Court

The Eviction Process

PaulasPonderings5 Comments

Evicting an Ex from your property is not easy.

All of this started August 24th 2022.

When I confirmed Trash’s lies, I cut him off. He was living with his new girlfriend in Gilbert. He met her on June 10th at a concert. He started seeing her BEFORE we left Mexico on June 20th. He spend all summer with her, had her stay at MY HOUSE in Chandler while I was moving from SLC to live with him.  Details are in my first post here:  How I Became the Ex.

I told him I wanted no contact. I blocked him from social media, email, messaging, etc. I told him to leave me alone — to not speak to me or or come near me again. There was nothing to discuss, period.

I own a home in Chandler. I purchased it originally as a short term rental in October of 2021. But now that I no longer have my primary residence in SLC (sold in July 2022), and obviously I was NOT going to be living with Trash in Mexico…. I had no other choice but to make the Chandler house my primary residence.

Anyway, as I stated above, I told Trash to NOT come by the house. Well, he didn’t listen. He decided it was his house too (after all, he hung up lights and worked on the property so it was as much his as it was mine). Because of this, he felt that he could walk into the home whenever he wanted to.  He did this 3 times.  I was not going to be terrorized by this lying, cheating coward. On Sept. 6th 2022,  I hired a locksmith and paid $536 to have all the locks replaced, the ring doorbell and front door lock replaced, and the garage code changed.

But he somehow he still got in (I know now that he had a garage clicker that let him in the garage, then he broke down the door between the garage and the house.) He mocked me on WhatsApp.  You can see the WhatsApp conversation in the story Retaliation is Real - Home Invasion #1.  Basically he told me that:

  • he was in the home
  • that he wasn’t going to leave until I came home and we talked
  • that I couldn’t kick him out because he had a lease

I called the police to have him arrested for trespassing. When the police came to the house he wasn’t there. The police called him…. he said he had a lease and had every right to be at the home (future story).  The police told me that there was nothing they could do at this time, and the only way to get rid of an Ex that won’t go away is to go through the eviction process and file an order of protection. Chandler Police report 22–103692 filed on Sept. 7th 2022.

So that is exactly what I did. I hired a lawyer on Sept. 8th 2022.  Given that Trash had brought up the lease as a reason to stay, the strategy was to use his reasoning/logic against him.  If he had a lease, then he owed rent, and he could be evicted based on the non-payment of rent. It took almost 6 weeks to get this done.  Here are the dates:

  • Sept 8th 2022: I began the eviction process. First Trash had to be served, then once served, he was given a 10 day grace period to respond.
  • Sept 29th 2022: First court hearing was scheduled for this date. Trash appealed and a hearing date was set for the following week, Oct. 6th 2022.
  • Oct 6th 2022: The judge decided in my favor — the house is mine, the lease was legally binding — Trash was to pay up if he wanted to stay.  Trash chose not to pay. Legally he had 5 days to get his things out of the house.   He only took a few of his things and stole all of my things (They Steal What You Love — Part 1 & Part 2 coming soon) .
  • Monday Oct. 17th 2022: The day the writ was served at the house. I met the constable and locksmith at the house. Notices were hung. Locks were changed. And that is the end of that.

Trash is no longer allowed at or near the property. If he shows up for any reason, he will be arrested for Trespassing. You can read more about the process here: https://justicecourts.maricopa.gov/case-types/evictions.

Another advantage of hiring a lawyer is that I am now able to go no-contact with Trash. Meaning any/all contact Trash wants to have with me must go through my lawyer. My lawyer is a godsend and I am forever grateful to him for his support through all of this.

Now the eviction and writ only protects the house, and me WHEN I’m in the house.  By this time, he had:

It was now time to protect myself from this person. So on Oct. 18th I began the process of getting an order of protection against him — He of course contested it. So the court date for this hearing is this week, Thursday Oct. 27th. Once I am granted the order of protection, he has to stay away from me — ZERO CONTACT — for two years. If he defies this order, he will go to jail.

This man — who cheated on me, lied to me, stole from me, who has been told dozens of times to not contact me, just will just not stop…. Makes zero sense to me.

I’m learning so much through this process, here are a few lessons from today’s story:

  1. Don’t date a narcissistic sociopath.
  2. Always always always arm yourself with cameras — ring doorbell, cameras (Arlo, Blink, whatever). They can be used as evidence in court.
  3. Always get a police report for every incident — you will need proof that you are trying to protect yourself. Otherwise it is his word against yours.
  4. No matter how much you love someone, do NOT, under any circumstances, let them move their furniture in or put any utility bill in their name. Better yet, never cohabitate with anyone — if they are a narcissist — they know the system and will make it extremely difficult to rid yourself of them.

Order of Protection Was Upheld

PaulasPonderings3 Comments

Stopping narcissistic abuse/retaliation is hard work.

OrderofProtection

So Trash appealed the order of protection. The court hearing was yesterday, Nov. 9th. The judge heard the case and upheld the order of protection. This means two things:

  1. Trash is required by law to have no-contact  with me— this means no calls, no texts, no email, not to reach out on any social media accounts, and finally, to NOT be anywhere near me for the next two years. This is a win for me as I can stop living in fear that I will run into him because he is stalking me.
  2. That I brought the right evidence to court and was able to prove all of my claims:

OOP - Reasons trash

During the hearing, the judge warned Trash that whatever he said during this hearing could be used against him in the pending criminal and civil cases. Trash decided to testify anyway…. Trash lied in court, directly to the judge…. The judge called him out on it many times, he was not amused by any of Trash’s antics.  I will be receiving a recording and a paper transcript of the hearing and using his words against him in the other criminal/civil matters.

Because he appealed the original Order of Protection, and we were forced to have this hearing, he is now required to pay court costs and attorneys fees, which is $3,932.50. Ha!

What I learned during this process:

  • Always keep records (dates, times, etc) of harassment and theft. Excellent record keeping will give you a lot of credibility with the courts.
  • Pictures and videos are the best evidence. Get yourself some cameras and a doorbell that records voice and motion.
  • Take pictures of everything. The pictures I took after entering the home on Oct. 17th were used as evidence in court. Judge asked TD if he broke the door — TD of course said no…. Judge did not believe him and said so directly to him.

Now, we all know that this does not mean I’m truly protected (we’ve all seen enough episodes of Forensic Files or Law And Order to know this). I will still have to call 911 if he shows up, but with the order of protection (OOP) in place, it means he can be arrested and/or go to jail.

There is a lot more work to be done. Next up on my plate is to finalize all the fraudulent credit card charges and add the information to the existing police report. I have no control over this case — the AZ Attorney General will determine if they will prosecute him for this fraud.

I hope these postings are helping others out there – see the light earlier – as to avoid going through all of this as the process is not easy. Best to see the red flags in the beginning and get out as soon as you can. I encourage you to join Narcissist TikTok or read the many great articles on on Medium to learn more about the red flags/warning signs.

Last but not least, and I am and will forever be grateful for having the funds to be able to hire an attorney and a manager that gives me time off work to handle these matters. I am grateful for my attorney and my manager for their continued support.