In the midst of Landlord Hell, I put in a plea to a Newfoundland Dog group I'm on. "Please, someone make me laugh about this situation I'm in!" I begged. And, "Does anyone have any creative ideas for removing these people?"
Now, understand that when you are going through something like this you get various responses from people…….. "I'd offer to help, but I REALLY don't want to." Or, "Anything I can do, let me know. In fact, I know two really big bad guys who love a challenge and they'd be glad to pay these guys a visit…."
Dog fiends from all over the country wrote in with their suggestions and thoughts. There's the ever comforting "We had a neighbor years ago who was murdered by two of her scummy tenants, real low life. She was in her sixties and they burgeoned her to death." (That helps!)
OR "Do Not be alone on your property. Seriously!"
Then there was "Hopefully you will only be left with a laughable story....like mine when the renter decided to put a witch curse on me by putting Monopoly money and a rhyming curse held up onto the living room wall with a railroad spike driven through it."
A friend in Boston had this to offer - "My x evicted squatters in my house by taking off all the screens and the windows in mosquito season, and pitching a tent outside the house but tramping into the house at all hours to use the bathroom."
Several people bemoaned the fact that my 100 pound Newfoundland was 2,000 miles away so I asked to borrow a couple from a friend for "protection". She asked if I wanted the two that were fraidy cats or the two that would lick someone to death!
A few suggested this might be an excellent time to call in an exterminator.
I had actually settled on redoing the windows - taking the upstairs windows all out, delivering them to the dump, and then "realizing" I didn't have the right sized replacements. See if the cold November air would encourage them to move on…..
Or moving in a group of other squatters - maybe a motorcycle gang.
Obviously what I was facing wasn't new or even uncommon. A friend in Texas wrote "Actually there was a legal case here recently regarding a squatter - evidently testing a new law. They found the guy guilty, thank goodness! He had moved into a home while the owners were in Houston getting cancer treatment for the wife."
(God, people are low!)
Another woman wrote, " I was reading about a lady in the paper who bought a condo and couldn't move in right away. When she arrived, a squatter was there and she has been trying for months to get her out. The owner had to move in with her to claim her rights but the squatter wasn't budging. She is even demanding money for 'fixing' up the place!"
As my mom would say "this is a learning experience", and I admit that sometimes I look at situations like this as a cosmic kick in the butt to make a few life changes. If you are guessing, YES, I'm having second thoughts on being a landlord. I don't think I have the backbone for this kind of frustration.
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