So my lawyer’s assistant called yesterday. We won’t be doing an eviction on Dec. 22. We will be getting an emergency order so I can go inside my own house.

Fascinating.

The guy changed the locks, so the last time I went out to see if he had allowed his dog and cats to cover the floor with feces again (at least I hope it was the dog and cats) we couldn’t get in. He passed us on the road in as we came out, so we went back. But he would not let us in.

This is illegal, but I cannot prosecute over it. That’s interesting to me. One feels the justice side should be errant toward the poorer party, but at a certain point does that mean there is no justice for the person who owns the property? Increasingly, at each point of his illegal actions, no recourse is available. It’s illegal, but so what?

We are not having an eviction on Dec. 22 because Legal Aid has gotten involved and filed several motions asking for documents of disclosure, information on the lease, etc. Each request is accompanied by a request for a separate court date. In other words, Legal Aid would like to cause the person asking for the eviction (me) to spend so much time and money that they drop it. This is a common Legal Aid strategy.

It is also one that most lawyers for those trying to make the eviction happen stand to benefit from financially. So that becomes tricky.

I am mistrustful of my lawyer for not disclosing that he would be away during a critical week of December. It feels like something he should have said when we started this journey. I am unhappy that he has offered several platitudes and reassurances, but not strategy. We have a call coming up. Let’s see what happens.

And I am miserably unhappy with the former friend who introduced me to the guy who is now occupying my property. I never once faulted her for introducing me to him, but recenltly I told her that she would need to testify, since she knew about the terms of the agreement (we made it on her front porch) and the circumstances of him taking up residence (we all drove out there together and inspected it and he asked her permission, basically, before moving out of her house).

Her exact words: “I can’t. I wouldn’t have anything to say.”

The most fascinating part of this process, when one steps back from the pain caused by it, is looking at the human decisions involved.

The guy has to be willing to harm people who did many things to help him. We gifted him a truck. We offered him a great work-for-rent deal. We accepted his need to flex his schedule when he notified us that he had appointments. OK, he’s willing to be a person who will do anything to get what he wants, and he has grown up in a world where this kind of behavior was normal, accepted, smart even.

My friend has decided “not to take sides.” She is watching me deal with a financial and emotional burden she has direct knowledge of, and holding herself disassociated from it all.

This feels like a worse betrayal than the guy, in all honesty. I expected better from her, if nothing else for his sake. Accountability may have to be an acquired skill, but can we get through life without it?

It feels unnecessary, this fight to take back what is mine. Had the guy fulfilled the terms of the agreement, he could have stayed. And it feels lonely. Friends don’t ask, and some friends turned out not to be. That part is hard.