Michael Madlock Maria Vanessa Terriquez Segura Rental Fraud, Bullying, Theft, Assault La Paz, Other

It all started innocently enough. we were looking for a new place to live, partly due to some noise issues in a lot next to our apartment. We looked at all sorts of sources, many of them online. One of those was Craigslist, where Laura found a listing for a place called: Las Brisas Villas, in Fidepaz.

Neither one of us had any idea where the place was. Still, we were impressed by the photos, the professional web site: http://lasbrisasvillas.com/ and what appeared to be a great deal on rent. Captivated, we went to check it out.

When we got there, it was as advertised, a great looking house in a beautiful location. The house was old, and hadnt been updated for many years. Still, it appeared to be in good condition overall and it had everything we wanted, including a pool.

In talking with Mike, the landlord, something didnt feel quite right and I wasnt sure if we could trust him. He reminded me of one of my uncles, a person who I really dont like, but I kept telling myself that Mike was a totally different person. Later, I realized my intuition was giving me a warning. Had I listened and told my girlfriend about it, we wouldnt have wound up in the disastrous situation that soon followed.

The end result was we accepted the terms and decided to move in. We gave notice where we were and asked to move in sooner than the 15th of the month and offered to pay the difference. Mike said that was OK and gave permission to move in sooner.
On the same day that we were due to move in, we had a talk with one of our friends about our good fortune in finding the house and the great deal. He said, I have to tell you about the dirty little secret of Fidepaz. And I thought, Oh no. What he said was not what I expected.
Fidepaz, as we found out, is directly in the path of a sewage smell that comes out of the southwest, directly south of the Whales tail, a sculpture you see when you leave Centenario and drive into La Paz. When we found out, we were upset, because our new landlord hadnt told us about the smell (more on that later). Worse, wed transferred $875.00US into his bank account and we now felt we were on the hook, since wed given notice in our current apartment.

Note: Among other things, we learned that Fidepaz was referred to as the Beverly Hills of La Paz. And its true, its a beautiful area. Another thing Fidepaz is infamous for is the arrest of drug kingpin El Teo. His home was only a few blocks away from where we lived and guarded 24 hours a day by the police.

Continuing with our story, we made the move. On our last load, we got out of the car and our senses were immediately assaulted with the most God awful stench. It literally smelled like we were standing in a bucket of s**t. It was horrible and was so bad we could almost taste it. We were horrified and nearly got back into the car to go back where we came from, but we felt we were committed and tried to make the best of it.
The stench lingered in the air for 3 hours solid and was so bad we couldnt open the windows. This was our first experience of the the dirty little secret of Fidepaz. Worse was yet to come.

The next day we confronted Mike, our new landlord, about the problem. He assured us is was a rare occurrence and didnt happen all that often. We were uncertain and didnt know what to do. For the next few days the smell rolled in every day. It was the worst at night, usually after 9:00pm and lingered through the night. We couldnt open our windows.

Also, within a day or two, Mike dropped by with the contract. When I saw it, I was instantly alarmed, for two reasons: It was all in Spanish and while I speak some Spanish, I couldnt read at that level. Also, the document was 9 pages long on legal paper.

Mike pressured us to sign it, saying it was no big deal, but my intuition was screaming. We both balked and refused to sign it. Thank God we did, and we found out why, later. We asked for an English translation, hoping to understand what was going on. As we found out later, all legal contracts are written in Spanish; if theyre in English theyre not valid, though theyre generally translated in English as well as a courtesy. As it later turned out, we never got the translation.

Another thing we discovered, shortly after moving in was that the kitchen was filthy. In my estimation, the cupboards hadnt been cleaned in 10 years or more. It took us 5 hours each of hard work to make the place livable.

Back to the sewer smell. We were both appalled. We tried to make do with the situation, but the smell was disgusting. Worse, my girlfriend was leaving on a trip within days and we both felt trapped by the situation. Mike, in an effort to allay our fears, arranged a meeting between us, himself and 2 of his tenants who had being staying there since November (Im not revealing their names because they were an innocent party to what happened).

In conversation with them, they stated they had smelled the odor only a few times, mostly in the weeks prior to us moving in. One of them theorized that it was that it was the smell of manure that farmers use to spread over their fields and speculated it would soon end. (As we later found out, most farmers are too poor to use fertilizer, so that was a red herring.)

Not convinced, we did some more research and went back to our friend who told us about the smell. Heres what we found out: South of the Whales tail are 5 fields that are used to process sewage. On one end the sewage is pumped in raw. On the other end, it produces gray water which is used for watering fields, plants, etc. Its also completely open to the air and is so big you can see it on Google Earth. Immediately beside those fields is another treatment plant, a modern one, which also seems to be processing sewage.

I was really upset. I felt that Mike had deceived us, that he withheld information, which in my opinion was a lie of omission. Worse, I felt I couldnt prove it, partly because I had no understanding of Mexican law and I had no idea what our rights were.

Also, my girlfriend was leaving on her trip and I really felt stuck; I didnt know what to do and tried to make the best of it.

After my girlfriend left, I tried my best to cope with the smell, but it was impossible.

Less than 3 weeks after we moved in, we gave 2 months notice to move out. Thats when Mike wrote me the following message: "The smell must be in your house and going out to the street. I will have my brother water jet and snake the sewer line when I get back and clean the vent pipe. You are the only one complaining."

That response was one of the many condescending statements that Mike and his brother Matt, made to us. It was a less than subtle attempt to put us down and blame us for complaining, when Mike lied to us about the conditions in Fidepaz and south of here.

Not long after that, he began quoting the contract to us chapter and verse, but since we didnt sign it, it wasnt valid.

Another tactic that Mike repeatedly pulled was to act like we were getting special treatment and that we were at fault for all the problems and were being unreasonable. He also never addressed the issue of the lie of omission.

And that wasnt all. There were many repairs needed on the house. Some were fixed, most werent. We had problems with an arcing stove burner, a broken ceiling fan, a busted air conditioner filter, and a major water leak. The water leak was fixed, but nothing else. Mike wouldnt fix the fan and I had to go and buy a floor model. And Matt, Mikes brother, refused to fix the stove. As he said, If you wiggle the burner, itll be OK. Right. They exposed us to a fire hazard and refused to do anything about it.

Then we had an ant infestation. They were the worst in the kitchen and bed. Mike had to get the place sprayed. 2 weeks later they were back, and we had to do it again, but the ants were in the walls and that meant drilling holes in the walls, putting in poison and sealing the walls. That never happened. 2 days later, the ants were back.

Eventually, we found a new place for the 15th of June. By now we were really sick of being treated with contempt and we wanted out, sooner than later. Initially, we were going to give Mike $350 and he could take the remaining $350 out of the damage deposit. Then, we changed our minds and told him to take the $350 for 15 days of rent out of the damage deposit.

Mike then wrote us a message which made my blood boil. Here are some of the highlights:

At the beginning of the letter, he told us that electricity cost were as high as 10,000 pesos for 2 months (which translates to about $800.00 USD). When we moved in, he told us the costs were no more than $100.00/month. It was obvious he invented the number out of the clear blue sky. It was also clear he intended to rip us off for the entire damage deposit.

He justified the extra expenses due to pest control and changing a couch. In my experience, pest control is a fact of life in Mexico and Ive never been charged by any landlord for it. Also, Mike offered to change the couch. Never did he tell us wed have to pay for it.

He repeatedly referred to the contract to justify his actions. He also demanded that we pay an extra $700 in rent for the full month and this is after he got a full month out of us and 60 days notice. As it turns out, he couldnt claim anything of us since we hadnt signed the contract, but we didnt know that at the time.

At the end of the letter, Mike wrote: "I believe you are both fair and reasonable people if you were in my position you know this is the right thing to do."

Thats a flat out lie. We are fair and reasonable people. He is not. We would never, ever, have lied to a tenant to get them to rent from us under false pretences. What he did was a lie of omission and fraud.

To be blunt, we were furious and I blew my stack. Fortunately some clear thinking prevailed and I didnt respond to his email message since it was obvious Mike was trying to draw us into a fight.

We became deeply concerned and started packing, just in case. I also called a lawyer. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and we couldnt get anything going.

The next morning, Mike called me and demanded to know if we were going to vacate the property. I told him I wouldnt give him an answer until Id spoken with my lawyer. Mike went ballistic. He continued to demand an answer. Finally, Id had enough and hung up on him.

Minutes later, he walked over from his house, entered the gate of our rental and started yelling at me through the screen door. Among other things, he accused us of trying to squat on his property, of trying rip him off, of being cheap people, etc. Finally, I couldnt take anymore and fought back. It rapidly turned into a screaming match.

I didnt want that but Mike violated our space. Essentially, he committed assault.

When I told him that he lied to us by not telling us about the Fidepaz smell, he blew me off. Even though I stated that several times, he dismissed me.

At one point, he asked me, do you smell any sewage? I said, No. He said: You see? Theres no problem. What arrogance. Its true that the smell isnt there all the time, but when the winds blow from the southwest, the stench can be horrible.

He demanded that we leave his property immediately. As we later found out, he had no legal right to do so, but we were so traumatized and angry we moved out.
Later, we found out from the lawyer that we should have stayed as it would have helped us with our claim, but by then wed had enough of the abuse, fraud, bullying,  the attempts to inflate costs on us and to use the contract to defraud us of even more money.

In the lawyers office, we also found out that the contract was for rent, plus tax, a fact Mike never disclosed in advance, which was another lie. Had we signed it, we would have been paying an additional $75.00/month

Mike told us in his last email that hes an honest man. I beg to differ. No honest man would deliberately lie in order to defraud people of money and try to cover that up after the fact.

Mike also accused me of sowing destruction wherever I went, accused me of having terrible Karma and I would continue to have trouble wherever I went because I didnt  treat people (like him) decently.

Finally, Mike deliberately tried to drive a wedge between my girlfriend and me.

He also threatened me for hiring a lawyer, telling me he had vested interests and that the facts speak louder than words.

The next day, we went to visit the lawyer. It was a most illuminating experience. Among other things, we learned that people visiting Mexico have all the rights of a Mexican citizen. One of Mikes tactics was to keeps us off guard, ignorant, and to try and deny us our rights.

Jose called Mike and Mike hung up on him. As luck would have it, Mikes lawyer called me when we were moving out. I refused to give him any information and hung up on him. Fortunately, my phone had call display. I gave Jose the number, he called Mikes lawyer and an animated conversation took place. When Jose got off the phone, both he and Mikes lawyer agreed that it was pointless to try and do anything to us and that Mike would give us back the damage deposit, less the cost of utilities.

It looked like we had won, but that was just for appearances. This morning I found out that Mike and his lawyer are in cahoots. Neither will take any responsibility. The bottom line is that Mike has stolen our damage deposit and has cost us in other ways.

I also spoke with the lawyer about wanting to expose Mike for his fraud in the press. He told me I could do so, once this matter was concluded.

Finally, the lawyer said he was president of the real estate association. He said that stories like ours were a major problem because it damages tourism and frightens people away from here.

Additional Information

We learned from several realtors that the sewage smell gets dramatically worse in the summer, especially when it rains. And, if, God forbid, there's a hurricane, it gets worse than that.

In conversation with Mikes brother, Matt, I told him how I found the sewage fields on Google Earth. When I showed Matt the map, not only did he agree with me about the locations, he also pointed out that there was a 3rd sewage field that wasn't visible on the map. This I later realized was because the map was 3 years old. So here we have plenty of confirmation about the smell and how bad it is.

Key Points

Mike never told us about the sewage smell that came from the south in Fidepaz. This was a lie by omission and fraud. Had we known about the sewage smell, we never would have moved there.

Mike repeatedly tried to draw us into a point by point fight. This tactic is misdirection, an attempt to muddy the waters by drawing attention away from the real issue.

Mike never gave us a receipt for any of the payments. Fortunately I did those by bank transfer and have a record of that.

Lessons about Bullying

Mike is a bully. When he couldnt get us to do what he wanted, he upped the abuse, to frighten us and force us into submission.

Mike repeatedly tried to keep us off-base and to continually have the upper hand.
Mike never listened to our complaints about the smell, nor did he acknowledge that he lied by not telling us about the smell, even when I told him that to his face. He just blew me off. He repeatedly let us know our experience was wrong, didnt count and that he was the only one who was right.

Monday, when Mike went volcanic, he told me (in an email) that it was because I didnt respond to him on Sunday and also because I hung up on him.

I disagree. He was yelling at me. I hung up on him because he kept trying to force me to give him an answer I didnt want to give and because he was abusing me.

I also suspect he blew up because we refused to let him dominate us. It seems that he felt he had us under his control, especially because our valued possessions were on his property. We were afraid, make no mistake. We were also determined not to give in.

Bullies blame people for what they do themselves. Among other things, its known in psychological circles as projection.

What Mike did to us is also known in self-help circles as crazymaking. Here, the abuser accuses you, the innocent party, of creating the abuse and that they, the bullies are innocent.

Conclusion

From this fraud, Mike got $1575.00. In addition, Mike stole the damage deposit of $500.00, less utilities of approximately $100.00. We paid $100.00 in legal fees. It took 10 hours of time to clean Mikes filthy kitchen, which cost $250.00. The cost to move twice was $600.00. Now we have to move 3 times, courtesy of Mike and his fraud. Total costs to us: $1,350.00

What Mike did was incredibly stupid, in my opinion. Not only did he deliberately harm two innocent people, he also brought pain into his own life, shame upon his family and duped two innocent tenants into bolstering his fraud. It was a despicable thing to do and totally unnecessary.

If you come to La Paz, do yourself a favor, stay away from Fidepaz. The stench of the sewage alone is one reason.

If you encounter Mike Madlock, avoid him like the plague. He is not who he says he is. In our experience, hell rip you off, make it seem like its your fault and will use bullying tactics to frighten you and try to force you into submission.