Speaker 1: This is a studio both and production. As you know,
we are celebrating my tenth year in podcasting and we're
capping that celebration off with a three day event here
in the Berkshires over the weekend of September twenty fifth.
There will be studio sessions, live shows, a Bravo town hall,
Berkshire activities like foraging, wine tasting, museum visits and more,
and tons of special guests. Will do the Karen and
Ellen Letters Live starring Amanda Jacobson from Wine and Crime,
Tawny plattis famous renowned voice actress, and Chris Brayton from
the More Gooder Than podcast. I'll be doing a very special,
first time ever live show of the Pact with special
guest Patrick Hines from True Crime Obsessed. We'll do a
panel discussion on Unsafe Spaces featuring me, Kaz, Charlie Wirrel
from Crime Lines, and Justin and Aaron from Generation Why.
There will even be a live episode of Our Americana
and a very cool Playlist by TCB episode featuring me
and the entire research team. Guests, we'll get to check
out my new speakeasy, the green Room, tour the studio
and get elbow deep in the research process. This is
a once in a lifetime event where you'll get to
enjoy the berkshers, share fun activities with the podcast hosts
you love the most, and really dig into podcasting and
all the shows I have produced along with my friends.
Book your tickets today by clicking the link in the
show notes. And if that doesn't work for you, why
don't you think about? If not now when? For example,
we are going to the Galapagos Islands January eleventh through seventeenth.
Haven't you always wanted to go? And if not now,
when will you go? And wouldn't you go during the
winter here in the States to escape to the warmth
with like minded new friends who love true crime bullshit
as much as you do, but also love the experience
of travel, seeing animals and getting away from it all.
These Trova trips have made me lifelong friends. They are
such a great way to meet new people, get out
of your world and shake things up. And like I said,
if you're not going to go to the Galopagos now,
will you ever? Book your trip today by clicking the
link in the show notes, And now here's the show.
If Our Americana was my entryway into podcasting. Then the
Karen and Ellen letters were my introduction into actual investigations.
It's where my curiosity got the best of me, and
where the story became bigger than words on a page,
where in the absence of an ending, I needed to
find one. Which is funny now because that particular ending
and what it's meant to me has become so fluid
that it's barely an ending at all. Now there's this
book I read and reread every five to ten years
or so, Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. I first
read it when I was about twenty, shortly after i'd
moved to San Francisco and come out of the closet,
when I began desperately searching for a love and stability
and acceptance that I never felt like i'd had prior.
The book is simultaneously both about the persistence of and
the absence of time, the recurrence of life, the longevity
of storytelling, the reincarnation of memory and dreams. When I
was younger and more idealistic, it represented the persistence of
love in many ways. It still does, but what it
means to me in my life changes with every year
and every read. And that's what the Karen and Ellen
Letters have been for me, a sort of guide post,
or a penciled height on a door frame that belongs
to someone else. Now. When I first received the Karen
and Ellen Letters, a hand bound book of correspondence between
two teenage girls and their landlord, it was more of
a party trick than anything else, something we'd pull out
after a few bottles of wine, pass around reading and
laughing late at night. The mystery of the letters was
ever present, but their value was in the content of
the letters themselves, and for years of reading those letters
amongst different groups of people, that would rarely change other
than a few moments of curiosity. Although it was a
mystery that nagged at me, but also one I never
thought I was truly capable of solving. I also often
wondered if it was best not knowing what was real
and what wasn't. In late twenty sixteen, I decided to
turn the letters into a podcast, and twelve years after
receiving those letters, I found that their value was now
in the mystery. The story was both our own curiosity
about who these people were and how they came to collide,
and the mystery of what was it was real, what wasn't,
and what was the gray in between. So Sarah Stapleton,
who plays Karen in the podcast, and I began actually
investigating and through which learning how to investigate those letters,
their authentication and who those people were, if they were
at all. And investigating the Karen and Ellen letters introduced
me to newspapers, dot com, Spokio, the Internet archives and
all these other tools that I use now daily in
my investigation into Keys and other podcasts. It all came
from my unending curiosity surrounding the mystery of Karen and Ellen,
from my need to know and my need for an ending.
Little did I know what a rabbit hole that curiosity
would lead me down, and like sexing the cherry, the
more time I spent with Karen and Ellen, the more
I saw them holistically from different perspectives, with different curureuriosity
that led to new questions and varying levels of understanding.
I was obsessed, but also became endeared. In podcasting, we
talk a lot about parasocial relationships, and if we're being honest,
they start with us and our subjects. I came to
know and care for these girls, these women who were
ten years older than me, but forever trapped in their
late teens. I felt like I needed to protect them
but also know them. At the time, I didn't realize
how often contrasting those two needs can be. It's something
I've learned and lived in much more significantly with the
Keys investigation, and specifically Sarah and Tammy. The more I
want to know them, the more I want to protect
them from me and everyone else who wants to know them.
I also came to learn what a Pandora's box asking
simple questions aloud can be. People I didn't know began
in investigating Karen and Ellen. They wanted the same answers
I did. Some were curious, some were reckless, and they
were a curiosity and recklessness that I owoke inside them.
One I couldn't control, one I couldn't guide through my
own ideas of ethics, what was right and wrong. People
I couldn't protect Karen and Ellen from. I became afraid
of the damage my investigation could do, and again, little
did I know then how amplified that would become when
I made the decision, based on that very investigation, to
turn true crime bullshit into a deep dive investigation rather
than just a reporting of events. But with TCB, like
with the Karen and Ellen Letters, I needed an end.
I needed to know everything no matter the cost. The
price I paid for the Karen and Ellen Letters would
be minimal. No one got hurt, no one got exposed,
and were able to still laugh at the joke that
was once the core of those letters, but also walk
away with the lessons in humanity that were their ultimate value.
The epilogue of that podcast is to remember to always
look deeper, to always see beyond what people want you
to see, to give everyone their humanity and grace, because
if you don't, you never know when or how hard
it will slap you in the face. Because when you don't,
you're often robbing yourself and your loved ones of their
humanity and grace. Because those two girls who started as jokes,
as butts of the joke, they ended up reminding us
all of our own humanity and humility and both the
power and harm in storytelling because the person telling the
story always has the most power. They define what the
story is, who the characters are, and what the takeaways are.
And while in creating and investigating that podcast and those letters,
I got to take the power away from Mark. The
story now lives on through my per and if I've
learned anything over time, it's that perspective is both at
once absent and persistent. These are the first two episodes
of The Karen and Ellen Letters, where my need to
know everything truly manifested for the first time. It is
both a comedy and a mystery, a story of power
and humanity. Look at two people through multiple lenses, but rarely,
if ever, their own, and like sexing the cherry, the
story changes and changes me every time I revisit it.
These are the Karen and Ellen Letters, But first a
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Speaker 2: Warning, listening to this podcast may cause un mitigating obsession
and cognitive dissonance. All names have been changed to protect
the innocent, the insane, and everyone else in between.
Speaker 1: It was the summer of two thousand and five at
a Kinko's in downtown San Francisco. A woman named Susan
watched worn out pages as they slid through a photocopier,
like they had so many times before, and like they
would so many times again. Just several blocks away, a
guy who somewhat resembles me now was turning twenty four.
Hurricane Katrina had just devastated the Gulf Coast, and I
was devastated. I'd spent the previous week watching the city
I had just moved from the city I loved full
of some of my closest friends flooded, looted, destroyed, and ignored.
The night before my birthday, my boyfriend, best friend and
I sat in silence in a wine bar, occasionally choking
up in conversation that existed merely to cull the conversation
we were avoiding. At midnight, we chugged Beaujelais in front
of a picture window that overlooked the San Francisco Bay
and out across to Oakland and Berkeley, and we wondered
where our friends were. They were okay. We tried to
find some bright spot. We looked for some reason to smile,
to laugh. Karen and Ellen always have a way of
finding you when you need them. The most. It's funny
looking back now at how much not only my life
has changed since that fateful night, but also how I
view those letters, how a simple birthday gift would change
my life completely, how for years it would be about comedy,
and then mystery, which became obsession, and now finally community
and perspective and humanity. The many lives of these letters
have all had such distinct and different impacts on mine,
and they've always come at just the right moments. Like
I said, Karen and Ellen always find you just when
you need them the most, and they always bring with
them an ironic sense of wisdom and awareness and maybe
just the right amount of cognitive dissonance. This is the
Karen and Ellen Letters. It was the summer of nineteen
eighty seven. The Simpsons made their first TV appearance, the
stock market crashed, and perhaps not coincidentally, Prozac made its
American debut, And meanwhile, and Oakland, California, two teenage girls
were moving into their very first department.
Speaker 3: July first, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, when I signed
the lease last week, I pointed out the burned out
light bulb in the refrigerator. You said, if I replaced
it myself. I could deduct the cost from my next
month's rent, along with any other small expenses that were
your responsibility. So I'm sending you this list of things
I plan will deduct from my August rent list. Number
one one refrigerator light bulb two dollars two, oven light
bulb two dollars. Three, shed padlock eight dollars four, telephone
installation thirty seven dollars, HI telephone thirty six dollars. Telephone
extension cord nine dollars. Seven, hangars for closets in bedrooms
twelve dollars. Eight extra front door keys uokayed six dollars nine,
fish food ten dollars ten al algicide five dollars eleven, garden.
Speaker 4: Tools sixteen dollars twelve ice tray for freezer two dollars
thirteen cleaning stuff forty six dollars.
Speaker 3: Karen.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, I received a strange and
life changing birthday present, a file folder full of photocopied
handwritten letters between two tenants and their landlord. I looked
a bit bewildered at the woman who handed me the present,
a woman named Susan, who I worked with at Ironically enough,
a law firm. She just smiled and said, trust me,
you need these, and she was right in more ways
than one. Little did I know then that this folder
would lead to hours upon hours of hysterical laughter and
then a successful blog followed by a live performance. In
an odd eleven year journey to authenticate those letters, I
launched The Karen and Ellen Letters as a podcast back
in twenty seventeen, at which point not much progress had
been made in actually finding out the truth about the letters.
But as we recorded episode after episode, Sarah Stapleton, who
plays Karen, became as obsessed with finding out the truth
as I was, and in real time, as the podcast
was airing, we reopened my investigation into them and we
started finding answers, and those answers were often quite surprising
and almost always a bit challenging. Throughout the podcast, you'll
hear the letters read by actors, and those letters are
read as they're written, Typos, misspellings, poor grammar and all
of which there is a lot. And as we go along,
I imagine you'll find yourself debating whether or not these could
be real, And it turns out the answer to that
question is as complicated as it is surprising.
Speaker 3: July third, nineteen eighty seven, Dear Mark, List number two
one Bay Cablevision cable TV hookup fifty dollars. Two Bay
Cablevision deposit fifty dollars. I will return this fifty dollars
to you when I leave. Three oven cleaner four dollars,
four bath rug thirty dollars, five electric broom vacuum cleaner
forty seven dollars.
Speaker 5: Karen, July ninth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Karen, I have
received your lists number one and two of expenses you
plan to deduct from your rent. You may deduct the
cost of the refrigerator and stove light bulbs, the oven
cleaner if the oven was dirty when you moved in,
and the keys and the padlock, provided that you return
the padlock and it's keys to me when you leave.
I will not pay for the other expenses because I
do not believe that they could normally be considered a
landlord responsibility. I think you have badly misunderstood me when
I said you could make small purchases and deduct them
from your rent if I was responsible for them in
the future. Before you buy anything that you plan to
deduct from your rent, I think you should call me
first and get my okay, Mark.
Speaker 3: July thirteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Dear Mark, got your letter.
I'd like to work out a deal with you on
my list of expenses. So I'll pay for the cable
TV stuff if you will pay for the phone stuff,
and I will pay for the cleaning stuff, if you
will pay for the vacuum, or we can just split
the expenses in halfs I'd like to get this settled
before Ellen arrives next month. Karen PS. A few days ago,
I was sitting on the deck when I stood up.
I tore my jeans that got caught on a nail
in your deck. The genes costed forty two dollars. I've
saved them so you can see them, okay.
Speaker 6: July twenty first, nineteen eighty seven, Dear Mark, Hello, I'm
just writing to let you know how much I'm looking
forward to moving into my new home. Karen has described
the house to me, and it sounds well dreamy. I
know we will get along famously. As you know, I'm
an artist and I'm majoring an interior design at U See.
I'm looking forward to trying out some of my ideas.
On my new home. I'm leaving money matters to Karen.
Being an artist, I'm not as practical as she is.
I've been studying art in Washington this summer. One of
the things I've learned here is a new oil transfer
process from marble Efe walls and ceilings. Of course, I'll
check with you before doing any work on my walls,
but I know you'll just love it. I have a
gauzy picture in my mind of the house. Now I
know that work imagination, and some financial assistance from you,
I can turn my new home into an enchanted place.
Speaker 5: Yours, Hellen, July sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Karen, your expectations
that I'm going to pay for such things as your
vacuum cleaner, your telephone, and now your clothes is totally
ridiculous and unrealistic on your part. I'm sorry to be
so blunt, but my last letter didn't seem to make
my point clear to you. My last letter was not
intended to be an author in part of the continuing negotiation,
like haggling with a rug merchant at a Persian bazaar,
but rather a simple statement of what I will and
will not pay for as far as your genes are concerned.
I can only advise you that you look more carefully
in future where you sit. A deck is designed to
be walked upon, not sat upon.
Speaker 3: Sincerely, Mark, July twenty third, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark,
I didn't understand your letter. I don't want to buy
a rug in a Persian bazaar. I just want you
to pay for the stuff I talked about in my
letters to you, especially the cable TV deposit which is overdue.
Karen PS. Good news. I fixed my genes, so now
you don't have to pay for them, okay.
Speaker 5: July twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven, Karen, your lease says
that you are to pay all utility bills except for
garbage collection and water. When I told you to call
pgn E to transfer the gas to electricity to your house,
I did not give you permission to have them send
the bill to me. I expressly told you when you
signed the lease that you were to pay the gas
and electric bill. I don't know why you've had the
bills sent to me, but you should call pg and
E immediately to have them service transferred to your name,
because I'm going to call them and have it taken
out of my name. As you know, I can't have
the service turned off since there's only one meter for
yours and the Caldwell's electricity. Karen, you've got to stop
playing games with me. My patience is getting pretty stretched.
Mark July twenty eighth, nineteen eighty seven. Karen, when I
wrote that I wasn't going to haggle with you like
a rug dealer in a Persian bazaar or bizarre if
you prefer, I meant that only as a simile a
figure of speech. I cannot be more blunt than I
have already been. I will only pay for those items
I have expressly agreed to pay for in my letters
to you. As to the cable TV deposit, Karen, you
should know that the landlord does not pay a deposit
to his tenant, but rather a tenant pays a deposit
to a landlord.
Speaker 3: Mark Mark, I'm very concerned about all these rats, Karen,
August Tewod, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, I've asked a
lot of my friends, and they tell me you're right
about the cable TV deposit. My friends tell me that
landlords don't give deposits to their tenants, So I guess
I'll just have to pay for all the stuff on
my lists myself now, since you won't. There is one
new item. When I moved in, I agreed to split
the electric bill in half with the Caldwells in the
front house. But there's two of them, Diane and Marshall,
and only one of me until Ellen gets here, so
I should pay only one third of the bill until then.
That seems fairer to me. They use more electricity than
me and have two cats.
Speaker 5: Karen, August fifth, nineteen eighty seven. Karen, I will not
debate the electric bill with you. In the rental agreement
you signed, you agreed to pay half of the property's
electric bill. I cannot measure the amount of electricity used
by you versus the amount of electricity used by the
Calwells and their two cats. Read your rental agreement, sincerely, Mark.
Speaker 1: It was the summer of nineteen eighty seven Bretha Franklin
became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. The Legend of Zelda was released for Nintendo,
the world population reached five billion, and in Oakland, California,
two teenage girls were still settling into their first apartment.
Speaker 6: August eighth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, Well, I guess
I've arrived. The house doesn't seem quite as dreamy as
I imagined. I think the last tenants must have had
bad feelings about this house because I can sense bad
spirits here. I've discussed this with my guru, mister Simila Patel.
He is willing to exercise the bad spirits in this
house for two hundred and fifty dollars as he is
a good friend of mine. His regular fee is five
hundred dollars, so I've saved you fifty percent. Can I
get your okay as soon as possible? Mister Patel travels
a lot, and we wouldn't want to miss him. Ellen. Ps.
Karen tells me your decorator is in Venice. Tell him
he must see the bridge of size. It's beautiful, Yours, Ellen.
Speaker 5: August tenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Ellen, I know that
you and Karen have only recently arrived in the Bay Area.
I don't know what the rental market is like where
you come from. It is possible that where you come
from landlords normally pay for exorcisms. However, I can assure
you that the landlords in this area do not pay
for exorcisms or any other means of driving away bad
spirits from their property. If you speak to your friends
who have lived in this area for several years, they
will confirm what I'm saying is true. Sincerely, Mark, PS.
I do not want you to marbilize the walls or
wallpaper print or paint the walls either. Remember the rental
agreement you signed prohibits any redecorating, altering, or remodeling of
the building by you without my prior written consent.
Speaker 6: Mark, August fourteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, you requested
that I should ask my friends if you were justified
in refusing to pay for exercising the bad spirits from
my home, and I did. Here's how they voted. Three
people felt that my request was unreat Four people felt
that my request was reasonable, but you were within your
rights to refuse, including Karen. Two people felt that my
request was reasonable and you should have paid. Two person
felt that my request was reasonable and you are being
completely unreasonable. So it looks like my friends agree with you.
I'm going to ask them again after the harmonic convergence.
I'll let you know if they've changed their mind.
Speaker 3: Ellen, August fifteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, I'll pay
half the electric bill until Ellen arrived, but I don't
really think it's fare. You know, this house only have
one telephone outlet in the kitchen. I'd like another one
in my bedroom, and Ellen will probably also want one
in her. The electric store around the corner Positively Electric
says they can sell me a big roll of telephone
wire for five dollars. Will you pay the telephone company
for the installation of two extra telephones in our bedrooms?
Speaker 6: Karen sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven, Dear Mark, got some bad
news for you. My guru mister Patel has left the US.
He's gone to a monastery in Sri Lanka to meditate.
I don't know when he'll be back in California. There's
a civil war going on in Sri Lanka. There have
already been attacks on monasteries in Sri Lanka by heavily
armed gorillas. Guru Patel recommended another guru for the exercising
of the house spirits, a Gurulahara. Unfortunately, I don't have
a personal relationship with gurula Heara, so he's going to
charge you the full five hundred dollars, but don't worry.
I'm shopping around for a cheaper guru. Do you know
any bargain gurus. Karen thinks this is all nonsense, so
please write to me about this, not her, Yours Ellen,
August twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, Gurula Heara
has just informed of the sad news that the monastery
near Trincomlis Relai Banka has been attacked by communist gorillas
and Guru Patel has probably been killed. Guru Lahara has
gone back to Sri Lanka to attend to matters and meditate.
So temporarily I'm going to have to put off the
exercising of my house spirits. Although I know you probably
want to get this over with almost as much as
I do. Temporarily, I'm going to try to lure the
bad spirits from the house by putting a spirit house
in the garden. The spirit house costs two hundred dollars,
plus the cost of food and the gifts to be
placed inside. I'll understand if you don't want to pay
for this expense in addition to the exorcism sometime later,
Yours Ellen, you shouldn't blame yourself too much for this.
August thirtieth, nineteen eighty seven, dear Mark. Enclosed is our
September rent less the deduction for the Spirit House usual
rent five hundred and ninety dollars minus Spirit House two
hundred September rent three hundred and fifty dollars. Karen says,
since three hundred and fifty dollars doesn't divide evenly by two,
I'm paying one hundred and ninety dollars and Karen's paying
one hundred and seventy dollars. Yours, Ellen, August thirty first,
nineteen eighty seven, Dear Mark, there's a man who looks
over my fence with a strange look whenever I'm washing
my fish. Do you know if he is normal?
Speaker 3: Yours, Ellen, September nineteenth, nineteen eighty seven, dear Mark, you
shouldn't worry about making Ellen cry. She cries all the time.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm still waiting to get approval from your decorator to
wallpaper my house. Is he back yet from Venice? It's
too hard to wallpaper over all these luvered closet doors,
so I think I'll just glue some nice fake fur
to them. What color would you suggest? Could I get
a check from you for five hundred dollars as an
advance on the fabric and fur and glue. Sincerely, Karen,
September twentieth, nineteen teen eighty seven. Dear Mark, I've found
out that you gave a VCR to the Caldwells. I'd
like a VCR and so at Ellen. There's a VCR
I saw at the Good Guy's store in Berkeley that
I liked. It's three hundred and seventy dollars. The blue
ones are four hundred and fifty. I want a blue one.
Ellen would like to get her VCR before the autumnal equinox. Sincerely, Karen,
December tenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, It's been a
long time since I wrote to you. The repairman from
Taylor Appliance never came even after we made an appointment,
and our oven still smells bad. I think there's a
gas leak, but Ellen says it smells like avocados. I
think Ellen's wrong. You know, there's a very big avocado
tree next to our front door, and I think Ellen's
just smelling the true. But Ellen says she can smell
avocados when she sticks her head into the oven, so
she says it's not a gas leak. What do you think, yours? Karen,
December sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven. Dear Mark, we called in
a repairman from Reliance Appliance to fix our stove. He's
a real genius. He smelled the avocados too. He said
that Gason never smells like avocados. So he moved to
the oven and he found a rotten avocado that fell
behind the stove. The repairman charged me eighty five dollars
for the service call, which I will deduct from my
January rent. Okay, yours Karen.
Speaker 1: Throughout reading the letters, the first of many debates we
had was are Karen and Ellen really this dumb and demanding?
Or are they just fucking with Mark? And while hopefully
none of us were quite this dumb and demanding at
that age, it was hard not to think about all
the crazy things we did the first times we were
living on our own. My roommates and I once tried
to give our landlord giants tickets in lieu of a deposit.
We also used to feed the feral raccoons in our
backyard directly from our kitchen. We willingly let raccoons into
our house. So looking back, this is mortifyingly stupid, naive
and saying. But at the same time, at that age,
with very little life experience, it seemed reasonable or fun.
So for a brief moment in reading these letters, we
figured that was most likely the case. Karen and Ellen
either felt they were reasonable or were having fun, but
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Speaker 2: Warning listening to this podcast may cause un mitigating obsession
and cognitive dissonance. All names have been changed to protect
the innocent, the insane, and everyone else in between.
Speaker 1: It was a turn of the new year. George H. W.
Bush had just been elected president. The TV show Roseanne debuted,
Construction of the chunnel connecting England to France began, and
in Oakland, California, two teenage girls were in the early
stages of what would become a year's long letter writing
campaign of terror.
Speaker 6: December twenty third, nineteen eighty seven, Dear Mark I. Just
want you to know that I think you're right. We
should have looked behind the stove before calling the repair
man over. I don't want Karen to know that I
don't think that you should have to pay for this repair,
So please don't tell her that I didn't tell you that.
I don't think she's wrong. I just want to play
dumb on this one. Ellen.
Speaker 1: As the old saying goes, you can almost always prove
that something has occurred, but it's nearly impossible to prove
that something hasn't occurred. But as we all hopefully know
by now, just because you can't prove that something didn't
happen doesn't necessarily mean that it did happen. I think
we take for granted how difficult it is to research
anything trivial that occurred in the pre Internet days. When
I first started looking into these letters, my Space had
only been around for a year, newspapers dot com didn't
even exist, smartphones weren't really a thing, So proving a
person existed was hard, let alone proving a whole series
of events connected to that person occurred. And all I
really had were four names, three of which were pretty common,
and an address. So that's where I started. I googled
the address of Karen and Ellen's cottage and was pleasantly
surprised to find that it actually existed in Oakland, a
small cottage, just as the girls describe it in their letters. So,
feeling slightly more confident, I googled Mark's name, and sure enough,
there was a landlord in the East Bay with his name,
but there was no way to get a hold of him.
All that really came up were references to him in
various meeting minutes. But in searching for Karen and Ellen,
there were some documents that will come up later in
the letters, which seemed like a very good starting point,
but they originated out of state, and at this point
a mere curiosity wasn't enough for me to pay for
an investigative trip up to Oregon, where the girls grew up,
and so, for the first of several times, I gave
up and we resumed the almost monthly tradition of inviting people,
over plying them with wine, and reading the letters until
someone inevitably wet their parents.
Speaker 6: January twenty first, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, the toilet
here makes a noise I don't like when I flush it.
It makes a loud gurgling sound. My daddy had the
same problem. He had jet toilets put in in our
house and no toilet flushing noise. Good news. General plumbing
around the corner from here has jet toilets in stock.
I like you to put one in here. The white
jet toilets cost one hundred and seventy five dollars, but
I would like one in eggshell. They cost two hundred
and twenty five dollars. Please let me know when you
can do the job. Yours, Ellen, February fifth, nineteen eighty eight.
Dear Mark, Marcia, a former tenant of yours, is a
good friend of me. She tells me that when she
used to rent her apartment from you on McKinley Street,
you used to take her free firewood for free. She says,
you take free firewood to lots of your tenants. How
come I never get any?
Speaker 5: Yours, Ellen, eighth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Ellen, it is
true that I used to give firewood to Marsha. It
is also true that I still give free firewood to
some of my tenants, those with fireplaces. Your cottage has
no wood stove or fireplace.
Speaker 6: Sincerely, Mark, Dear Mark, I know I haven't gotten a fireplace.
If I did have one, I would have seen it
by now. But it's irrelevant. If you give free firewood
to your other tenants, I should get a free share
to yours.
Speaker 3: Ellen February twenty third, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, when
I moved in here, you refuse to pay for our
phone stuff and cable TV stuff and our cleaning stuff,
and I let you get away with all that. Now
you're refusing to pay for my stole repair, and I've
got to put my feet down on this one. My
boyfriend says that we should just accept that this is
the way that tenants always get exploited by landlords in
a capitalist system, but I'm not going along with that.
Everyone knows that a landlord always pays for stove repair.
I thought about your argument that this wasn't a stove
repair because the stove wasn't broken, But you're just playing
a word game with me. So I'm deducting eighty five
dollars for my next rent anyhow. Karen, April fifth, nineteen
eighty eight, Dear Mark, I need an air conditioner. It
is very hot in this house with all the windows
closed on hot days. I found a window air conditioner
at Sears for five hundred and twenty dollars including installation
and a service contract, plus sixty two dollars sales tax.
Speaker 5: Yours, Karen, April eighth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Karen, I
am not buying you an air conditioner. I suggest that,
on the few hot days we get around here that
you open your windows.
Speaker 3: Mark April eleventh, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, I keep
the windows closed because the people who use the car
wash on the corner play their car radios very loudly,
and it is too nosy in here with the windows
open when people who use the car wash play their
car radios very loudly when they watch their cars.
Speaker 5: Yours, Karen, April fourteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Calum, the
car wash is very noisy. If it is unreasonably loud,
you might consider filing a complaint with the police. They
may be able to pressure the owner to control the noise.
I repeat, I am not buying you an air conditioner.
Speaker 3: Sincerely, Mark, April twentieth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, I
showed your letter to my grandmother when I visited her
over the weekend in Palm Desert where she lives. She
has a much bigger apartment than me, and her rent
is only five hundred and fifty dollars a month. My
grandmother says you are being total unreasonable. She says all
her friends have an air conditioning and the landlord always
pays for the thing.
Speaker 5: Yours, Karen, April twenty fourth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Karen,
the climate in the San Francisco Bay area is quite
different from that in Death Valley, which is near Palm Desert,
where your grandmother lives. I repeat, I am not buying
you an air conditioner. Sincerely, Mark.
Speaker 1: It was the summer of nineteen eighty eight Nancy Reagan
was using a psychic to schedule her White House events.
The average monthly rent was four hundred twenty dollars. Crack
cocaine made its American debut, and in Oakland, California, two
teenage girls were struggling with jurisdiction.
Speaker 3: May tenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, Last week a
man named Hal stop by here. He said he used
to live in a chicken coop that used to be
where my cottage is now. How says he used to
pay you two hundred dollars a month rent I pay
five hundred and ninety dollars a month. I don't think
the Berkeley rent control law allows that much of an increase. Yours, Karen,
May fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, I called the
Berkeley Rent Control Board and they say that you can
charge twenty six point four percent plus twenty five dollars
more than you were charging on December first, nineteen eighty
I figure my rent should be two hundred and sixty
dollars and ninety cents, which is twenty six point four
percent plus twenty five dollars more than the two hundred
dollars Hell was paying. That means you owe me a
refund of nine thousand, two hundred dollars. According to my boyfriend,
you can either send me a check or take it
off my rent if you agree with those numbers, Yours, Karen.
Speaker 1: About a year and a half after I received the letters,
life had some changes for me. I ended up leaving
the Bay area and heading north to Portland. I moved
with only the essentials, so the Karen and Ellen letters
sat in a box in my parents' garage for a
year while I made a life for myself in Oregon.
When my parents finally came to visit, they brought the
majority of my stuff up with them, and as I
sat there going through boxes, I stumbled upon those old letters.
And just a few nights later, the old tradition continued,
only this time in Portland, with a whole new circle
of friends laughing at the Karen and Ellen letters. And
that's when we realized something amazing. I was now living
in the girl's home town.
Speaker 5: May eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Oh, dear Karen, you don't
seem to understand the concept of jurisdiction. Your house is
in Oakland. The Berkeley Rent Control Board has no jurisdiction
in Oakland. The fact that you attend college in Berkeley
is irrelevant. The rent you pay is lawful under Oakland's
rent control law.
Speaker 3: Mark May twenty first, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, I
would like to get the weeds in my yard cut
down and landscaped, because it's in the shade a lot.
I think ferns would be nice. I know a landscaper,
kiro Yamashida, would will do the job for you. I'd
be willing to let you deduct the cost of this
from the ninety two hundred dollars you owes me.
Speaker 5: Yours, Karen, Ny twenty fifth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Karen,
I repeat Berkeley's rent control law is not enforceable in Oakland.
I do not owe you ninety two hundred dollars or
any other amount, and I will not pay you for
your gardening or landscaping. I would like to suggest to
you that, since you feel I am unreasonable and am
overcharging you for what you're renting from me, you consider
finding another place to live with a landlord more to
your liking.
Speaker 3: Very sincerely, Mark, June third, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark,
I was hurt by your last letter. You shouldn't take
your oweing me the ninety two hundred dollars personally. I
know the house is in Oakland, but you advertised it
at the University student housing office, which is in Berkeley.
My boyfriend, who is thinking of going to law school,
says that means jurisdiction is irreverent.
Speaker 6: Yours, Karen, June sixth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, I
saw a commercial for a movie yesterday who framed Roger Rabbit.
Really worried about it. You see, it's all about a
rabbit named Roger Rabbit. Roger Rabbit is married. His wife
is named Jessica Rabbit. But she's not a rabbit. She's
a person, you know, a real person, even though she's
only a cartoon. Well, why is her last name rabbit?
In cartoons, the last name of the thing is supposed
to tell you what kind of thing the thing is,
you know, like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Bugs, Bunny. Well,
if they can call a person Jessica Rabbit, maybe they'll
do the same thing with other cartoons, like the next thing.
You know, Mickey Mouse could be called Mickey Rabbit even
though he's still a mouse. Kids would be all confused,
and so am I. I think this is serious.
Speaker 5: Ellen, June sixth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Carob, I do
not owe you any money. Your house is in Oakland,
not in Berkeley. You do not get to pick which
city's rent control law you like. If you file a
petition with the Berkeley Rent Control Board, you will lose
your case, but still cause me the inconvenience of having
to attend a hearing and hiring a lawyer. If you
put me through this expense and inconvenience. I warn you
I will evict you. This is no joke. Very sincerely, Mark.
Speaker 3: June tenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, I don't want
to leave my house, but i'll go if you insist,
after you send me the ninety two hundred dollars you
owe me. My boyfriend is going to visit the Berkeley
Rent Control Board this week. I don't want to spoil
our relationship, but I can really use the ninety two
hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: Yours, Karen, June twelfth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Karen, as
I have already told you it doesn't matter where I live,
where you go to school, or where you pay your rent.
Your house is not in Berkeley, but in Oakland. The
Berkeley Rent Control Board has no jurisdiction in Oakland, which
is a separate incorporated city. While I don't want you
to go to the clear Rent Control Board, since you
already intend to go there anyway, ask them about jurisdiction,
and perhaps ask your lawyer too.
Speaker 6: Mark June fourteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, according to
Karen's boyfriend Rob, your jurisdiction argument is inethical. I don't
know a lot about jurisdiction, but I think it's overlooking
the real issue. If different places have different rules for
different things, it seems unfair. Like if I live in
one place with different rules for different things, then I
move to a different place, I don't know what the
rules are in that new place. It just seems confusing
for everyone. Rob says jurisdiction is a capitalist loophole. Sometimes
I think I agree with Rob, and sometimes I think
I don't. What do you think, yours?
Speaker 3: Ellen, June fifteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark, it least
to me that you are taking the ninety two hundred
dollars you owe me personally, even if you don't. Since
I wouldn't want our friendship to be spoilt by this,
I'm willing to settle this matter by splitting the amount
of half. If you'll send me forty two hundred dollars,
I'll let the other forty two hundred dollars go. The
Berkeley Rent Control Board told me that your jurisdiction argument
is yours.
Speaker 5: Karen, June seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Karen, I do
not owe you ninety two hundred dollars or any other
amount my last letter was no joke. If you file
a petition with the Berkeley Rent Control Board for a
rent rebate on your house, which is in Oakland, I
will send you a thirty day eviction notice within twenty
four hours. Think it over. You need legal advice, and
I don't mean from your boyfriend who is quote thinking
of going to law school. End quote.
Speaker 3: Very sincerely, Mark, June nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Mark,
my boyfriend may not be a lawyer, but he's got
an application for law school at the Tough University in Boston,
and he says he can get in if he wants
to go there. He's smart. Well. He went to the
Berkeley Rent Control Board two days ago, but the person
he spoke to didn't know anything about jurisdiction. But she
would ask someone else at her office and call us back.
So we will see who's right.
Speaker 5: Yours, Karen, June twenty third, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Karen,
I've been reluctant to say anything critical about your boyfriend
up until now, but I must say something about him
that you will not want to hear. You have mentioned
in your phone calls to me and now in your
last letter. That you think your boyfriend is smart and
a reliable source on legal advice because he's quote thinking
of replying to the tough law school in Boston, and
you believe he will be able to get into this
tough law school easily. The school your boyfriend is referring
to is not quote the Tough University, but Toughs University,
which is in Boston. The name of the school has
nothing to do with toughness, although toughts does have a
good reputation. Besides, quote, thinking about applying to law school,
no matter how good or tough the school may be,
does not qualify a person to give leagal advice. I
advise you again to see a real lawyer of your own.
Mark June twenty third, nineteen eighty eight. Dear Albert, would
you give me a favor send me a one page
letter on your university stationery simply stating something like a
city's rent control law is not enforceable beyond a city's jurisdiction.
I think Karen would be impressed by such a letter
from a professor of law from Boston, even though you
didn't teach it the Tough University.
Speaker 3: Thanks Mark, June twenty sixth, nineteen eighty eight. Mark right,
My boyfriend says he's planning to go to Tufts. I
must have heard him wrong, but he says Tufts is
pretty tough. Anyway. He went to the Berkeley rent Control Board.
They said they would have to look over my letters
and yours and get back to me. The woman he
spoke to says, I may have a case. Unless I don't.
It will take them a few weeks to make up
their minds. I'll get back to you on this when
they get back to me on this yours Karen.
Speaker 1: At this point in our initial reading of the letters,
we were howling with laughter over the stupidity of these
two teenage girls and the frustration and sass of their landlord,
who was well into his fifties. In Portland, I was
going through microfiche at the local library, trying to prove
that something had occurred, something that would have certainly made
the local newspapers, something that would prove that Karen and
Ellen actually existed. At that point, though there was no
real reason behind nor end game two my search, I
just needed to know that these letters were real, and
needed to know that these people existed. In the most
cynical sense, you could say I was looking for proof
that the idiocy chronicled in these letters was real, that
we were laughing at real people. In the most heartfelt sense,
these letters and Karen and Ellen had become a part
of my life, a part of my friends' lives, something
that brought people together and then was passed on. Each
time we sat down to read these letters, there were
new faces eager to hear from Karen and Ellen and Mark.
These letters had created a small, strange community, and so
while yes, I wanted proof that these idiots were real,
for some reason, it also felt like the community wasn't
as strong or valuable or true if the letters themselves
weren't true, which says a lot about the ways in
which we see and exist in the world.