That second landlord, the one who served us and then we worked it out? He was a cop who owned lots of places. He and I had a very interesting discussion about how hard it was for him, as a landlord, to get people actually evicted. Sometimes it took months.

The first house we rented, in Granvile, the landlady was in the process of evicting some non-paying tenants when she rented it to us. They dragged their feet, we put our stuff in storage and lived in a motel for over two months, while she went through hoops to get them out. MA is a strong tenant's right state, so that kid had better wake up! Esp. if you start in about lead paint and all!