The next day I get a call from hobo. He told me that he can pull off another prank for me, for more money. It was something along lines of getting a girl he knew to dress like a guy, and then go make out with another girl only to reveal to her that she too is a girl. This dude was wack. So I figured this was my chance to catch this guy and get him to confess to stealing my roomate's camera. I picked him up from ABC liquour store and had my roomate follow my truck close by, just in case this dude decided to pull his knife on me and jimmy shank me. I had also borrowed a tazer from some guy I worked with just in case I had to use it for protection. My hand was gripped on it whole fucking time.

I asked bum about my roomate's camera, to which he gets real defensive and says that last time he saw it, it was laying by bed. At this point I was like fuck this whole situation, I'm just going to try to get ride of this bum and get back our videotape and just buy my roomate a new camera. That was a hard thing to do though because bum didn't want to leave my truck. So I tempted him with some beer. I gave him a couple of bucks to go run into a store and buy some beer. As soon as that bastard left my truck I slammed on my gas peddle and got hell out of there. The next step was to get videotape back, because I didn't want my parents or my roomate's parents knowing about this incident.

I saw a cop on side of road and asked him about getting some evidence back from police station. He asked me what it was, and I told him that it was a videotape. He then started to laugh and said you're that kid that put a bum in your roomate's bed. At this point I felt like a real piece of shit. But I eventually got videotape back. I thought all was fine until a couple of days later I get a call from hobo again in which he threatened to kill me and says that he does have our camera and wants me to come to him to get it. I just told him to go fuck off (at this point I wasn't scared of this dude anymore, just pissed off) and that I had already bought my roomate a new camera.

To conclude this story I got what I deserved, and I know I'm an asshole and should get shit kicked out of me which all my other friends agreed with, and wanted to kick my ass same day camera was stolen. The moral of all this - don't use real bums to pull pranks on your roomates, get a professional actor instead; you might just save yourself $400.

DAN THE ROOMMATE MAN

Robert Irwin, author of The Landlord's Troubleshooter, published by Dearborn, offers some helpful hints: "It is absolutely necessary that you use precise language to describe any exceptions to 'clean and undamaged' that you write down. For example, there may be a mark in a wall caused by previous tenant having hit it with a dresser while moving out. If you write down, 'back wall of bedroom is marked,' you could be in for real trouble. When this tenant moves out, that wall could be covered from floor to ceiling with marks and when you protest, tenant will point to walk-through saying, 'See, you wrote down that wall was marked!'"

In many cases, you can insist that landlord make repair before you move in, especially if it is likely to get worse, or put you or others at risk. If you do this before you sign lease you will avoid future misunderstandings.

Your landlord could be friendliest person in world and turn into a pit bull when it comes time to return your security deposit. So, make sure there isn't a fine print clause in your rental contract that allows landlord to keep some of your deposit for "cleaning." Again, before you sign lease, ask landlord to define conditions in writing under which you would get or not get your deposit back.

Also, when your lease is up, plan to have landlord walk through apartment with you again. Compare apartment to pictures taken before and make sure you both agree on everything.

Understanding what you need to do in order to earn your deposit back will go a long way toward parting company with your landlord on good terms, with your security deposit safely back in your pocket.

dan the roommate man