Joseph Zappen Turbomite Exterminator

Did you hear the one about the cats?

It's several stories actually.

#1
Joe Zappen's's dad, Bill Zappen, collects classic cars and didn't like it when cats left paw prints on his cars. Bill caught the cats and had Joe "take them for a ride."

That's a euphemism for dumping the cats in the foothills on the far side of the freeway so that the cats could never come back.

It also meant that they would get eaten by coyotes.

They did this to people's pets, cats with collars.

They did this a lot.

They never felt bad about it.

#2
Once Joe's mother-in-law asked Joe to give her cat George a new home. George was painfully shy and hid in her closet.

Joe promised that he would, but he threw poor George into his neighbor's back yard.

The neighbor never saw poor George.

George had been pampered and could never survived on his own.

Joe felt that he had been generous to George because he didn't take him "for a ride."

AND he took credit for finding George a good home.

#3
And then there is Gaila Cat. . .

Joe's wife was pregnant with their second child together when a stray cat came into the house and took a nap in his wife's rocker.

His wife fed the cat and the cat stuck around. The cat was very sweet and the children loved her.

One day, the cat gave birth, but she didn't feed the kittens. They were dying.

Joe completely lost it and kept shouting at everyone. He called the cat Gaila Cat after Gaila Noel, his mother who abandoned him. It was so bad that Joe scared his children.

This went on for days.

For days, it was
Gaila Cat!
Gaila Cat!
Gaila Cat!

The kittens died and Joe took Gaila Cat "for a ride." He never mentioned Gaila Cat again.

That's so Joe.

Did you hear the one about Othello?

Joe Zappen taught his wife how to play Othello and they would play together after work.

At least until she started to win.

At that point, he told her that he had played the game during the day on his phone and he was too bored to play it with her.

But she would watch him play Othello on his phone in front of her.

So she'd ask him, if he was bored with it, why was he playing it on his phone in front of her.

Joe: "You're mistaken."

Wife: "No I'm not. It's right there."

Joe: "Nope. You're wrong."

It's called Gaslighting.

That's so Joe.

Dear Joe Zappen,

You never helped me.

You're the reason that the children don't talk to me.

You keep taking credit for trying to repair the damage that YOU caused.

You've done NOTHING.

I tried being nice and begging, but you did NOTHING except take credit for something you never did.

But I'm a monster for lashing out at you on the internet BECAUSE you did NOTHING.

Something can't "go south" when it never went "north".

Destroying my relationship with my children is literally the worst thing that you could have done to me.

But you don't think that it is a big deal because love doesn't mean anything to you.

But, hey, you got your rocks off crushing my soul when we were together and you never stopped.

Unless you are Joe Zappen.

A dad will give up everything and live like this just to see his kids.

Did you hear the one about the eggs?

Joe Zappen and his wife were separated and the kids were in grade school.

Joe: "How long are eggs good for?"

It took his wife a minute to figure out that he meant the ones inside her body.

She's like, "What ???"

Joe: "Well I know I really screwed up this family. But we make really attractive kids. So I want some of your eggs so I can have a couple more kids and get it right this time."

Wife: "Here's an idea. Why don't you get it right with the family you already have???"

Yes, this really happened.

He really thought that he was entitled to put her through a painful medical procedure.

He really thought he was entitled to her giving away what would have been her babies like they were a Good Will donation.

He really thought that while he had no clue what he had done wrong with his current children, that simply having a new set of children would mean that he would "get it right" if he had replacements.

He really thought that he had no obligation to "get it right" with his existing family.

He really had no clue how profoundly hurtful and obscene his request was.

That's so Joe.

Did you hear the one about The Family Man movie?

The previous post has a link to the movie.

You know, in case you've never seen it or want to see it again.

Nicolas Cage is a high-powered business man who gets "It's a Wonderful Lifed" into a Family Man.

Joe and his family watched it dozens of times when the kids were little.

Sort of. . .

In the scene were Cage forgets the wedding anniversary (because Cage has been in this body for all of five minutes), Joe always walked out of the room.

In the scene, Cage wants to do anything to make it up to his wife. And he does do, quite elegantly.

IRL, Joe always "forgot" the anniversary. It always broke his wife's heart.

The day of the anniversary, every anniversary, he said that it was too late to do anything because he had already forgotten.

No remorse, just attitude, never an apology.

Or worse, he would say in a sing-song voice, "Hooow long do I have to paaay for this?"

He thought that he was being cute.

Years later. They got married a second time and the second anniversary was days away from the first one.

Joe always "forgot" the first one, then he said that the first anniversary didn't count because the second anniversary was the important one.

Then a few days later on the second anniversary, he said that it was too late to do anything because he had forgotten.

No remorse, just attitude, never an apology.

In all fairness, he sort of remembered one anniversary. AFTER work. JOE gave his wife an unwrapped box of very nice cookware.

It was like, "Here! I got this for you!"

But then he "accidentally" damaged each piece and every piece by gouging the insides of the pots and pans with metal cooking utensils.

This also broke her heart.

Then Joe fought with her about how damaging the cookware was an "accident". Every time, over and over.

(Joe also "forgot" all the other special occasions, but they didn't have a movie for those heart breaks.)

So you're probably asking yourself why Joe was so fascinated with The Family Man movie knowing that he would walk out during the scene where Cage forgot the anniversary.

Joe is a Covert Narcissist. Watching the movie fed Joe's delusion that he was just like Cage in the movie.

The "forgetting the anniversary" scene threw ice water on Joe's "I'm a great guy" delusion.

(Joe did this "delusional thing" with other movies and books as well. But those are stories for another day.)

But the point is that Joe created this whole fantasy about how he was a loving husband and father like Cage in the movie,

WHILE emotionally abusing and neglecting his wife and children.

Actually BEING just like Nicolas Cage didn't matter. THINKING that he was Nicolas Cage was what mattered.

That's so Joe.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x826lq0

The Family Man (2000) Full HD - Video Dailymotion The Family Man is a 2000 film romantic/comedy/drama directed by Brett Ratner, starring Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni. Plot - It is 1987 when Jack greets his girlfriend Kate Reynolds at the New York airport: the man has to fly to London to carry out an important one-year internship. The girl is worried...

Did you hear the one about the cancer scare?

Joe's wife and kids were living with his mother-in-law because the mother-in-law was having health problems.

Joe's wife called him everyday and Joe would stay there on the weekends.

(It wasn't so far away that he couldn't have seen his family every day. But that is another story.)

One day Joe's wife was told that she might have cervical cancer and that it would take two weeks to get the test results.

Joe ghosted her the entire two weeks. He didn't visit. He wouldn't take her calls. Joe's wife was devastated.

AFTER, she learned that the first test was a false positive, THEN Joe acknowledged his wife.

He told his wife that he was scared and couldn't deal with it.

He never apologized for not being there for her when she needed him.

He never even sent her flowers.

Joe made his wife's terror all about Joe.

And he never spoke of it again.

That's so Joe.

Did you hear the one about the broken arm?

Joe's stepson had a broken arm for months, but had to ride his bicycle back and forth to school.

Joe said that he couldn't take the boy to school because he had to work,

But he was able to take his biological children back and forth to school.

Joe's father lived next door, but he was too lazy. Joe's wife couldn't do it because she had a 2 1/2 hour commute each way to work.

Joe's wife fought with him to get him to drive their son to school. Joe kept telling her that he couldn't do it because they needed the money.

Joe was self-employed and scheduled his jobs.

He was able to take the other too children back and forth to school.

To this day, Joe has never apologized to his stepson for any of the vile things that he did to him.

That's so Joe.

Did you hear the one about the C-section?

Joe's wife was pregnant with their second child and had to have a scheduled c-section.

She had to go through major surgery ALONE because Joe SCHEDULED a $400 job during the surgery.

She told him how scared she was to go through major surgery alone, but he told her that she was selfish and stupid because they NEEDED the $400.

CONVENIENTLY, Joe showed up AFTER the surgery. He didn't have anything scheduled the rest of the day. Go figure.

THEN, Joe's female friend Tracey shows up in the hospital room. Joe hands the baby to her and she holds the baby, visibly bored, for twenty minutes. She hands the baby back to Joe. Joe gives her A HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL.

Naturally, Joe's wife was upset and asked him why he gave her the money.

Joe said he paid her for "babysitting"!

But wait, there's more. . . .

After that woman left, Joe got sick. Explosive vomiting and diarrea, but still INSISTED on holding the baby.

(His wife was in tremendous pain and the nurse wouldn't do anything about adjusting the pain meds. Still, Joe's wife kept telling him that he needed to leave for the baby's safety. He didn't care.)

The doctor comes in and sees just how sick Joe is.

(Joe had just come out of the bathroom. The stench of vomit and crap made the doctor turn pale.)

The doctor orders Joe to leave for the sake of the baby.

The doctor even explains that Joe could KILL the baby if the baby catches what Joe has.

Joe blew him off and stayed.

You know, because Joe knows more than the doctor.

Nobody tells Joe what to do even when it is detrimental to his own children.

That's so Joe.

Did you hear the one about the car deck?

Joe's wife kept begging Joe to take care of the dry rot on the car deck that was perched on the mountain side. (Yes, the side of a mountain.) He kept saying that it was okay.

One day, she fell through the deck all the way up to her hips. She was terrified that she might fall all the way through and die horribly.

No one was around to help her.

She finally freed herself, but was still badly shaken and, perhaps, unhinged, understandably.

She called Joe who showed no concern or compassion. He told her that he was going to cancel her cell phone because she yelled at him.

That's so Joe.

Did you hear the one about the teenage girls?

Joe had a huge fight with his wife because he wanted to spend two weeks with a couple of high school age girls while their parents were out of town.

That's so Joe!

“Normally I would do this in person, but I can just tell you over the phone.” said the police officer.

My invalid mother had ghosted me again and I had just spent 45 minutes waiting for the results of a welfare check.

“No, go ahead and just tell me.” I braced myself.

“I spoke with one of the neighbors and they said that your mother passed away on March 16th.”

It was 5:45 pm on the 28th, a Saturday, which is to say that everything was closed for the weekend. I called my ex-husband who she talked to weekly. I called him 106 times in a row because he would not answer his cell.

It was a painfully long weekend.

On Monday, after a dozen or so phone calls, I found out where her body was. They were going to cremate her as an indigent the following day. My ex had her body sent to this mortuary but did not give them my phone number. Two weeks later in an email, he told me that “they would eventually figure it out.”

Joe told everyone that he tried to make arrangements, but that they would not let him. That is a half-truth. In New Mexico only the next of kin can make funeral arrangements. But since they wouldn’t let him do it, he chose to let her be discarded like a homeless person. Lying about not having my number wasn’t even malicious.

Since it stopped being about him, he simply didn’t care.
Both my mother and Joe were covert narcissists. Lying is like breathing. The bond that they had the past year was focused on disparaging me and lying about me.

My two youngest children, in their early twenties, haven’t spoken to me in years because of these lies, but that is another story.
My mother told everyone that I refused to talk to her or visit her. Those were lies too. I texted with her and spoke to her on the phone regularly. It was easy to keep a controlled distance since I work on the road. But my communication with her always ended abruptly when she got nasty, and I politely ended the calls.

During the last year that she was alive, I told her that I wanted to visit her. She said that she was in quarantine because of COVID and her health problems.

That was a lie. She had a cleaning lady that came regularly. And one of my sons was living with her and she couldn’t keep it a secret if I came to see her.

She told the neighbors that I refused to come visit her, more lies.
I only found out that my son had lived with her because she called me a month after he moved out and she was lonely. She acted like she was doing me a favor! I could have fixed things with my son. She said that she didn’t tell me because he would have moved out sooner.

I was too livid to talk to her and needed space. She texted me saying that I had gotten what I wanted and didn’t need her any more. She had betrayed me and ripped my heart out and was completely clueless.

***
I collect narcissists like my grandmother collected Hummel figurines, so I have the field experience of Jane Goodall. Narcissists don’t see themselves as Nosferatu. They see themselves as innocent victims. It makes legendary retaliation justifiable. A narcissist will suck the life out of you for narcissistic supply as long as you allow it.

If you deny them that supply, they are entitled to trash you to anyone and everyone who will listen to reinstate supply. They don’t see themselves as malignant because that would mean that they are bad people which couldn’t possibly be true.

They might have a moment of false clarity where they ask if they are a narcissist. They ask in a way that you say, “No, of course not!” It is a ruse and about supply. And if you are naïve enough to tell them the truth, Hell Hath No Fury. . . .

Narcissists are masters of denial. They have this magical net that catches disparaging remarks. They cannot process these remarks and deflect. If you call them out on their actions, they lie. They say that it never happened. If you press, they unleash the Kracken.

When a normal person is accused of something, they will at least consider it. Do I really do that? What makes that person think that of me? Can I improve? Narcissists aren’t capable of introspection, only rigid adherence to their carefully constructed paradigm.

Narcissists don’t feel love or empathy. They think that they do, but they see love in terms of Things that you DO rather than experienced emotions. One might think that they know what it is like to skydive from watching others do it on TV. But unless you’ve jumped from a plane, you can’t experience it. Narcissists understand love by what they observe, not what they Feel.

About a year I asked Joe if he ever loved me. Stupid, right? But I was curious what he would say. He said he did, but he is just better at it now.

Joe’s wife gets a scheduled floral bouquet sent to her office every Monday. He has learned what love looks like. He also made sure that I Knew that he was doing this. The funny thing is that while Occasionally he would send me flowers at my job, I repeated told him that I hate cut flowers because they are pricey and die to quickly!

One universal truth is that if you truly love someone, you can’t turn off that love. It’s why it is so hard to cope with death or divorce. You learn to cope with the loss. But you don’t stop loving someone like flipping a light switch. Narcissists don’t feel love, so it’s easy for them to stop loving someone. It is also why it is so easy for them to say that they love you while abusing you.

People have the idea that narcissists lie purposely and maliciously. That’s not untrue, but it is not an absolute. They don’t keep track of their lies because you are not important enough to remember that they lied to you. They deal in half-truths, which are still lies. But they argue tenaciously to the “truth” part.

***
When the kids were about to graduate from high school, I begged Joe to have the kids move in with him so that they could go to Pasadena City College. It was an uphill battle. He was willing to take the “easy kid” only because he wanted to “straighten one kid out at a time.”

What a crappy comment from an absentee parent? He eventually promised that they would live with him and he would put them through community college.

(Joe lived with his father until he was 27 years old and his father paid for four years of college. While Joe had earned an associates degree, he didn’t only pretended to go to the university. Joe lied the entire two year period about attendance. His father had to go to the university to find out that Joe never addended class. When I asked Joe what he had been doing for the two years, he said that he didn’t remember. Consequently, I felt that putting his children through community college wasn’t a huge ask.)

Joe told the children that he Wanted them to move in with him, but don’t tell me about it because I would be furious.

Joe moved in with his girlfriend and illegally sub-letted his apartment to them. They had to pay rent. He still had a lot of his stuff their and the kids slept one child slept on a cot for over a year.
Joe had them work for his termite company to support themselves. Joe’s termite license had been revoked and he ran the company by illegally using someone else’s license. One child was doing illegal termite inspections the same way to “build his own business.” (Google "How to Fake a Termite Company.")

To be continued. . . .

I emailed the following to Sheryl on May 25th. She never responded.

Dear Sheryl Spezzano Zappen,

I’m writing this to set the record straight.

Joe said that I got a six-figure marital settlement. That is a lie. The houses were purchased in my name over ten years before we got married, so they were not community property. Joe willingly signed the divorce papers saying that they were my sole and separate property. He never even asked for half of the houses. My father gave me $45,000 for the down payment of the first house, $20,000 towards the loan came from back child support, and Joe had me get a second mortgage for $60,000 during one of several times his business was failing. He had promised to pay back the loan, but said later that he didn’t need to “because [I] benefited from the loan also. Because of the income deficit, I had to use my inheritance money to keep the houses.

In 2007, Joe was supposed to sell both houses, but failed to do so. When I moved to New Mexico, I needed $5,000 a month for expenses including three mortgage payments. Joe told me to let the bank repossess the houses. Had I done so, Joe wouldn’t have gotten the money he was entitled to.

He obviously feels entitled to half of the house proceeds because we were together off and on for the better part of 18 years. But, by that reasoning, I should have gotten spousal support from him.

By text message, he told me that he should have gotten half of the houses and that I would have gotten half of his net income from what his business was making at the time that I filed for divorce in the amount of $1,000 a month. But he also admitted that he was making $7,000 a month. He said that when I moved to New Mexico, he needed $5,000 a month to live on which only left, consistently, $2,000, which was the amount of a dated child support order. During an earlier separation, I’d had to file with the District Attorney to get the money and he almost lost his driver’s license.

He had also said that he did not grow his business until AFTER he didn’t have to support his family. Who does that??? He had rented a one room office building because the hour drive home during the week was too long for him. He argued that he needed the extra ten hours a week for work, but that amount of time was paltry compared to the rent for the office.

In 2007, I had to get a job at Kaiser Permanente because he wasn’t making enough money. I had to drive two hours each day which was exhausting, particularly with my fibromyalgia. Joe not only didn’t care, he never even thanked me. We were living next door to Bill at the time. Bill was too lazy to take the kids to school or pick them up from school, even though he bragged about being a caregiver. Joe wasn’t able to work during those periods so that he could pick them up. When Charlton broke his arm, Joe made him ride his bike all the way across town with a cast. Joe never apologized.

I’m sure that he told you how he had been kicked out of my house when he visited us in New Mexico. I only agreed to the visit if, should it be necessary, that he would willingly leave if asked. He later admitted that that concession was a lie. And he was asked to leave when he freely admitted that he did not feel that he should have to pay for a family THAT HE WAS NOT BENEFITTING FROM.

Both children were still in high school when they turned 18. Joe wanted to cut off their support and said that they should get jobs to support themselves. The court order said that he had to pay support until they graduated. Joe was livid.

When my mother died, Joe lied to the mortuary and told them that he did not have my phone number. He told me in an email that he figured “that they would eventually figure it out.” When I called them, they were only a day away from cremating her and disposing of her as an indigent. He had promised me that he would tell me if anything serious happened to her, but that was a lie too.

Tania told everyone that I had ghosted her, but I regularly texted her and talked to her on the phone. She and Joe had kept it from me that Will was living with her. I posted the Medium article after Will had been living with her for 11 months and one month before he moved out. Joe had said that he was about to consider letting me know that Will was living with her, but reconsidered because I published the article.

Tania was mad at me before she died because I sent her a justifiably angry text. I still don’t know why Will won’t talk to me and I missed out on a one year window where I could have fixed things.

Joe hasn’t been able to LEGALLY do termite work since 2013, but all that is in the “How to Fake a Termite Company.

As long as this letter is, it doesn’t even begin to cover everything that Joe put me through.

This document revokes his ability to do any termite work and it is still in full force and effect.

www.pestboard.ca.gov

How to Fake a Termite Company No license? No problem!

Joseph Zappen, Ruben Salas, and Turbomite Exterminator have revoked licenses and cannot legally perform termite inspections. LEGALLY VALID termite clearance reports are required for home purchases requiring financing.

Turbomite Exterminator's licence, PR 6739 was revoked April 16, 2021 and potentially invalidates every mortgage acquired with the fraudulent inspections.

(Please see photos.)

Real estate brokers and agents have a fiduciary duty to ensure that their subcontractors are validly licenced.

Turbomite inspections performed after April 16, 2021, should be reported to the Structural Pest Control Board

[email protected]

Additionally, per the Structural Pest Control Board, any termite inspections performed by Joseph Zappen after October 2013 were not legally valid since his license was revoked.

Joseph Zappen performed inspections personally, but signed Ruben Salas' name on the inspection reports. The business address, phone number, and email address are for Joseph Zappen alone, not Ruben Salas. Joseph Zappen received the funds for the inspections. Ruben Salas merely received a monthly stipend for facilitating the fraudulent activity.

Joseph Zappen aware that this constitutes fraud!

Knowledge of Joseph Zappen performing inspections after October 2013 should be reported to the Structural Pest Control Board

[email protected]

Any real estate broker or agent failing to report Joseph Zappen and/or Turbomite Exterminator is guilty of ex post facto fraud and subject to licence termination.