LogFAQs > #951853602

https://www.hrw.org/report/2013/02/04/pay-rent-or-face-arrest/abusive-impacts-arkansass-draconian-evictions-law

An Abusive Landlord is No Defense
Cashwana Chitman moved into a three bedroom house in October 2011 with her three children. She did not have running water for the first month. I had to fill water jugs to wash clothes and flush the toilet, she recalled. I had to take my kids to other peoples houses to showerand they were in school at the time. In February 2012, the landlord stopped providing receipts for Ms. Chitmans monthly rent of $800. When this had gone on for three months, Ms. Chitman began to think it was deliberate. She complained repeatedly, with no result. Then, at the beginning of summer, the air conditioning broke down in half of the house. The landlord made repeated promises to fix it, but never did. I got sick from heat exhaustion, she said. My daughter had to sleep on the sofa in the living room all summer.
By late July, Ms. Chitman had had enough. She decided to withhold her rent in protestsomething few US states allow a tenant to do and told her landlord that she would only pay when she got her receipts. She also called code enforcement to report her landlords failure to fix the air conditioner. A short while later, she found a 10 day eviction notice in her mailbox.
Ms. Chitman scrambled to find a new home, but failed to move out within the 10 day period. The police came looking for her at the primary care clinic where she had worked as a receptionist for five years. When the police showed up, I was out at lunch, she explained. When I came back, my coworkers were looking all crazy saying, The police were here looking for you. I said, Quit lying! It was so embarrassing. And Im the cashier! When the police caught up with her later that day, they told her she had a warrant out for her arrest and served her with a court date.
Ms. Chitman managed to pack the last of her things into a borrowed truck the night before her court appearance and moved in with a friend. The day of her hearing, she told Human Rights Watch, I dont have anywhere to go. Im looking for a house. My things are in storage. We have been completely displaced.
Ms. Chitman came to court prepared. She had a sheaf of papers under one arm and a laptop where she had stored recordings of conversations shed had with her landlord to demand receipts. The judge would not hear any of that, but Ms. Chitman was lucky. Even though she had admitted facts that established her as guilty, the judge dismissed all charges when Ms. Chitman said she had already moved out of the house. The entire hearing lasted about three minutes.
Afterwards, Ms. Chitman was angry. She had wanted to present her side of the story. [My landlord] sent the police to my job as if Im a criminal and Ive done something wrong, she said. I was waiting for the judge to ask me questions. She did not understand that, legally, none of her complaints were in any way relevant to the charges against her.

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