...we had a set of problem tenants in a rental house that we own. Nothing we could do would please them, and they basically disregarded virtually every aspect of the lease. The female renter especially was a piece of work, and I could go on for hours about her wild demeanor. Long story short however, they were firmly ensconced according to the lawyer I consulted (who specializes in Landlord/tenant issues).

They gave notice that they would be vacating at the close of their 11th month at the house, which we readily agreed to. The house is a beautiful old brick place, and it had never been remodeled since it was built in the '50s, but had been very well maintained. We figured that whatever was damaged during a rental by anyone was no great loss, as our intention was to update things in the future anyway.

Surprise, surprise (NOT)! They managed to do enough damage that their entire deposit was forfeit, and then some. Damages actually exceed the deposit by about $1000, but I notified them I had no intention of pursuing the issue, thanks, don't let the door hit you on the way out. I gave notice to them of this a few days after they left, by direct conversation, by lengthy phone message to their answering service, and by Certified Letter to each of them. Since they had not left a forwarding address with either myself or the PO, we sent the letters to the rental house, as we had noted that they were still picking up mail there.

All was quiet until two days ago, when I was in front of the house at about 6:30pm talking to a friend about trimming some tree branches. He happened to be leaning on a shovel, road crew style, when the former male renter roared up the very long driveway and pulled to a loud, dusty stop in front of us. Said "citizen" then proceeds to jump out of his truck and begins to loudly berate me in a nasty, threatening manner for not replying to his phone calls. I calmly told him that I had already said as much as I was going to say on the subject in a number of ways, and that he was trespassing, time to leave.

Mind you, this is a VERY large and muscular kid, about half my age, who has threatned me with bodily harm before (reported and acted upon by the Sheriff for what that was worth). He turned bright red at that last remark (which I delivered very diplomatically BTW) and started for me with an extremely aggressive attitude, as noted by my tree cutting friend. I simply stood my ground and stayed calm, which must have tipped the erstwhile bravo off that things were NOT about to go his way. He huffed and blew a bit, then left in another cloud of dust.

My friend turned to me and opined that he felt as though he was going to have to tune the boy up with his shovel, at which point I demonstrated the beauty of a poker face, and pulled a Glock 32 from its holster. Now this is not to feel big, simply to point out that on occasion, even a dumb sumbitch gets lucky once in awhile. Whether that was him or me still remains to be seen.....

Otony