Meduli Nature

Author: Kelly Manuel

  • Nightmare Tenant Cost This Owner $26,000 Because Of The Most Dangerous Screening Mistake

    Nightmare Tenant Cost This Owner $26,000 Because Of The Most Dangerous Screening Mistake

    I just spoke with a potential client who lives in Orlando. She just got finished spending over $26,000 renovating a very nice townhome in Tampa. She had picked the wrong tenant thinking she was doing the right thing.  As an owner of a St Petersburg Property Management company, I, unfortunately, get a few of these calls a month.

    The sad thing is the owner is just behaving as a normal, decent human being would. The problem is the property owner encountered one of the 2% of the population that are compulsive liars. As a St Petersburg Property Manager, I encountered this type of potential tenant all the time.

    I call these people “Nightmare Tenants” because they will lie so convincingly that he or she could win an Academy Award for acting.  These people are so good at lying because it is their basic default setting. They lie all the time in every aspect of their life. They’ve become so skilled at it, that it’s almost impossible to detect it.

    The basic ploy is the person builds a ton of rapport with you. He or she is very friendly, conversational, and typically a good listener.  However, the “tell” is when they start giving you a story about how whatever bad thing(s) you are going to find on their credit report is not their fault.  Their last landlord was the “Devil”, or their ex-husband or ex-wife did all this terrible stuff.

    Now there are bad landlords and horrible ex-spouses but, if you look at the background reports: credit, criminal, rental history, and job verification, you’ll see a pattern.  People who have been victimized by a spouse will show excellent credit before the divorce, good job history and landlord references. If they don’t, they are 95% most likely to be a Nightmare Tenant.

    There are a ton of tricks these people will use besides telling you a heart-wrenching story.  They will have their friends pretend to be their landlord and employment references. They will delay even submitting a rental application until the last possible minute.  They will try to give you cash to let them move-in right away. They will switch from such nice people to guilt-tripping you about how they need a chance.

    This particular tenant had a Ph.D. in education and was working a great job.  She did have very bad credit but claimed it was her spouse. But she really got the owner with the “story” of how she just needed a chance to get back on her feet.  

    Always keep in mind, tenants are not family.  You are under no obligation to listen to their stories much less make allowances for their circumstances.  I don’t even recommend talking much to a tenant until they submit a rental application with the application fee.  This will weed out a lot of unsavory types.

    Also, if they ask a ton of questions of your qualifying criteria and you hear a lot of “What about X…” that is a huge red flag.  

    In short, as a landlord, you’ve got to prepare yourself to meet these people.  They are only 2% of the population but they prey on private landlord and can be 20% of the calls you get.  You are in charge and control the screening process. Don’t be cajoled or pressured in any way. If prospective tenants start doing this, 95 times out of 100 you should not even run their application and just refund their application fee, if they even submit one. These people destroy more new landlords than any other issue in land lording.

  • How to Treat Acid Reflux without Medication

    How to Treat Acid Reflux without Medication

    If you suffer from acid reflux, you will be well aware of the severe discomfort you often endure after eating. To make matters worse, lying down can exacerbate your condition. There is hope in the form of chiropractic care for acid reflux, which offers respite and a drug-free, alternative solution to your problem.

    How can a chiropractor help me treat acid reflux?

    Patients can achieve excellent results through chiropractic care, reducing their symptoms and often curing the condition altogether.

    A consultation with a chiropractor will primarily focus on three objectives:

    • Weight management — A primary concern for any patient suffering from any type of ailment is weight. A chiropractor can recommend changes to your diet, which may be causing your acid reflux.
    • Relieving stress in the joints — If your joints are not functioning correctly, they sometimes put pressure on nerves in other areas of the body. A chiropractor can relieve this pressure which may help to reduce your acid reflux Treatment in Ontario.
    • Strengthening the spine — Using their hands to perform manual manipulations, the chiropractor can free the nerves in your spine of any obstructions or pressure which might be causing problems

    Pressure or stress in one area can create an adverse effect in an entirely different area. It’s for this reason that chiropractic care can help to reduce symptoms of acid reflux.

    Relieving a problem in one part of the body sets off a positive chain reaction, with the potential to reduce stress in the location and Online Treatment for Acid Reflux Ontario is originating.

    What causes acid reflux?

    The most common cause of acid reflux are:

    • Pregnancy
    • Obesity
    • Smoking
    • Excessive consumption of alcohol, soft drinks, coffee, or tea
    • Certain foods like tomatoes, onions, garlic, mint, citrus, chocolate, or spices
    • Eating too close to bedtime
    • Lying down or bending at the waist after eating a big meal
    • Medication such as muscle relaxants, blood pressure pills, ibuprofen, or aspirin

    Available treatments for acid reflux?

    • Only a handful of natural remedies are known to help ease symptoms for sufferers of acid reflux. These include:
    • Chewing gum — Chewing stimulates the production of saliva, which helps to flush away harmful acids.
    • Ginger tea — A cup of ginger tea is a popular remedy for calming an upset stomach.
    • Baking soda — Due to its high pH level, baking soda can neutralize acid content within your body.

    If you are suffering from this condition, you may be surprised by how beneficial chiropractic care for acid reflux in Waterford, MI can be.

  • Termite Inspection is a breeze these days, thanks to technology

    Termite Inspection is a breeze these days, thanks to technology

    The effects that a termite infestation can have on buildings has been noticed to be of magnitudes that cause huge losses. while all one could do in the past was wail and wish they had invested time and resources into controlling termites around their property, nowadays relatively easier methods exist that long ago, and they come with costs savings and technological innovations that don’t harm your property but only takes care of the primary target.

    with time, humans had developed several methods of rooting out termites from building walls and sometimes enabling them to save their properties from infestations. The concern with those methods is how damaging they were themselves. Consider allowing a termite exterminator to pick randomly across your walls in search of trace behaviour and characteristics consistent with termites. The drills and peeling would still require money investments even if they don’t find a single bug.

    The following tools have not only included the latest technologies in the hunt for termites, but also save you from damaging your property in the hope of finding the culprit termite. The implications of the tools and methods discovered are not only to introduce non invasive means but also to save time in the search for infected areas around your property. Application areas may include walls and floors but basically also any material that termites have been known to nibble and inevitably burrow through.

    1. The moisture meter – because your walls should be dry in normal cases, termites introduce moisture to weaken the chunks of material they bite off to burrow through to form hives. Including that simple knowledge of termite behaviour observed from studies allowed for moisture detecting tools to be developed and used successfully to find the termites under solid surfaces. While this method works for not too deep lying clusters of termites, many more technologically complex yet easy to use methods were developed from the basic line of thought introduced by this one.

    2. Termite detection radars – using location finding technology similar to those for metals, you can scan out coves of termites from your walls. They are powerful enough to detect even a single termite doing its rounds, leading you to larger locations that other methods have a risk of missing. The use of such technology in the act that many house owners at one time or more times when evaluating for selling, a lot of help and cost savings are not in the reach of everyone.

    3. Thermal imaging sensors – being organic in nature, the termites have a small heat signature, which increases in visibility when they are in the same area; the exact places targeted by the hunt. Using these imaging tools makes it easier and faster to detect termites behind thick walls, because the rest of the material around them will be essentially dead matter.

    4. Carbon dioxide sniffers – there are also some methods that rely on the very nature of termites being alive and breathing organisms. There is no reason why your walls should be breathing out carbon dioxide, and with that reason, should any living organism be making a home out of home without your consent, carbon dioxide sniffers will basically sniff it’s position out.

    The future looks promising when you consider how effective and yet affordable these termite inspection methods are proving to be for homeowners and also on an industrial scale. Who is to say what new method will come from simply putting together the methods and tools discussed above? One things is guaranteed, we are yet to see the end to the developments around termite inspection.

  • Sexual Assault Law in Canada

    Sexual Assault Law in Canada

    It is extremely serious to be accused of sexual assault. Sexual assault cases are prosecuted more seriously than many other offences. If we are going to have a better understanding of sexual assault in Canadian law, we have to define “sexual assault”.

    What is the definition of sexual assault in Canada?

    What are the Criminal Code provisions for sexual assault?

    Under section 271 of the Criminal Code of Canada, a person can be charged for committing a sexual assault. This section of the Code gives the range of possible punishments. This range will vary depending on how the Crown Attorney chooses to prosecute the case. If the Crown Attorney prosecutes the case by indictment (used in the more serious cases), the accused is liable to imprisonment of up to ten (10) years. If the Crown Attorney chooses summary conviction (less serious cases, and a faster procedure), the maximum punishment is eighteen (18) months in jail. The range of possible sentences will change depending on the age of the victim, or if the accused was abusing a position of trust or authority when committing the assault. For more information on this, see our article on the minimum possible sentence for sexual assault in Canada.

    Even though this part of the Code gives the possible sentences for sexual assault, it does not define sexual assault. In fact, it simply says “sexual assault” as though no definition is necessary. In order to know the meaning of the phrase, we have to consider what an “assault” is.

    The definition of “assault”

    Section 265(1) of the Code gives three examples of when someone assaults another person. The first is when a person directly or indirectly applies force to another person without that other person’s consent. The second is by attempting or threatening to apply force without the second person’s consent. Lastly, if a person is holding a weapon and stops or interferes with another person, that person will be guilty of assault.

    How much force is required for an action to be an assault?

    Our courts have said that an assault can take place even with the least amount of touching. This is a very broad definition. In fact, this can lead to some very strange consequences. If a person taps someone on the shoulder to get their attention, that would technically be an assault. Another example of an assault would be a father trying to put a scarf on his daughter while she refuses to put it on. The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized the possibility of these absurd consequences, and has concluded that the Government of Canada would not intend for those kind of situations to happen. It is up to the courts to interpret the meaning of “assault” and to give it a clearer meaning over time as different cases come up.

    It must be an intentional application of force

    It is important to remember that in order for someone to be guilty of an assault, they must have intentionally applied the force used. There have been cases where a person hit another person out of carelessness. In that case, the person was not found guilty of assault, as there was no intention to apply the force. Similarly, in cases where a person has hit another person as a reflex, there was no underlying intention. That person was also not guilty of assault.

    An assault that is sexual in nature

    Under section 265(2) of the Code, the definition of assault applies to all forms of assault, including sexual assault.  From this, we can see that a sexual assault is an assault that is sexual in nature. Put another way, it is an assault that takes place in circumstances that violate the sexual integrity of another person.

    What does it mean for an assault to be sexual in nature? Whether the assault is sexual is determined by asking whether a reasonable person, in light of all the circumstances, would say the assault was sexual. In order to determine this, the court looks to many factors, such as the body part that was touched, the situation in which the touching occurred, the words or conduct that happened along with the act, and any other circumstance surrounding the action.

    Sexual gratification is not necessary

    Some people may think that it is only a sexual assault if it was committed for the purpose of sexual pleasure or gratification. This is not true. There have been cases where a person committed an assault for the sake of disciplining his child. The accused had squeezed his son’s genitals. The courts considered the nature of this form of discipline and found the accused guilty of sexual assault.

    In another case, an accused person had touched a person’s breasts and genitals as a joke. Though there was no intent to receive sexual pleasure from this action, the accused was still charged with and convicted of sexual assault. This is important to remember, as many people think that sexual pleasure is a necessary element of sexual assault.

    Consent

    One of the most important elements of sexual assault is that it is unwanted sexual touching. The “unwanted” aspect of the offence is one of the most complex areas of criminal law.

    The complainant’s state of mind

    To determine whether or not there was consent to engage insexual activity, courts look to the complainant’s state of mind. Of course, judges cannot know for certain what the complainant was thinking at the time of the sexual activity. They will have to look to multiple factors to determine what happened. One of the most obvious sources of information is the complainant’s testimony.

    Complainant’s will often testify that they were not consenting to the activity. This is not the end of the discussion, though. It’s very easy for someone to have voluntarily engaged in sexual activity and then claim that there was a lack of consent. Judges recognize that this leads to a risk of wrongful convictions. The judge will not simply take the word of the complainant that she did not consent. The judge will also have to look to other factors to determine whether the complainant did, in fact, consent. This includes the conduct of the complainant at the time. If, after looking at the other factors the judge decides that the complainant did not actually consent, then the judge will have to conclude that the sexual activity was not consensual.

    The accused person’s state of mind

    The judge will consider only the complainant’s state of mind to decide whether there was any consent or not. The accused person’s state of mind is not relevant when it comes to whether the complainant consented. However, the accused person’s state of mind is not completely irrelevant. If the accused person is guilty of sexual assault, he must know that the complainant is not consenting to the sexual touching. Even if the accused does not know that the complainant is not consenting, he might be reckless about whether or not the person is not consenting. An accused person is reckless when he realizes there is a risk that the touching is not consensual but goes ahead with the touching anyway. The accused might also be “wilfully blind” to the issue of consent. A person is wilfully blind when he recognizes that he should ask questions about whether he has the complainant’s consent but chooses not to ask those questions. In cases where the accused person knows there is no consent or is either reckless or wilfully blind about consent, he is guilty of sexual assault.

    Honest but mistaken belief in consent

    There might be times when an accused person unknowingly engages in non-consensual sexual touching but is neither reckless or wilfully blind. In this case, the accused person might have honestly believed that the complainant was consenting, even though she was not. This is called the defence of honest but mistaken belief in consent. In order for an accused person to successfully argue this defence, there must be evidence that he honestly believed in the consent. There must also be some sort of ambiguous activity that would have explained why the lack of consent was understood by the accused person as actual consent.

    Canadian courts have said that a mistaken belief in consent does not have to be a reasonable mistake, but it does have to be honest. However, courts are more likely going to believe that a mistake was honest if it was also reasonable. Even so, a person should not give up on this defence just because no one else would have made the same mistake. If that person made an honest mistake, no matter how unreasonable, they should not be convicted of sexual assault.

    The accused person’s mistaken belief cannot have happened because of the accused person’s self-caused drunken state. This means that getting drunk so that you cannot tell the difference between consent and non-consent is not a good defence strategy.

    One other consideration for the honest but mistaken belief in consent defence is the “reasonable steps” requirement.  A person who argues that they had an honest but mistaken belief in consent will have to show that they had taken reasonable steps to figure out whether or not the complainant was consenting. What exactly counts as “reasonable steps” will change from person to person, depending on the situation they were in.

    Situations where there is no consent

    There are situations where even if the complainant says they are willing to go along with the sexual activity, they are not consenting. Section 273.1(2) of the Code gives examples of situations where a person cannot consent. If a person other than the complainant gives consent to the sexual activity, the complainant has not consented. This might happen where a man tells his friend that his girlfriend will have sex with him (the friend). In that case, the girlfriend is not consenting to the sexual activity, her boyfriend is. The friend would therefore be guilty of sexual assault.

    A complainant cannot consent when she is unconscious. This might seem obvious, since an unconscious person cannot say “yes” to something. However, this applies to situations where a person agrees to the activity prior to being unconscious. In these situations, there is no consent.

    Consent is invalid if the accused person got the consent by abusing a position of trust, power, or authority. Situations in which an employer explicitly or implicitly threatens to fire an employee unless she “consents” to having sex with him is not a voluntary agreement. There is no consent in that situation.

    The age of the complainant matters

    A person who is under the age of sixteen is incapable of consenting to sexual activity. This is important to keep in mind. Some people think that because a young person says they are okay with engaging in sexual activity, it is not illegal. This is not the case.

    There are some exceptions to this rule. If the complainant is 12 or 13 years-old, an accused person who is less than two years older than the complainant might not be guilty of sexual assault. An example of this is a 14 year-old and a 13 year-old engaging in a consensual sexual relationship. Similarly, if the complainant is 14 or 15 years-old and the accused is less than five years older than the complainant, the accused may not be guilty of sexual assault. In both of these situations, for there to be a valid agreement to engage in sexual conduct, the accused person cannot have been in a position of trust or an exploitative relationship with the complainant. Otherwise, the consent is invalid.

    What to do if you have been charged

    Being charged with sexual assault is one of the most stressful things a person can go through. For a lot of people, they have lived their entire life without even getting so much as a speeding ticket. Now they have been accused of one of the most terrible crimes our society knows. Many times the allegations come from one person, and there is no evidence other than the complainant’s word.

    One of the most important steps an accused person can take is hiring the right lawyer. The criminal justice system is complex, and a person should not have to navigate it alone. Lakin Afolabi Law Professional Corporation defends against all types of crimes, but our office is particularly skilled and experienced in defending charges of sexual assault. We take these charges seriously, and are willing to explore every legitimate avenue to an acquittal.

    If you or a loved one have been charged with sexual assault, do not approach the process alone. Contact our office for a consultation.

  • What Are the Side Effects of Laser Eye Treatment?

    What Are the Side Effects of Laser Eye Treatment?

    Laser treatment for eyes can be an attractive alternative to glasses or contact lenses for correcting vision problems. During laser treatment, a surgeon uses a laser to alter the shape of your cornea and improve your vision.

    Laser treatment can improve vision in those with near-sightedness, far-sightedness, or astigmatism. While this procedure is known to be safe, and effective, laser treatment for vision problems also has some side effects. Some are common, whereas others are rare.

    Dry Eyes

    The development of dry eyes is a common side effect of laser eye treatment. Laser eye surgery causes a temporary decrease in the production of tears.

    Eye dryness can be irritating and painful, and it can also cause blurred vision. However, in most cases, it disappears within a few weeks. In the meantime, patients can use eye drops to keep their eyes from drying out and ease any irritation.

    Temporary Visual Problems

    Laser treatment for eyes can also cause temporary sight problems including visual glare, the appearance of halos around bright lights, starbursts, and double vision. Patients tend to notice these problems mostly when driving at night. They usually disappear within a few weeks of your surgery.

    Flap Complications

    Laser treatment for visual problems often involves creating a flap on the surface of the cornea. The surgeon lifts this flap to reshape the interior section of the cornea underneath. The flap typically heals quickly with no issues.

    However, in rare cases, patients experience problems including infection and abnormal tissue growth. These issues are extremely rare, and your eye surgeon will take great care during and after the procedure to prevent an infection from developing.

    Longer-Term Visual Problems

    Under-correction occurs when the laser removes too little corneal tissue, meaning you won’t see as much improvement in your vision as you might have hoped for and may require more surgery or other corrective measures.

    Over-correction occurs when the surgeon removes too much tissue and is more complicated to fix than an under-correction. Another problem that can arise is astigmatism, caused by the uneven removal of corneal tissue. All of these are very rare, as your eye surgeon will program the laser to your exact prescription.

    Regression in vision can also occur after your procedure. The surgery may improve your vision for a few weeks but, over time, it could regress due to a non-optimal healing process, requiring additional surgery, but this is also extremely rare.

    Laser Eye Surgery is Safe and Effective

    Serious side effects are incredibly rare if you follow the post-operative care instructions given to you by your eye surgeon. If you’re thinking about having laser eye surgery and you have any concerns about side effects, talk to your eye surgeon, who can address all your worries and give you peace of mind.