Law Students

Livin? The Dream

By Pete

Today my car stopped starting. Given my vast mechanical knowledge, I’m 5% certain that it is the battery. Or maybe a fuse, but probably the battery. Tomorrow I’m going to see if jumping it will help. If that’s not the problem, I think it’s time to get rid of it. I mean, honestly, I’ve been saying that for a while, but I’m not putting any more money into it.

Speaking of cars, I rented one to go to Illinois this past weekend. Given the above, this seems to have been a good idea. Problem? It had some dog hair in the back seat. Ok, it had quite a bit of dog hair in the back seat. I don’t have any idea how it got there, either…

Anyway… Enterprise called today to tell me they were going to charge me $75.00 because they had to vacuum out the dog hair (the horror!). The manager told me that it didn’t matter if I agreed to that in the rental agreement or not… I owed the money because he said so. I asked him to humor me, and find in the rental agreement which clause gives them the right to arbitrarily tack on charges. After 10 minutes on hold, he said he’d have to call me back. This ought to be interesting. My complaint is two-fold:

1. He claims that there are no pets allowed in cars, and that “everyone” is told that. I never was. Not in the half-dozen or so times that I’ve rented from them. Never. (And it appears not to be in the rental agreement)
2. $75? Really? His justification was that they “had to take it somewhere.” Oh yeah? Because I could’ve taken it down the street and had the thing washed, dried, and detailed for a fifth of that price. I’m not going to pay a 500% mark-up on that, it’s absurd. (Unless, of course, the fee is delineated in the rental agreement)

Finally… I was locked out of my own apartment today for a while. I had to walk back to the school, but not before I tried (and failed) to break in.

Yeah, it was a pretty awesome day.

Full post as published by PeteHoliday.com on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).