Cash My Check

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear Landlord,

Why should I pit you? You and I have gotten along marvelously. I make your life simple by managing the house of 5 college students. You get one check from me, rarely later than the “due date” and when I do mess up, I correct it as fast as I can. In fact, to make sure you get your fucking money, I take the hit and go guido on my roommates.

Why do I do this? Because you’re too incompetent to and with your new child I can’t let the poor soul starve because obviously you’re too fucking stupid to cash last month’s rent check.

Is it too complicated for you? Are you out to confuse my accounting? Do you want to fuck with my head? It’s a fucking check. We did real well to begin my residence here, I’d write them and you’d cash them. Like clockwork. But suddenly your life has gotten confusing, your new baby has you spinning in circles, but for fucks sake I need to know what I have and don’t have so I can, you know, pay for tuition and shit.

If you’re not going to keep our status quo and you’re going to rock the boat, then I’m going to begin insisting you take care of the problems I’ve let slide this long. I can’t help it if you tore down the strip of siding on the house because the insurance company was confused. Oh wait, they weren’t - you were. So how fucking hard is it to put those boards back on the side of the house? I’d love to actually have a visible house number, my friends who come over love the printed house number in the window. That’s real classy.

Or how about our insects? We may not be the cleanest group of guys in the world, but we keep it sanitary, and yet we still have to battle roaches and the occasional man-eating spider. Get Terminix out here and spray the house down.

What about the bathroom work you promised would be done when we moved in last Summer? I know our move-in date snuck up on you and you promised to handle it “soon” after we settled in. Little did I know “soon” actually meant over a year later. That whole blue/white mish-mash theme is exactly what I was looking for in a house’s main bathroom. Thanks.

Now, cash my fucking check before I rip your eyes out and skull fuck you (thank you Full Metal Jacket).

Sincerely,
Your Unhappy Tenant,
Ronin

2

Er…don’t you just mark the money as gone in your check register?

3

When reconciling your account, outstanding checks are a PITA. And to know EXACTLY where you stand and what not, a balanced check book is nice.

Mostly, it shows mucho dis-respect to the issuing party and is a big ‘no no’ in the business world unless you are scum. *Nuff said *

4

Yep, uncashed checks are a pain. Especially when you’re in college and money can be tight, you want to know exactly where you stand. Fewer accidently bounced checks that way.

I don’t suppose you’re close enough to your landlord that you could offer to babysit long enough for him or her to deposit the check? Even if you get a big ‘no thanks’ it might light a fire under 'em.

As for repairs and bugs, does anybody know if you actually can pay to have the work done and then present the landlord with the bill? Putting the rent into escrow until they honor the terms of the lease is a big pain. But oddly satisfying.

5

Word. I had a housemate hold onto a check I had written in early August until the middle of November. I had written two checks of similar amounts close together so I somehow came to the conclusion that I had written it in my registary twice (that why I didn’t major in accounting). So I “fixed” the error and had a few extra dollars to pay with, that is until November when the check to my housemate bounced. Its’ my fault for being dumb and I apologized, but come on! He had essentially three months to cash the thing. He’s a busy guy, sure, but three months without going to the bank? Bull.

6

Just say to the landlord that you noticed the check hadn’t been cashed and you wondered if there’s a problem with it. There’s a possibility that it’s been misplaced and the landlord is too embarrassed to mention it and hoping to still find it.

If it is lost they should pay the fee to cancel the check and then you can write a new one.

I don’t really see what’s so hard about calling the money gone, it’s one rather large check not a bunch of little hard to remember ones.

7

There are these things called “money orders”. :smack: Cost is very small- I have seen them as little as .25 cents per. {ay for them, keep the reciept, and now you don’t care when the landlord cashes them/

OTOH, many would love to have that extra free “float” and their money.

8

I don’t know that it’s “so hard” it’s just annoying to have to do arithmetic every single time you get a balance from an ATM, or look it up online, just to know what the “real” balance is. Go 2-3 months this way and you have to start keeping notes with the outstanding amount, or you can screw it up.

DrDeth hit it on the head, spend the few cents and go Money Order.

9

5 college students - and your big problem with the bathroom is the color scheme???

10

I guess blue and white doesn’t sufficiently conceal the overtones of puke.

11

Ditto. While I prefer my checks to be cashed sooner, rather than later, don’t you like, you know, go over your bank statements to see whether a check has been cashed or not? I regularly have rent checks that aren’t cashed until 3 weeks after issuing. I don’t see a problem with this.

I mean, seriously, I’m not the world’s most fiscally responsible human being (although I’ve gotten better), but if your finances are so tight, don’t you notice when you have, oh, an extra couple hundred dollars in your account? If you don’t, then I suggest you do as others have suggested: make out a money order.

12

I hate it when this happens, too. My landlord is a dear friend of mine who is just not organized around getting checks in the bank. I had her get me a bunch of deposit tickets and I now endorse my rent checks For Deposit Only and send them right to her bank. Easier for her and easier for me.

One thing I do to keep track of what has cleared and what hasn’t is to use the carbons of my checks…I fold up the corner of a check’s carbon when it has cleared. If I am trying to figure out what is outstanding, all I have to keep track of are the ones with no folded corner.

13

As mentioned above, one can keep their notes in a check register. Enter every transaction, and one will always know what the “real” balance is.

14

I’ve been to the bank twice in the past 2 years. I don’t like it when people give me checks. I ask them not to. If they owe me money and choose to be a pain in the ass by paying me by check and forcing me to go to the bank, then I really don’t give a rat’s ass if I’m making their accounting more complicated. If it’s so important to them that the money come out of their account immediately, that’s in their control: they can get it out themselves and hand it to me.

15

No offense, galt, but you’re an oddity. If he had prefered cash I could have done it, easy, but I prefer checks. Its’ not like he had direct deposit and had no reason to go. He definately cashed other checks in that time period. Meh, my fault for not keeping a closer eye on my checkbook/riding his ass until he cashed it. Live and learn.

16

You can, however, more and more people rely on electronic bookeeping, either through ATMs, bank websites or accounting software. The increasing usage of debit cards also increases the number of transactions one needs to keep track of. I track my account electronically, pay bills electronically, it would be a serious doubling of effort to take every bill I paid through the bank website and log it manually on paper, especially when they log it for me automatically. Seems to be a shame that we have to avoid electronic accounting because people can’t deposit checks promptly.

A coworker of mine once said “anything that can be done automatically, can also be done manually”, but that was mostly a joke.

17

I still contend it’s not the responsibility of the paid party to deposit the check promptly. With electronic registering, I just login and see what check numbers have been cashed. 101, 102, 103, 105, 106. Ah! 104 hasn’t been cashed. I can go back to the checkbook, and look up the carbon copy of the check that hasn’t gone through yet. Really, how difficult is this?

18

Well, perhaps you can keep track of the balance in your head better than the OP did, or than I can. Even my debits (on a debit/credit card) don’t go through instantly, and in the best case, checks will take two or three days to clear. The time I spend keeping track is worth it to me to make sure I don’t become overdrawn.

A year ago, I sent someone on this board a check for $8.00 that has never been cashed, and likely never will be cashed. That money is still in my account, and in my register without a tick mark - just in case.

19

It’s not really difficult, it’s more of a hassle, and with a potentially large number of transactions occurring away from the computer / checkbook these days, one has to keep track of these missing checks on the fly. If you have funds to spare, or if you run a tight checkbook, it’s not a problem, but college students aren’t known for either of these.

WRT to the paid party, I’d say it would be courteous to deposit a check promptly. Yes, you can cash it whenever you please, but doing it promptly is nice. I’m not ready to skull fuck anyone over it, but I reserve the right to be peeved if you keep a sizable check undeposited for weeks or months.

20

My bank has an online bill paying service. You type in the name and address of your creditor and how much money you owe them and presto the money goes there. If it’s a major utility company or credit card they usually have a deal whereby they transfer the funds via EFT. But if not, they mail a cashier’s check. Amazingly, this service is totally free, postage included.

So whenever I need to pay anybody I do that. The money is debited immediately, and lazy fucktards who don’t deposit the dough are not my concern.