Interesting Encounters

[cuchulain]

My wife had a high risk pregnancy, and gave birth to our son at 6 months along instead of full term. He passed, and a short time later we had another high risk pregnancy. This little one is doing wonderfully now, but was born with water on the lung, had to have a couple surgeries, a feeding tube, and a pack of medical care and constant attention. We don't begrudge this in the slightest, it is wonderful to have her with us, but it has left us financially broke.

Two years ago, we move into the housing in a small town in southern Illinois. Not much happens here, and for the most part it is a nice place to live. The neighbors are usually polite, or they just ignore us, and its the kind of town where you can take walks and not worry about it, or so we thought.

Our daughter, who was 1.5 when we moved here, loves to take long walks, like 2 mile walks, which when you think about it is very long for a 1 year old. We started off walking around the neighborhood, and the walks progressively got longer. Most people see us walking and smile and wave, or say hi, nice little small talk. One person, an older guy, lives about two blocks from us and was always very pleasant. He looked like an ex hippie, I know I'm not supposed to judge by looks, but I do sometimes. It's a failing, I suppose.

He always made sure to say hi, how are you, and chit chat here and there, talked about how wonderful it was to see people still walked and had family time. Well, time goes by, about a year, and he asks me to come sit with him and have a beer on his porch, hang out. I figure, there's not much wrong with that, and so we start visiting, hanging out, chatting, becoming friendly.

A couple weeks after this, david, his name, comes down to our apartment and asks for a ride into town. He gives us gas money, so I don't see anything wrong with that, and we are friendly, so I take him to town. This happens about four or five times, and he always pays gas, and is always very friendly, so I don't mind so much, but he starts coming off a little weird. He repeats himself a lot, like he forgot that he just talked about something, and the conversations are more along the lines of paranoia that people are trying to get him arrested and turn him into a criminal.

At this point, I start pulling back a little. I don't go to his house as much, but I am still friendly with him, still talk to him and give him rides occasionally. He needs a ride a little further for a doctors appointment, but as always pays gas. He tells me he was hit by a car in his 20's and suffered some brain trauma at the time, and wasn't expected to live, and this explains to me his odd behavior. I give him another ride to his doctor's office later on.

Well, it comes to a point that inevitably, he asks for a ride one night about 7 oclock, and I am busy with something else and can't. Our daughter is now almost 3, for time scale. He comes back to our apartment at 8, then at 9 and 10, and we are getting tired of being bothered about it. I tell him its too late at night. He comes back at 6 am, 7 am, then 8 am, at which point he has worn his welcome out, and I tell him I am not giving him rides anymore. He is back at 3 and 4 that day. he comes back the next morning at 10am. I tell him to stop coming around, we can't have the headache and stress of someone who can't take no for an answer.

The next couple of days are quiet. We take our daughter for a walk and avoid his house, but when we get back to our apartment he is sitting on the porch, wanting a ride. I tell him we can't have him coming back, enough is enough and we have told him not to come around anymore. He leaves mad.

We don't hear from him for a month, and figure he finally got the clue, when he's back on our porch for a ride. We call housing security, who tells us he has done this before with lots of other people and he is notorious around town, but he says he will talk to david and get him to leave us alone. the next day, david is back again, so I go to the porch and tell him he can't come around anymore, he's been warned and needs to leave us alone. he gets mad, gets up and takes a swing at me, so I strike him once in the head and he leaves. I call the cops immediately, my daughter see's all this out the window, and is crying, my wife is scared out of her mind. The cops come, and ask if we want to press charges, and of course we say yes. a short time later they come back, and say they found him passed out in his yard and took him to the hospital, and ask how many times I hit him, and start giving me the third degree, and without saying so outright threaten to arrest me if I don't drop charges. They said he will definitely not pester us any more.

the next day I call housing security to let them know what happened and everything up to that point. I call my mom and tell her about it, and she gets a background check on him. He has previous arrests for assault(3), an arrest for assaulting a cop, an arrest for assaulting a firefighter, several trespassing charges, and two indecent exposure charges. All convictions, all plea bargains, with about a month in jail.

also the next day, david is back on our porch. I call the cops, but he is gone before they get here. I call the states attorneys office and tell them about the incident, and tell them I want to push charges after all. They have him arrested, and he takes a plea bargain in this case, as well as a couple of other pending charges, for 1 year in prison and a no contact order with us.

5 months go by, and he is released on parole. We don't get proper notification, so we don't know he has been released until we walk by his house and he starts screaming and yelling at us and jumps off his porch and swings a golf club at me. I call the cops. They give him a warning.

Another couple of days goes by, and we encounter him on the streets about a mile from his house, and he starts cussing and yelling, so we leave quickly and call the cops. They give him a warning.

a week goes by, and he is on housing property, even though he has a no trespass order and a no contact order within 500 feet. I call security, who comes but doesn't catch him on our property, so they give him a warning.

The next day, someone else in the housing who had issues with him sees him on housing property, again, and calls security, who catches him this time. The cops come, and give him a warning.

Two days later, david is arrested somewhere else for trespassing, and takes a plea bargain, serves one month and is out. All of this while on parole, and parole is never revoked. The cops tell me repeatedly that they could have arrested me for defending myself, and use that as leverage to keep me from pressing charges, all the while telling us they hate having to deal with him and have to go to his house on a nearly daily basis from somebody complaining. The states attorneys office says they have nothing to do with his parole, but will talk to the proper people. Yet nothing gets done, and he gets warning after warning after warning, and things happen in the news like this all the time. People always are on the tv saying, we didn't have any idea this guy was like that. Well, it seems to me the county knows plenty about this guy being crazy, and just doesn't want to do anything about it. We even found out there was a petition around the town with more than 1000 signatures to the states attorneys office to give this guy a bigger sentence next time, and there are only 5000 people in the town.

So, when this guy hurts somebody, I am going to contact them and tell them this story, and tell them they need to sue this county for every penny they can get.

[grateful]

I am so sorry you and your family have to deal with this. it's a slippery slope when (apparent) mental illness or at the very least, boundary issues, meets the law again and again and again.

I've just found that I have someone with a rather checkered past - read: judgments, failure to pay rent, etc, living in my house. squatting in my house, as she has not paid rent. the chutzpah and insult increased when she filed complaints with licensing and inspection against us to keep from paying.

she is evidently entitled to living in my house without paying rent and you have been appointed david's personal chauffer. how dare you not drive him to when he asks you?

yours is a cautionary tale, it is very likely that he will hurt someone. you are right, I'm not sure how David didn't violate his parole

Edited June 16, 2014 by grateful

[Raincloud]

UGH. That sucks.

I've had people like that in my life, and you can get used like a doormat at first.

They are the true psychic vampires. Sucking your energy.

Once you are financially okay, I suggest moving.

Since you have a car, perhaps you can drive to a nearby nature reserve to go for long walks?

[cuchulain]

actually, I have a good news for us update, as of yesterday the city condemned his house and he has relocated a couple of towns away...so this situation seems to have resolved itself.

As far as renters go, I know how much of a hassle that can be...when I was a child my mom rented property to someone who didn't pay and got pregnant so they couldn't be evicted, long story short on this one...she moved in with them, they moved out the next day.

[grateful]

actually, I have a good news for us update, as of yesterday the city condemned his house and he has relocated a couple of towns away...so this situation seems to have resolved itself.

As far as renters go, I know how much of a hassle that can be...when I was a child my mom rented property to someone who didn't pay and got pregnant so they couldn't be evicted, long story short on this one...she moved in with them, they moved out the next day.

that's great news! I hope he stays far away from you and your family now..

mine is an ongoing nightmare. I think it's the chutzpah of both your example, david, and my squatter. it is their unrealistic sense of entitlement and their willingness to impose themselves on others that galls me. I like your mother's solution! I would move in, but I live in california and my property is back east I've hired an attorney (that I can't afford)

[Dan56]

mine is an ongoing nightmare. I think it's the chutzpah of both your example, david, and my squatter. it is their unrealistic sense of entitlement and their willingness to impose themselves on others that galls me. I like your mother's solution! I would move in, but I live in california and my property is back east I've hired an attorney (that I can't afford)

I'd serve your renter with an eviction notice immediately. I've dealt with deadbeats in the past many times and its always a pain in the butt, They can cause trouble even after they're forcibly removed, so always change the locks after you evict them. Now I do background checks on everyone prior to renting to them. I also collect the first and last months rent in advance, along with a damage deposit. I rent out properties on a month to month basis now because I learned the hard way that a multi-year lease protects the tenant more than it does me..

Edited July 11, 2014 by Dan56

[grateful]

ah, dan - I wish I had had the foresight to consider all possible outcomes before moving on without a property manager our attorney has filed for an eviction and a court date has been set.

she is an absolute nightmare. she moved in complaining, and it hasn't stopped since. the previous property manager claims he did a background check but my quick online background check showed multiple charges for assault, prostitution and child endangerment she was also not truthful about previous residences, the fool had someone call me to "mediate", I guess she'd forgotten that she had listed this person as a previous landlord..

she has filed complaints with licensing and inspection, no violations were found. she has slandered me to my neighbors. she told a friend of mine that "she didn't know how long she'd be living here because her landlords were such expletives..." and the icing on the cake, she ripped out a rose bush that my (dead) father and I had planted because she didn't want her baby to get scratched.

what?!!!!

bottom line is that she moved in on may 1st with first, last and security deposit. she had not paid june rent or july. did she think she was going to live in my house for free and that I would continue to pay the mortgage? hmm

oh god, I could go on and on

Edited July 14, 2014 by grateful

[cuchulain]

think that's lucky, I knew someone who had an extra property and put it up for rent. Someone my mom worked with at the va who happens to be in a wheelchair looked at the place, and the guy told her he was sorry he just couldn't afford to make it handicapped accessible. she sued, and the long and short of it was he sold the property to pay what he owed her from the court case. my mom worked with the lady and said she is a lawsuit happy kind of person, couldn't even do the job she was hired for at the va, but they wouldn't fire her because she threatened legal action.

[grateful]

think that's lucky, I knew someone who had an extra property and put it up for rent. Someone my mom worked with at the va who happens to be in a wheelchair looked at the place, and the guy told her he was sorry he just couldn't afford to make it handicapped accessible. she sued, and the long and short of it was he sold the property to pay what he owed her from the court case. my mom worked with the lady and said she is a lawsuit happy kind of person, couldn't even do the job she was hired for at the va, but they wouldn't fire her because she threatened legal action.

oy vey!

but seriously, I don't get it