of gas she put in it, but apparently it's some cluster of wires. Nonetheless, don't lend people your car. I'm just happy I had the money in savings to cover it, but I hate taking money out of my savings.
Getting back on the subject, he had some kind of problem with his car. He got in an accident, and I think he was driving drunk, but I'll never know. Because it took way too long to fix, abnormally long to fix. So he drove my car for what was supposed to be a week, and then it was six weeks. Then my cd player stopped working, then I got a mysterious yellow-colored ding in my rear fender. But that wasn't the worst of it.
At some point I got a bill for an unpaid parking ticket. He said he didn't know anything about it. I moved out. When you come home and find your roommate doing lines on the kitchen table with a handful of scummy teenagers, it's time to go. And as time goes on, I got more notices about unpaid parking tickets. I paid a few. I knew there were a few left.
Today I got a notice from the RMV because I'm due to renew my license in 6 weeks. It listed about 6 unpaid parking tickets, plus one unpaid excise tax (for those non-Massachusetts residents, excise tax is a tax on your car that the city charges you, just for having your car, that you already paid taxes on, just to make money), which I have to pay before I can . So having spent part of the afternoon chasing down these tickets, paying most of them, including fees, I estimate he ran up over $500 in parking tickets during the time he had my car. And never told me. What did he do, tear them up? Admittedly he paid my portion of the rent for a few months when I couldn't hold a job, but I'm not sure that excuses it. It's like stealing someone's wallet and then helping them find it. To say nothing of the dirtbags he let into our apartment who stole from me.
And this is all today, after I brought my current car in to have it fixed because it's been stalling - and it's only a 2004, so it's not old, and it's not a piece of crap. It started stalling after I lent it to another person, and I thought it had something to do with the grade of gas she put in it, but apparently it's some cluster of wires. Nonetheless, don't lend people your car. I'm just happy I had the money in savings to cover it, but I hate taking money out of my savings.