Vanessa Harrison v. RUPCO; copy of pages included in “Intent to Sue”.
MERAKI, LTD.
February 8th, 2024
RUPCO
C/O
Kevin O’Connor, CEO
Shiela Kilpatrick, COO
Doug Senterman, Senior Property Manager
289 Fair St.
Kingston, NY 12401
Please send the following to:
Vanessa Harrison
24 Ten Broeck Rd.
Hillsdale, NY 12529
Copies of any/all incident reports that were made regarding both floods.
Proof that any and all employees who did work on the water heater before/during/after it failed were licensed to do work in the village of Saugerties at the time.
Proof that the employees who did the work in the apartment above me were licensed to do the kind of work they were doing before/during/after both floods
Reports that state the scope of any and all work performed on the premises above my store, and by whom, with corresponding licenses, before/during/ after the floods occurred
Reports of any and all maintenance/work done on the water heater in the premises above my store before/during/after my tenancy
Proof of the water heaters age and condition during my tenancy
Proof that the water heater is in fact what caused the first flood
Copies of insurance claims that were made that I was told you did not/would not make, and found out otherwise in court
The name of the person who entered my space on December 19th
Copies of communication between myself and any RUPCO employee asking for proof of my insurance prior to the first flood
You are the most immoral, unethical people I have ever done “business” with in my entire life. You have completely torn my life apart. I am so depressed I cannot get out of bed. I cannot wrap my head around how this has happened; I never will. I don’t know if you are all purposely, BLATANTLY, ignoring a woman who has made it very clear the level of distress she is in, or if you simply don’t care. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. Perhaps it’s what your legal counsel has advised you to do; if that’s true it’s very poor advice.
I don’t know who made the decision to evict me the day before Thanksgiving, ordered me to be out by New Years Eve in the bitter cold, and then, to really add insult to injury and humiliate me even further, had a warrant posted on my door for the ultimate ending to what has been one of the most horrific, traumatic 3 years of my entire life. And for me to say that? That’s saying something.
The level of emotional and physical devastation this has caused? At this point it FAR outweighs the amount in damages to material objects. How did it go? Did you all perhaps sit around a table, maybe have a conference call, maybe it was over zoom - and say, “2 floods the same year the pandemic happened and she moved into the space 19 days before it hit? And the floods were caused by our negligence and unqualified employees? Who weren’t licensed to do the kind of work they were doing in the village of Saugerties? And this happened all within 13 months? 4 of which she was closed?” After all of those FACTS were thrown on the table, someone at RUPCO reached the conclusion of, “Let’s get her!”? Between both floods I lost $140K in inventory, fixtures and supplies in total, plus 2 months of lost revenue from being closed for repairs, which calculates to approximately $24,000, all within 13 months of me moving into your space during a pandemic. What part of this are you not understanding?
I thought I was being kind by letting it go. Especially after my email exchange with Sheila. I was of the mindset that she truly understood the level of devastation those floods had caused me, both financially and emotionally based on the words in her email. But now - now I see it for what it was. A tactic to throw me off my guard so things would pan out exactly as they did and RUPCO would get off Scott free. But you are not going to get off Scott free and you must know that. You must.
How could you possibly allow a tenant to go 2 years without paying rent, send a rent demand after a year, disappear again, not bother to call or email said tenant to discuss the situation knowing the ungodly amount of stress she must be under, and then do this? Do you think I would just not pay rent for no reason and think it’s ok? I would never, EVER do that, and I don’t know anyone who would. Why would I put myself in this situation? It doesn’t make any sense! And how would you have liked me to come up with a way to pay rent after the losses I sustained? The only way this makes sense is if it was done the way it was done to back me into a corner and leave me with no options. And it’s worth mentioning although you know - I am not the first tenant to go through this in that space.
Do you all think I am an independently wealthy woman with endless resources? Or just a really bad business woman who will throw good money after bad money in perpetuity? In the last year my credit score went from 715 to 315 because of the level of stress I have been under. Because I didn’t have the ability to be present in my business. Because those floods put me in a hole that I will never dig myself out of. Brand new business. OPEN FOR 15 DAYS. 15!
I have no savings, no money whatsoever, I can’t get a loan or a credit card. I still owe my payment processing company, SQUARE, $1700 from a $24000 loan which should have been paid back 6 months ago, which keeps me awake at night and runs through my mind relentlessly. I had a stylist steal $2000 worth of merchandise and the police would not arrest her because I “knew she took them”. Top notch policing in Ulster County. It seems that people like to make things up and pass it off as the truth around here.
ALL of these things happened because I was unable to be at my store after the first rent demand was served to one of my employees. My anxiety was paralyzing. The level of humiliation, knowing that one of my employees saw that, as well as anyone who walked by and saw what was posted on my door made it impossible for me to be at my store during business hours. I had someone working the floor for 4 months who I never met face to face. ALL of this stems from what those floods did to me and my business financially. Again, 15 DAYS.
My relationships with my vendors have all been damaged because I couldn’t pay for orders I placed last year. Those are called pre-orders; it’s how people like myself are able to buy strategically, with plenty of time to put together a well thought out collection for each season. See, you have to know what you’re buying from each vendor, when the orders are set to arrive, and try to ensure that everything you buy from each individual vendor are items that can be worn with each other - down to the color, fabric and style. This is done seasons ahead of time. I buy for spring of 2024 in winter of 2022. Those floods? The inventory they wiped out? That was also MONTHS of my TIME doing strategic planning and buying that was wiped out with them. When you have to purchase items on the fly from vendors you’re not getting anywhere close to the same selections or options. Just getting size runs is a challenge.
I must say Sheila, you did an excellent job of playing the empathetic executive so I would put my guard down and not litigate. You did a great job of making me feel heard. I should have known better. Whoever served papers - never served me. 2 different stylists were served, and the second one didn’t even tell me. I found the papers under the cash wrap crumpled in the corner. Not a phone call or an email from anyone at RUPCO.
I’ve never met my supposed landlord. Never spoken to him/her on the phone or in person. The only people I’ve met or spoken to from RUPCO are Jake and maintenance people. However, someone on RUPCO’s payroll took it upon themselves to trespassing come into my store on December 19th. The only reason I knew is because the alarm went off and the police were dispatched. I heard whoever it was fumbling around in the back room until the police got there. Once they did, the person said he was my landlord and was looking for an apartment. How does a landlord for a building not know he’s walking into someone’s store and not an apartment in said building? Also - how long might it take to figure it out once someone opens the door to realize they’re in the wrong place? Because this guy was still back there when the police arrived. I have yet to fill out a police report, but I am going to. I had COVID for 3 weeks, a tooth that keeps abscessing, and chronic health conditions - both physical and mental - that have all been at their peak. My already compromised immune system is shot.
After seeing the number of lawsuits RUPCO is, and has been involved in, I understand why, even if you know I have a valid lawsuit, you have acted as though you didn’t tear my life apart and inflict an ungodly amount of suffering upon me. A lawsuit, or threat of a lawsuit is just another Monday to RUPCO. And who am I? Certainly not the city of Newburgh or Bank of America. I became curious as to why your legal expenses were well into 6 figures last year, so I did some digging. And I’m going to continue to dig and research and dig and research and do whatever I have to do for justice to be served. I am going to make sure, somehow, that the presiding judge over the upcoming case is one that holds no bias towards RUPCO and perhaps cares about small businesses, small business owners, and understands how hard it is to keep one afloat even without all that happened to me, and without a pandemic. Perhaps I will even get a judge who doesn’t ignore orders, and doesn’t ignore a woman’s request for help regarding an abusive relationship - which is what you have sent me back to.
I know that I did not receive justice in the Saugerties Village Court. I am also fearful that justice will not be served in Ulster County Supreme Court due to the previous referenced dismissal of my being robbed by one of my stylists, the corruption, the reach that RUPCO has, and the fact that RUPCO executives/employees can hide behind the name and the fact that it’s a nonprofit. And “what kind of person would go after a nonprofit that helps house people?”
For example: if it wasn’t “RUPCO” vs. Meraki/Vanessa Harrison and there was an actual name that people could see…that would make it a little bit different, dontcha think? It’s hard for people to see past the nonprofit organization part of it, and possibly even harder for them to believe that a nonprofit organization would ever do something so heartless and cruel to a small business owner. I certainly would never — not in a MILLION years — ever think a nonprofit of any kind would do something like this to a small business/small business owner. But a nonprofit like RUPCO? Never.
I am facing losing what little I have not lost already; my home, my car and the dogs that I have had for 12 years and are my children. I can’t buy food. I am incapable of working right now. My depression is the worst it has ever been. I can’t think straight. I can’t focus. I don’t sleep more than 2 hours a night. I feel like I have the flu every day. My apartment is about 25 feet from where Meraki was. I have not been able to walk or drive down that street since November 20th. When I park my car at night I have to walk behind the Exchange, past Smith Hardware, through the tunnel, across the street and then back to my building. The thought of seeing someone else in that space makes me physically sick. The home that I am facing losing is the first place I was able call mine, and it became my sanctuary after a lifetime of never feeling safe or stable; I finally had both feet on the ground — and I put them there myself. I had done something that many women can’t or don’t: I had escaped my abuser, and RUPCO has sent me right back to him. RUPCO has given him what he has wanted from day one. I feel like my best friend died. I feel like someone ripped into my chest and gutted me. I feel violated, very similar to how I felt each time I was raped. I feel like everyone made decisions about my life and I had no input and no control. I was unjustly humiliated, lied to and made to look like a freeloading deadbeat.
The way this case played out made the justice system look like a circus. From the procedures that were not followed to a lease with unenforceable terms to a Judge saying something to my attorney that seemingly turned my attorney against me. I paid said attorney $1000 that I do not have, to not do his job correctly or at all. He saw illegal terms in the lease but apparently that’s no biggie, not worth mentioning. He did not allow me to speak, he literally told me I have no rights, and to a conversation with Judge Rightmyer sit down across from me with a sociopathic stare and say, “That judge isn’t going to side with you.” He would not — and still will not — tell me why when asked, and replied, “We’re not going there.” It is hugely suspect, perhaps illegal and most definitely unethical that Judge Rightmyer said something to my attorney behind closed doors, during a 15 minute conversation, prior to my arrival, that led him to relay “this judge is not going to side with you”. Something was said during that conversation that made me feel that my attorney was working against me, and that no matter what my defense was Judge Rightmyer did not care. Unfortunately, I am not going to get an answer as to what Judge Rightmyer said/why he said it unless and until both he and my attorney are deposed; I suspect that whatever it was will implicate both of them. I know that whatever it was did not hold a modicum of truth.
I had a horrific panic attack, threw up in the bathroom and left feeling like I had just been in the twilight zone and it was 1950. I left an attorney that I entrusted to properly represent me with a bias judge to come up with a “compromise” without my input, because my input would not be presented. Whether or not I was in the courtroom is neither here nor there — I hired an attorney to represent me and present my defense, neither of which were executed properly or justly. My attorney kept saying things as though he knew them to be true and they were 100%, in no way shape or form, the truth. For example, “You didn’t try to mitigate your losses and sell the damaged merchandise. You could have sold the merchandise.” No. No I COULD NOT. Everything in my store was covered in mold! EVERYTHING! Mold STAINS clothing. The floors were damaged so badly that they were completely redone! In addition, let’s say I was able to sell my mold stained inventory. Do you have any idea how much work that would have taken on top of JUST the day to day tasks that entail running a business like mine? While being so stressed out I don’t eat or sleep? You truly seem to not be able to grasp the impact this has had on me and what it has cost me. Even if I had only lost say, $15,000 in TOTAL between both floods — do you have any idea how much money that is for a small business in its infancy? It’s a tremendous amount of money for a small business regardless of the circumstances! But add to it the fact that my small business was a brand new baby that closed for 3 months due to a pandemic? And then another 2 for repairs from those floods? How is this NOT getting through to you? It’s business 101, folks. What goes out has to be less than what comes in. Or, what comes in has to be more than what goes out. Money was going out before I even had the chance to bring it in!
I do not stand a chance against RUPCO unless I find a judge that I know is fair, honest and holds no bias towards RUPCO. Judge Rightmyer has ignored 3 orders in total that I have sent him, 2 from me and 1 one from my attorney. (This can result in disciplinary actions such as being held in contempt of court.) Tell me what kind of judge wishes to see a small business owner in the town in which he presides over, knowing she is trying to keep herself safe from an abusive man, be put out of business and not only does he do nothing to try to help her, but he ignores her? Right before the holidays no less?
After the first demand was served I sent an invoice showing the cost of just ONE small shelving unit of jeans. When I got no reply from anyone I believed that what I had sent was satisfactory and that I would follow up with someone at RUPCO — I don’t know who because I was never given a point of contact after Jake left — or someone at RUPCO would follow up with me. But that didn’t happen. Instead, another person on RUPCO’s payroll whom I had never heard of had a second demand delivered, one year later. My reply to which was ignore and included and only a few of my invoices from JUST the first flood totaling over $70,000. COVID months that Jake told me not to worry about — after all, I had moved in only 19 days earlier - were added to the rent amount along with multiple other errors. I knew the figure for my losses was going to far exceed what I imagined, and in full transparency (something I believe in) I tend to avoid things that I don’t have the capacity to handle. That is a behavior caused by PTSD. Another example of such behavior — I stopped emptying my mailboxes at home or the store after the first rent demand came. I haven’t done so in about a year, and before that it was about 8 months. Ask the postal worker, I’m sure she’ll tell you how much it’s pissed her off.
The fact that someone can be a judge without having a law degree? How can a person be put in the highest position of law without a law degree? That judge is the same judge who taught my residential landlord that it’s ok to harass and talk a woman, and that landlords do not have any responsibility for the condition of the property that a tenant pays to live in. That cost me $10,400 and my ability to feel safe in the only place I ever had. That judge ignored a letter that I hand delivered to the clerk, begging him to help me stay out of an abusive situation. That courthouse handed me back an affidavit with a yellow post-it with the name “Vanessa Williams” on it. That judge made his decision without hearing my defense and I would say it’s safe to assume he did so before I even walked into that courtroom. I would say it’s safe to assume he did so as soon as something was filed because corruption. I believe it’s safe to assume that there is a whole lot more at play that was hidden from me. I believe it’s safe to assume that I was evicted based on something that did not even resemble the truth. I believe I am going to find out exactly what RUPCO and its attorneys did. Unethical is too kind a word. Negligent, careless, underhanded, reckless, seedy, corrupt, greedy…those are a few of the adjectives I would use to describe the people at RUPCO who took part in this.
I am nothing but a faceless name to RUPCO. The people in this world make it an ugly place; greed is an ugly, ugly thing and money rules the world. Do you feel like you’ve won? You have no idea what you have done.
I eagerly await the documentation requested above.
Sincerely yours,
Vanessa Harrison
