Perhaps I have a masochist streak in me, but I am the sort of person who likes to help out other people, and had trouble saying no. So far, it has gotten me nothing but trouble. I was in a position recently to rent a room out in my apartment to other people. As my luck would have it, I ended up renting the room out to two groups of psychopaths in a row. The first psychopath kept trying to avoid paying any rent, as well as eating the food out of my fridge. When I invited some of my friends over to kick him and his girlfriend out, he tried to attack me with a sucker punch...despite the fact that me and my two friends were armed. I had placed a lock on their door, and wouldn't let them get their stuff until they gave me some money. His girlfriend stamped her little foot and *demanded* her belongings back. She told her boyfriend to call the police. He refused. I said that I would let her call the Police, which she did. When she hung up the phone, the psychopath tried to coax us into fighting him, which we didn't. Then, when the Police arrived...they both ran to the Police car first, telling the Police that we were threatening them with a crowbar. The psychopath told the Police (in my presence) that we had punched him in the face, spit on him and beat him with sticks...despite the fact that there were no marks on him. The Police did not believe his story, but they did demand that I unlock the door and let the Girlfriend get her belongings (it is illegal in Ontario to withhold a tenant's possessions for back rent). The Psychopath and his girlfriend both left, escorted out by the Police. I thought that was the last of it.
Nine months later, I get a letter in the mail. The Psychopath and his girlfriend are both pressing criminal charges against me for 'Forcible confinement' (we were trying to kick them out, they refused to leave) and 'Assault with a Weapon' (The cane I walk with.) Since the Police don't believe his story, he has to pursue these charges privately. Despite the fact that there is no evidence, no witnesses, and that his story and his girlfriend's story differ radically from each other, and even contradict themselves...the case went through. Likely, it will be dismissed at some point in the future, but I have had to hire a lawyer, and go to court once a month for more than a year now. This has ruined the friendship that I had with the two friends that were with me that night, who both risked their lives to save mine...since these friends are considered to be my co-accused. These friends are upset with me, because I let this man take advantage of me as far as he could...until I needed their help. I was told by someone in restrospect that the best course of action in that case would have been to change the locks.

The same thing happened with the next tenant that I chose, a lesbian that was getting a sex change operation. She seemed to to her best to make me lose my temper, so I would strike her and then she could (presumably) call the Police and have me charged with assault. Despite the fact that I myself could have called the Police on her, and had her removed....I got caught up in her game, trying not to 'lose my cool' despite how obnoxious she was. I told her that I wanted her to move out, yelling at her in fact. She seemed nonplussed, as though I was no threat to her and whatever I said did not matter. Then she called my parents and threatened them. My Parents told me to just get the hell out of the apartment...despite the fact that she was paying the rent to me. She had told me that she wanted to start dealing cocaine, started opening my mail and reading it, writing me fraudulent rent checks on a non-existant account, as well as bringing people over to physically threaten me...I was caught up in the 'problem' of not feeling I could prove any of it...and thinking that the Police would beleive her lies over my truth.
So instead of calling the Police on her, I left the apartment. She screamed in rage as she found out that I was moving out...telling me that I was not allowed to move out without her permission. I ignored this. On the last day of the month, the day that she was supposed to be legally evicted according to the legal eviction form that I gave her...she had three men waiting for me on the roof of the porch of the house. Once the three men saw me, they all ran into the kitchen...presumably to confront me. I went to my apartment with my Dad, who was helping me with the move. This woman jumped out from hiding and began to take pictures of us with her digital camera. Both the woman and the downstairs neighbour were telling me that I was 'not allowed to move out'. Later, when a Policeman came over and started to have a pleasant conversation with my Dad (who is a Justice of the Peace), this woman and the downstairs neighbour (who was in on it) interrupted, and told the Policeman to tow my Father's car away from the house...because it was causing them a disturbance. They also claimed I was moving out of the house 'illegally'. Of course, the Policeman was not pleased with this, and moved to the Porch to give them both hard stares. The woman and the neighbour both had looks of truimph on their faces as I moved out of a wonderfully spacious, affordable apartment in downtown Toronto.
And all I had to do to get her out was call the Police...or for that matter, the first couple.

This is not unlike Justine, and how she is 'rewarded' for her acts of kindness. Giving a gold coin to a beggar woman, who ends up beating Justine up to take all her money. Helping out the daughter of the incestuous Doctor by giving up her own clothes, only to become the daughter's replacement in the Doctor's cruel and unusual medical 'experiments'. Every act of kindness or charity that Justine engages in is rewarded only with abuse, cruelty, and suffering. Like a moth to a lightbulb, Justine engages in the acts of charity and kindness over and over again, only to be knocked down as her abusers rise in power.

My troubles with the renters that I had was that I was willing to be charitable, and to give them the benefit of doubt...to 'turn the other cheek', only to get slapped on the other one. But never again.

he had ideas about charity?


and answerer no 1;
wow, that was an off topic rant...

i guess you learned the first law of charity; give, but always protect your own but.

Don't give anything that could put you in a compromising situation.