Joshua Browder, who is a self-styled consumer advocate with a medium-sized (25k) Twitter following, tweeted out this "horrifying" text conversation of some guy and his landlord. Note that this was NOT Browder's conversation, but instead he had obtained it from somewhere:
Browder also fanned the flames by tweeting, "This landlord's going to jail (and getting sued)", the jail part being completely untrue.
This went semi-viral on Twitter, and made Oregon mainstream news.
This one looked tailor made for Sensitive Leftist Twitter, and I smelled a rat immediately.
https://twitter.com/ToddWitteles/status/1252027308090642432
Surprisingly, the previously anonymous owner of the landlord/tenant text exchange quickly came forward and addressed this with me. It was a guy named Austin Goodrich, who tweeted as @CascadianRebel.
However, I still wasn't getting much clarity. Goodrich admitted that he didn't actually have the landlord in his phone as "Landlord". He said that he changed this in order to prevent his landlord from being "doxxed and harassed".
Huh? So you're going public about your landlord using your SSN to illegally access your IRS records, and then you're protecting his identity? Why would such a person deserve such protection?
Furthermore, to "prove" it was real, Goodrich then posted a redacted shot of a e-mail he had with the landlord, which gave the landlord's initials and the exact small town in Oregon where he lived. Shouldn't it be easy for any internet sleuths to dox that landlord at that point anyway?
He could never explain to me why he was keeping the landlord's name private, other than claiming this was more shaming of the IRS' poor security procedures, rather than the landlord himself, which was very hard to swallow.
Well, of course there was more to the story.
First off, a quick googling of Austin Goodrich revealed that he was a member of a radical left Portland-based Facebook group with the stated purpose of encouraging everyone to pay zero rent. So that's some coincidence. A guy who feels it's his "right" to pay no rent (not just delay payment, but pay nothing) just happened to be victimized by his landlord in an obnoxious, greedy, and intrusive fashion. I mean, yes, it's possible, but it was all waaaaaaaaaay too convenient, and had Jussie Smollett written all over it.
It turned out that there was a good reason he changed the landlord's name to "Landlord" for the posting of the text exchange. It was his own grandmother! And now he's suing her for "violating tenants' rights"!
Oh... and here's his explanation, which he only put forth after the grandmother thing was discovered. Note that he refers to grandma as "my relative" so he doesn't look like as much of a dick:
You see, he's only suing his grandmother because he actually has "no relationship" with her. But somehow he's living in a building she manages, despite that total lack of relationship.
Is this hilarious, or what? This freeloading Antifa douchenozzle was sponging off grandma and denying he had the money to pay rent, so she finally got fed up and looked up his stimulus check online. He then tried to shame her as a "greedy, intrusive landlord", assuming nobody would figure out the real story. He was gloating like an asshole all over that Facebook group about how much attention he's been getting over this.
Oh, and she was also his tax preparer. But he had totally no relationship with her. None. Zilch. Totally normal landlord/tenant dispute here.
Austin was previously seen at an Antifa rally shutting down a College Republicans event at Portland State, in 2019.
https://pamplinmedia.com/pt/9-news/4...check-tracking
Now he protected his tweets in shame, but not before blocking me first.
LOL at the entitled bratty left