legal stuff

So frustrating!

/ Re-Farmer / 15 Comments

Well, today – after three delays due to pandemic lock downs – I finally went to court for our restraining order application against our vandal.

Only to find it was delayed for a fourth time.

The frustrating part is that I called to confirm, just a couple of days ago. I was even put on hold while the person talked to someone else to be sure. Then she gave me the number for the Crown office, where I could get other questions I had answered, and I spoke to someone there, just yesterday. Though the prosecutor I spoke to had no connection to my specific application, as far as he knew, this courthouse was open.

Worse, my brother booked a day off work to be there for me.

We both came very early (more on why, later) but couldn’t figure out which court room was going to be used. One of them turned out to have a trial in session in it, but I went to the court office nearby and asked.

image source

One of the people there recognized me and remembered my call from a couple of days ago. As far as she knew, I had been told of the date shift. Everything had been delayed again, until April 23rd. Near that date, I’m going to have to call again to find out if it’s been shifted again, or if I have a new court date. While I was there, the person at the counter looked up the file, and it did say today’s date. However, only those files that have legal representatives are going ahead today, virtually, through the big city. Mine is a private prosecution, so even if our vandal lawyered up, it still would have been shifted.

I had actually gotten through to the Crown office, yesterday, so I knew what to expect. There were three possible outcomes, assuming our vandal showed up. The judge would first ask if both parties agreed to the application. In his experience, the person the order is being applied against never accepts that option. Next, we would be offered mediation. For this, we would sit down with a third party, who would try to work out an arrangement between us. I don’t know if our vandal would agree to that, but even if he did, I don’t know that I would. After we pressed charges when he broke our gate, he had to go through some sort of program where he was seeing a psychiatrist (or a psychologist? I don’t know. We were never informed) regularly. Once the program was complete, the charges were stayed. The thing is, even while he was going through the program, he was still making abusive calls to my mother, and actually using it against her. He still hasn’t taking any sort of responsibility for his actions. If that didn’t work, how would mediation be any better? Anyhow. If mediation was not agreed upon, it would then go to a hearing, another court date would be booked, and for that we would be able to file additional evidence, affidavits, bring witnesses, etc.

None of this can happen, though, because everything got shifted again.

This is getting beyond ridiculous. We have been fortunate, in that our vandal has (so far) only engaged in property damage, creeping around the driveway, watching us from the road, and verbal abuse. However, considering the sudden bunch of calls he left on my mother’s answering machine not long ago, he is not all there. For all we know, he might go on a drinking binge after his wife leaves for work, have another “mental break” (as his wife described it), grab one of his many guns and come after us. We may have a crossbow now (and yes, it’s assembled, but the scope isn’t sighted yet), but that isn’t much defense against a gun.

How many other people in similar situations – or worse – are there, whose applications are being repeatedly delayed like ours? In our province alone, likely dozens. And for what? Schrodinger’s virus, where we hadn’t even been part of the pandemic until our provincial government created the very environment that would create an epidemic? Even at the highest rates, our uptick of excess deaths at the end of last year happened after the strictest lock downs, which cannot possibly stop a virus, were enforced, and includes people who died because of the restrictions – and still didn’t reach exceptionally high rates. We’ve had much higher spikes in excess deaths just within the last five years. The increases in suicides and other deaths of despair, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and child abuse is a consequence that is being acknowledged in at least some places. People have been trying to warn for months about the increases in deaths due to lack of timely medical care that are happening now, and which we’re going to be hit with for years, because of the restrictions. Situations like ours isn’t even on anyone’s radar, from what I’ve seen.

Okay. Rant over.

The session was supposed to start at 10am. The smaller city it was to be held in is about 45 minutes away, on the highway. Last night, we started to get a combination of snow, sleet and rain. Not heavy, but enough to make the roads more dangerous. Normally, I would have left and hour + early and taken a particular route, but this morning, I left 2 hours early and took a route that was longer (in time, not distance), but less isolated. I am glad I did, because it took me more than an hour to get there. I was happy to see the plow trucks out, clearing the slush away. It seems the conditions had actually improved by the time I was on the road. I saw one car (empty) far into a large ditch. What was more telling was the tire tracks I could see in the slush on the shoulders. Something happened in that area that had people swerving all over and, in some areas, I could tell people had reversed and pulled over.

When I got to the building the courts and court office is in, it was mostly empty. Not seeing security guards at the door should have been my first warning, but I was so early, I thought they might not have set up yet. After a quick run to the washroom, I came out to find a single person walking down the hall towards the court rooms, and that was it.

That person turned out to be my brother. I didn’t recognize him, because he was masked. *sigh* He recognized me, though. Even with the light from windows behind me, I was the only person with a visible face (I had my Mingle Mask). That and, let’s face it, I have a rather distinctive short, rotund silhouette. ;-)

We were trying to figure out which court room was going to be used when I saw a lawyer looking dude come around, so I asked if he knew which room was being used for general session. He only knew of a trial that was happening in one room, already started, and suggested we try the court office. Only one person was allowed in at a time, so my brother waited in the lobby while I went in, and that’s when I found out about the shift.

So my brother and I headed out – he happened to park right next to my van – and talked along the way, but there’s nowhere to even sit over a hot non-denominational beverage (I don’t drink coffee… LOL) and talk. He booked a day off work, drove all the way over to the courthouse – about the same distance as my drive – and it turned out to be for nothing. Watching my gas gauge on the way home, I figure it cost us about $30 in gas for this trip. Each.

At least I was able to take advantage of it and make a quick Walmart run. My brother just headed home.

Once I was safety parked, I made a point of calling my mother to update her on what happened. Or, should I say, what didn’t happen. She was frustrated, too. She is really worried about our safety.

But what can we do? Apparently, nothing at all.

I’m not going to waste my time or energy worrying about it, and will just do what we can for now.

So I promptly let it go and did my shopping.

Walmart is getting their Easter inventory in. There were so many eggs, they were on pallets in the aisles, rather than in the fridges! (For those outside of North America, our eggs get washed before they get packed in cartons, which removes their coating, so we have to keep our eggs in the fridge to keep them from spoiling). I don’t think it was much of a concern, though, considering how fast people were already grabbing eggs from the pallets. I’d actually forgotten about Easter preparations. It’s still too early for that, isn’t it??

They did get more canning supplies in, but I didn’t see more 750ml jars. I didn’t see a lot of snap lids or rings, either. Thankfully, I don’t need more rings or lids right now. I got another case of 500ml jars. We will continue to stock up on the jars throughout the summer, little by little. They sell out fast, but I don’t think there is currently any shortage of canning jars at the moment. I imagine there will be, later in the year. A lot of people will be gardening for the first time this year.

Speaking of which…

I decided to pick up some Jiffy pots. I’ll talk about why in another post, but as I was going through the till, the cashier asked me about them. She wondered if you had to somehow use the Jiffy pellets in them, and I told her that she could use whatever soil mix she wanted, and that they were designed to be buried with the transplants. It turned out that she was going to try growing a garden this year, but she is in an apartment and would be growing indoors. I told her that, if she were growing in containers, she could still bury the pot with the transplants in her containers.

I hope her indoor gardening attempts work out well for her. :-)

I hope the same for all the people who are going to try growing their own food for the first time this year!

For us, if nothing else, focusing on the gardening and taking care of this place helps relieve the frustration of dealing with our vandal. Very good for mental health! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Hearing

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

Well, it’s done. I had my teleconference court date this morning.

What a waste of time.

I figured we would have one of two results. Either the judge would look at our vandal’s claims against me and my defense, and throw the whole thing out, or we would get another court date.

I don’t think a judge was even on the call. Just a moderator, going through the docket. She first went through those files that had lawyers, then the employer related ones, then finally the rest. Our vandal’s suit against us was top of the third list, so we were done relatively quickly.

We have a hearing date in July, in person.

Well, at least they think we won’t be locked down anymore by next summer, but who knows if that will change before then.

Among the things the moderator told counsel for the previous files, that applied to everyone else as well, was instructions on what to bring for the in person court dates. This included all documentation, including printed out photographs (no bringing a laptop for a photographic slide show), in triplicate – one copy each for themselves, the judge and the opposing party. Which means nothing gets filed in advance, as would normally be the case. Which means no one gets to see the documentation in advance and respond, or prepare, appropriately. Even the judge will be seeing this documentation for the first time, in session. For those with audio or visual presentations, they were asked to bring the equipment necessary to play or display the files.

As for the hearing date, our vandal was asked if he would have witnesses, and he said he would have two. ??? When I was asked, I said I had no idea that was an option, but that I could bring up to two witnesses. I probably could bring three, but that would include my mother, and it would be just too much for her.

And that was it. Our part of the call was done.

Once I finished with the call, typed up my notes and printed them off for my files, I sent an email to update my siblings, then phoned my mother to update her. She was frustrated, too. She also asked if she could be there in July. !!! I told her that yes, she could be present as an observer if she wanted, but that would depend on what restrictions are still in place. It would also depend on her own health and mobility, and if she physically feels up to making the trip, but she acknowledged that from the start.

Then I made a call to my LegalShield office and am expecting a return call from my lawyer either today or tomorrow. Unfortunately, the office is not in this province. If I did want to have a lawyer representing me in court, they would find a local one for me, but we don’t have the money for a lawyer. All of our “un-allocated funds” in our budget has been going into improving things around here (including trying to set aside funds for a new roof), or fixing vehicles!

It blows me away that our vandal is going through with this, and has found people willing to go along with it. I can make a pretty good guess as to who his witnesses are, and I am guessing that it has to do with my defense that included a list of all the things we know (or that my brother could remember) he’s taken from the farm, totaling over $45,000 in estimated value. Which is fine. I’m not counter suing him, since he didn’t take those from me. He took them from my mother. If he wants to waste his time trying to prove any of it belonged to him, all that does is bolster my own defense. Which, simply put, is that I don’t own, nor claim to own, anything here, and that I had already told him that he could take what was his, if he could prove ownership. Of the stuff he listed that he claims are his, which he thinks is worth $13,000, he’s claiming things that aren’t his, and of the stuff that he actually does have some claim to was abandoned here so long ago, they have rotted away to the point that they’re barely worth anything even as scrap metal. Especially right now, when the scrap metal prices are so horrible. Other things he’s claiming are his (they aren’t) are just plain petty squabbling. He was also claiming things that he’d never claimed were his until I saw them on his list.

All this because I filed a restraining order against him after catching him trying to break the gate again.

I look forward to any advice my lawyer gives me.

With the cold we’ve been having, I have been negligent in switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, but after this call, I figured it needed to be done.

Though it was later than usual, it was still about -32C with a wind chill of about -42C (-25.6F/-43.6F).

The heated water bowl had a thick layer of frost and ice on top!

The kitties were out and about, including Creamsicle Jr., but I was unable to get a look at his face to see how his eye was doing.

I very quickly realized that, in my rush to get outside, I forgot to wear two pairs of pants. There wasn’t much of a wind, but at these temperatures, it was still brutal!

I brought the cameras inside, one at a time, to change out their batteries and switch the memory cards. I knew the old camera’s batteries were already getting low, so they were due. The status bar on the new camera had showed full, the last time I switched out the memory cards and had to use my hands to warm it up so I could see the screen inside. With this cold, however, I decided to switch the batteries, anyhow, and just hang on to the used ones to switch back again the next time I have to do this.

Even with being able to warm up by bringing each camera inside, by the time I finished putting the new camera back up, the cold was really hitting me! Butterscotch had joined me while I was putting the new camera back, and was just begging to be picked up! I carried her back to the house and she was just rubbing her face all over my chin, loving the ride! The poor things are so chilled – and yet, they’re still going out in the cold, and not just for food and water!

Though the temperatures are still expected to be extremely cold for a few more days, after the call this morning, I would not be surprised if our vandal still decided to show up and cause problems, so I felt it was really important to have the cameras in good working order.

I had a surprise when checking the files, in that there actually were files! :-D The old camera died after a day, which I expected, considering the batteries were already so low. Much to my shock, the new camera, which has stopped working outright in colder temperatures before, actually kept on going and even recorded files while I was carrying it to the house! All in hues of pink. When the camera gets cold, all the files are overcast in pink! :-D It even got some night shots, though with a bright red low battery warning. Stills only, no video. Which is better than nothing, that’s for sure!

So I’m increasingly happy with the new camera again. Some of the files showed an internal temperature of -25C/-11F which is well below when the camera stopped working completely, before. Interestingly, when I switched memory cards, this time it did NOT ask me to reformat the new card. Which makes me suspect that it might have nothing to do with the card needing formatting (I’ve tried using different settings when formatting the cards on the desktop, to no avail) and more to do with the cold making it harder for the camera to read the card. Once inside and starting to warm up, it could read the card fine.

We shall see how things go. Hopefully, the cold will keep our vandal indoors. I would not be surprised if he starts calling my mother and siblings again, like he did after he saw the defense I’d filed.

As my mother put it when I talked to her this morning, “we need this like a whole in a bridge” (translated from Polish). At least we could get a laugh over the Polish and English versions of conveying the same frustration!

For now, it’s time to move on to more pleasant things. Which my next post will be about!

The Re-Farmer

Got it done

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

What a gorgeous morning today, while I was doing my rounds! The ground looked like it was covered in frost, but it wasn’t frost. We were having an ever so slight snowfall, and it was making the very air glitter and sparkle!

I couldn’t resist trying for some shots of snowflakes on spruce needles. My phone can take some very good photos, but it doesn’t do zoom very well. Unfortunately, zooming in was the only way I could get right in there without creating a shadow. This one turned out pretty good, though!

I waited until shortly after noon before heading out to the court office to file my defense against the lawsuit our vandal has made against us. Well. Not “us”. Just me. Which I’m good with. I doubt he even remembers the names of the rest of my family well enough to spell them.

The last couple of times I was there, I had some minor issues with the mask mandate. The first time, there was no one in the lobby, and I just told the clerk in the office that I was medically exempt. The second time, there was a pair of sheriffs on duty and, while my exemption was accepted, the guy I spoke to clearly didn’t believe me. So this time, I put my face shield on before going in, just in case, even though I shouldn’t have to wear even that. The mandates say nothing about face shields.

There were no sheriffs in the lobby this time. I am pretty sure this is because court is in session only in the mornings. The chairs were even back in the lobby!

There was already someone in the office, and someone else in a chair (three chairs, right next to each other… no attempt at physical distancing at all!). It was an older gentleman, filling out some paperwork, with his mask under his nose. :-D I took advantage of the wait and made a quick dash to the bathroom. When I came out, the first guy in the chair was in the office, and there was a different older gentleman sitting in one of the other chairs, filling out paperwork, with his mask under his chin.

It looks like the court office is being more reasonable about things.

When it was my turn to go in, the clerk seemed to do a double take when she saw me, but said absolutely nothing about my shield. I think she just didn’t expect it. The face shield is shielding me more from being hassled, than anything else!

I had pretty much everything ready before I came in, so all I needed to do was sign and date the form in front of her. She double checked everything was in order, did her own stamping, dating and so on. It took hardly any time at all, even with her having to disappear in the back to check on things. She apologized, explaining that she was still new to the job and wanted to make sure of things. Which was just fine by me! Then she made a couple of copies; one for me and one for me to serve our vandal with. She also gave me a declaration of service form. We talked a bit about that, because I wasn’t quite sure how I was to do that. Since I plan to serve via registered mail, I just need to keep an eye on the tracking number online. Once it shows that our vandal has signed for it, I can fill out the form (I should be able to print out proof of pick up), then go back and file it.

This is for a February teleconference court date. I have my own court date with him in 4 days, and that will be in person. It looks like I’ll be going to that building 3 times in one week. I suppose I could file the declaration of service on the same day as court, but I wouldn’t want to wait that long if he, say, picked it up tomorrow (which is not assured; we drive in to get our mail only once or twice a week, and I think that’s pretty common out here). Plus, I know that once the court session is done, I’m unlikely to have the sanity points to deal with anything else! I expect him to fight the restraining order, of course. Likely, that will mean a trial date will be set. However, the judge may decide to make a decision right then and there, too. Considering the type of restraining order I am applying for includes “fear of property damage”, which he has already done, there is no ambiguity for my concerns on that part, so it is a real possibility. It would certainly save the court time.

It’s unlikely but, after seeing my defense, it’s entirely possible he’ll drop the suit against me. Especially with the list of things my brother could potentially sue him for, topping an estimated $45,000. Replacement value would easily double, possibly even triple, that amount. The fact that he was already given the opportunity to remove anything he could prove was his, more than 2 years ago, is probably all a judge would need to throw it out.

Ah, well. It will be what it will be.

I’d come prepared with an envelope, so as soon as I was done at the court office, I got our vandal’s copy ready and went to the post office to mail it. I’ve already checked the tracking number, and can tell that all the postmaster had to do was print out a pick up card and tuck it into his mail box. I had some concern that it would have to be sent to the city for processing, first! :-D Actually, I had more concern that I might run into him at the post office, which has happened before.

I am sorry that this has all had to get to the level of the courts, but now that it has, I really hope this will finally put a stop to the things he’s been doing. A restraining order is just a piece of paper, but it’s better than nothing, and gives the police more authority to act, if he does something stupid again.

All we can do it take it one step at a time.

The Re-Farmer

Frosted

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

It was a really gorgeous morning out, while I was doing my rounds.

The trees were covered with frost – but only the tops! :-D

It was not a very productive day today, unfortunately. I think I spent too much time on the computer yesterday, leaving me with a weird headache all night, making it difficult to sleep. I was also getting up to check the computer to monitor a download. I wanted to use the electronic files to type out my defense response to the suit our vandal has filed against us. They are available in Word documents, but I allowed my subscription to MS Office lapse, long ago. I decided to start that up again.

The first fight was trying to go through the process of paying for it, which kept looping back to the step one, every time I tried to use my Debit Visa. I finally started up a chat request for assistance.

It took over an hour for someone to respond.

I had no idea there was an Xbox launch that day. :-D

He was very helpful. It turned out there was a whole bunch of stuff needing to be updated, but my card kept getting declined. That’s why it was looping when I tried before. All he could see at his end was that it had something to do with it being a Debit Visa, instead of a regular credit card (I haven’t had a credit card for many years). I finally used the card for an account I have in a different bank, and it worked just fine.

So that took about 2 hours in total.

Then I had to download it. A 10 gig download, on satellite. After another couple of hours, I think it got to almost 40% before it completely stalled. It decided my computer wasn’t online. Our signal may indeed have kicked out; it does that fairly regularly, but our systems log on again automatically, and it typically is working again so quickly, whatever we are working is not affected much. Whatever happened, the download just died. I finally had to end-task it and tried again. It was still frozen. In the end, I had to restart my computer, then start the download all over again.

It still took most of the night, but it worked!

Today, I spent time time getting the various parts of the suite set up, then started working on my response. When looking up the form online, I found a similar one that could be used.

Defense and counterclaim.

!!

If we were under different circumstances, I could counterclaim for all the stuff that disappeared from here that we know is at our vandal’s place. Except 1) it happened before we moved here, so I don’t actually know much about what has gone missing and 2) this all belonged to my mother, so I can’t make any claim for it, nor would I be able to claim on her behalf. At least, not for this.

I’ve been talking to my brother, however, and he has a much better idea of what has gone missing, so he agreed to start a list, including estimated value. I may not be able to claim it, but I can include it. It actually fits in with the email I am including to show he could have taken stuff he claims as his own at any time, if he had only produced proof of ownership.

Well, I got a partial list today, and I must say, I was shocked. I knew a lot was taken, but I was still not prepared for this!

Almost $45,000 worth of stuff has been taken from here – and that’s just the stuff he knows of, and has remembered so far.

Looking at the list, I found myself thinking just how much easier our job of taking care of this place could have been, these past few years! We wouldn’t be having to scrounge through the junk for whatever isn’t too badly damaged, for starters. And the tools!! Oh, my goodness! I had no idea many of them were even here in the first place.

By the time I finished reading the list, the trees were not the only things that were frosted!

The Re-Farmer

New toys, and this is un-flippin’ real!! :-D

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

Okay, first the fun stuff.

I made a much delayed trip to the post office (using my face shield for the first time).

There were several packages waiting for me, including one that had these – being guarded by a Susan!

That gouge will allow me to carve much deeper than the curved blade of the sloyd knife in my carving kit. I have a couple of practice pieces in mind before I try carving a cup or small bowl, with some maple and apple wood pieces ready and waiting to try.

Besides the gouge, there is a sharpening kit for curved blades, including polishing compound. The other side of it has a matching recessed area, and the sandpaper can be affixed to it using 2 pieces of wood that slide out.

I look forward to using it to sharpen my sloyd knife!

Then there was the other thing in the mail.

The thing I had to sign for.

The return address was our vandal, so I knew I was being served… something. But what could he come up with?

When I opened it and figured out what it was, all I could do was laugh. What an abuse of the court’s time!!!

Our vandal is claiming a number of items around the property, in the amount of $13,000. I actually can’t tell if he’s asking for the stuff, or if he want’s the money. Probably the money. I’ve already sent a copy of it to my lawyer. (My Legal Shield membership, paying off again!)

Here’s the thing.

We don’t own the property or anything on it. When we moved here, my mother said we could use anything on it as if it were our own, but also made it VERY clear, that she was still the owner and called the shots. I’ve also gone out of my way to make that line of owner ship clear, even as we talk generically about “our house” our “our place”. It’s “ours” in that we live here, but we do not own any of it.

What’s on the farm, belongs to the farm, so now that the property belongs to my brother, it’s his. We have the same deal with him as we did with our mother. He knows this, because he contacted my brother to get written permission to go onto the property for “lumber” he says he paid for. Except there is no “lumber”. Unless you count the scrap and salvaged wood, all of which is damaged in some way. Lumber is one of the things listed. I have no idea what he believes is still in that barn!

On top of that, with a number of things listed, I don’t even know what he’s talking about. Others, it could be any of a number of things. It’s pretty vague. Still others are just laughable. Like the TV. He’s never claimed ownership of the TV before. I supposed it’s possible that he bought it for my late father, but if he did, it was a gift, and ownership went to my mother when my dad died.

So he’s demanding (most likely) $13,000 cash from me, for mostly junk, when I don’t even claim ownership of any of it in the first place. Besides, if I had that kind of money, we’d have a new roof by now.

There is, however, one final kicker. I have an email I sent to him, more than a year and a half ago, where I told him that if he wanted to take stuff he was claiming (some of which I already confirmed was never his), he could do so – after providing proof of ownership. He never responded. He couldn’t. He has no proof of ownership.

There is a court date, by teleconference, in February, but I’ve got 20 days to file a response.

What a flippin’ joke!

The Re-Farmer

A little bit further

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

Let’s start with some adorable kitties, having breakfast!

They’re just a great way to start the day! :-D

As for the rest of the day, things were just… tiring.

I got a phone call early in the day. Well, any phone call at all is unusual for us. ;-D

It was my older brother, letting me know he got a phone call from our vandal. My brother was at his work office, so he didn’t answer, but once he heard the message, he wanted to let me know about it, right away.

Amazingly, after making some nasty digs about not being allowed in the property anymore, he had the nerve to request written permission to come on the property.

There are some 2x4s in the barn, and he’s building a shed, so he wants them.

Unbelievable!

My brother was able to send me the file and I got it transcribed before I had to head out. So that was helpful, though ultimately, I never made use of it.

My first stop was at the garage to get the broken shield on my mother’s car fixed.

The tip of it was broken off. The shield had been held in place with a plastic clip that was still holding the tip in place. Since the length was changed, he ended up having to drill and screw into a new hole.

The whole thing, including the time to drive the car in, use the lift, fix it, then drive it out again, took 5 minutes.

I offered to pay, but he wouldn’t bill me anything for it.

What an awesome guy!

Since it took so little time, I was able to drive to the nearer small city and go to the court office to apply for a restraining order and involuntary mental health assessment for our vandal.

The municipality the court is in is under a mask mandate, so I had to go through the usual questioning about my not wearing one, but there were no issues when I said I was medically exempt. I explained why I was there and got the two forms explained to me, but I had to leave the space to fill them out, since the area around the counter was small, and they could only serve one person at a time. I ended up standing at a garbage/recycling station to have a flat surface to work on. Which was fine by me.

I wasn’t able to pass on any of the printouts I brought, but I was glad to have them, since as I filled out the forms, I could use them to get exact dates and remember key details. Not that there was room for much.

After passing the completed forms back, answering a few questions, swearing on the Bible (which was in a clear plastic bag, and got sprayed with sanitizer first) and getting my signatures witnessed, it was back out the door to sit and wait.

Surprisingly, it was the mental health order that was dealt with faster.

Someone came out to talk to me and, in a nutshell, she could not grant the mental health order. She did, however, tell me exactly why and what I needed, then gave me a new form to take home, so I could reapply. The biggest question was whether or not he’d been told to get help, and refused it, very recently – as in, within the last 24 hours or so. I’ve certainly told him to get help before, but I haven’t had direct contact with him in ages for a reason! All in all, she was very helpful. I think, even with how little I could fit into the form, she could tell that this was a real issue.

Then I had to wait about the restraining order. When I got called in for that, I was given the sheet that would go to the police to go over; after some details were corrected, I signed it.

I now have a court date in November.

He will be served by the police some time soon. Which means we will have to double down on keeping an eye on things, because this is likely to trigger him.

The whole time I was there was very stressful. I’ve actually had to go through some of this before we moved, but it’s very different when the person is not someone you used to be close to. My body was so tense, I had to go to the bathroom three times, just because of how much my abdomen was cramping up. My hands were shaking so bad, I could hardly write, and I felt like throwing up, all from being so physically tense. And yet, I was actually pretty calm about the whole thing, mentally. There is still that physiological response to stress, and I just had to push my way through it.

I am glad to have at least been able to get the process started. I have steps to take, and can try again with the mental health order once I get those ducks in a row.

The next while is going to require being on high alert. I thought I knew this person very well, but now, I have no idea how he will react once he’s served with the court date.

It has to stop. The process, however, is so very slow.

This is no way to live.

The Re-Farmer

The Continuing Stoooooorry…

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I finally have more progress on our saga with the movers.

A few days ago, I spent some time talking with a lawyer about our options.  One of the things he mentioned was that, usually one would start an insurance claim, then let the insurance companies duke it out.  The lawyer can send a letter to the moving company for me about it, if the moving company continues to give me grief about it.  How the company responds to that would determine our next move.

Hopefully, we will never have to find out.

Making a claim on my mother’s property insurance was not really preferable.  The deductible is a thousand dollars, so if the cost of replacing the pole is close to that, it’s almost not worth it.  However, my brother thought to contact our provincial vehicle insurance company, since the damage was done by a vehicle.  They said that yes, they do cover that sort of thing, so I called and started a claim. I spent some time talking to someone on the phone, then got an email address to send photos to.

As I prepared to send the email, I got an email from the moving company.  This after 10 days of nothing from them at all.

It was pretty short.  Basically, they wanted to know if I’d gotten an estimate on how much it would cost; if it was under $1000, they would cut me a check for it.  If it was over $1000 (the amount of their deductible), they would give me the information for their insurance company, and I would file a claim there.  (I’m paraphrasing a fair bit, since English is clearly not the first language of the person writing to me.)

Which really, the movers should be doing, not me.  Except I think I’d rather deal with the insurance company than with the movers.

No word on the money they said they would pay for our damaged goods a while back, which is a separate issue from property damage.

So I included their email with my email to the vehicle insurance company.  I was told it could take 2 or 3 days before I got a response, but I got one the next day.  Turns out that, because no vehicles registered in this province was involved, it’s out of their jurisdiction.  We would have to deal with the driver’s vehicle insurance company.  And I have no way of knowing who that is, since in the province we moved from, it’s private insurance companies, not one provincial insurance company.

So after I got that response, I got a phone number of a local electrician.  Someone I went to high school with, actually.  He’s a year or two younger than me, but we took the same bus to school for many years.  He has done work here on the farm for my brother before, and was highly recommended.  Since he works in the city, I was given his home phone number, and I left a message for him there.  Much to my surprise, not only did I get a call soon after (my timing was good, I guess; he came home from work shortly after my call), but he said he could come over right away!

He spent a fair bit of time checking things out, including making sure there was no damage to the cable itself.  I will get an estimate from him emailed to me, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be over $1000, so it looks like I’ll be dealing with the insurance company.

One of the things he mentioned was that he likely wouldn’t be able to install a new pole until spring.  The electric company has access to the machinery that can drill into frozen ground, but he doesn’t.  It’s unlikely the electric company would be willing to come out for a customer owned pole to begin with – and we’d have to prune those trees for them to get into the yard!

Pruning is something that’s going to have to be a bit of a priority, it looks like!  I’d like to get that done while the trees are still dormant, so February would be good.  By March, it might be too late.  Hard to know.  We might have a late spring.  Or an early one.

Anyhow, that’s where we are at now.  I will wait on the estimate, then go from there – and will ask about the coverage for damage to our goods in the process.  I’ll update my lawyer about how things are going, too.

What a long and convoluted process this is!

All because no one bothered to look up.

The Re-Farmer

Legal Options

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Some time ago, I signed up with a program for access to legal assistance.  I think there are a few of these companies.  Basically, you pay a monthly fee for membership, and it gives you access to a law firm, where you can get certain services covered by the membership, while others services are provided at discounted rates.

This has come in handy over the years, as I’ve sought advice for when my family and I were being threatened and harassed by someone we had made the mistake of trying to help, and had to deal with restraining orders and courts.  It came in handy when the dealership screwed us over with our van, and I sought advice.  It came in handy when things were getting worse and worse at the co-op we lived in, when I started getting threats from our board at the time, and an employee.  The membership fee has more than paid for itself.

Now that we are in another province, we will have access to a firm in The City.  With the situation with the movers, and still no response in regards to them fixing the damage the driver did to our power pole, I called them this morning.  For an initial call, information is gathered, then passed on to a lawyer, then the lawyer calls back within 8 business hours.

The funny thing?

The moving company is based in the city we moved away from.  Which means the notes for my call will be sent to the firm in that city to discuss my concerns.

So even though I’m now in another province, I’ll be dealing with the same firm I dealt with before the move!

The Re-Farmer