When Barbara and I sold our
photography business in 1998, we invested much of our profit in two
large, older rent houses, both in small towns a good ways from
Arkadelphia. I spent several months cleaning them up and remodeling
them, then put them on the market. Buying one of those turned out to
be a mistake. It didn't rent well. Took a long time. Then, when it
did rent, I found out it's hard to keep a good eye on whats going on
there. It finally rented to a couple of women. After a couple of
months, they just stopped paying rent. We started the process of
eviction. Turns out, that had been their MO for some time. Pay rent a
couple of months, then live free for six months, while the eviction
process winds at a snail's pace through the court system, month after
month.
In Arkadelphia, that process moves
fairly quickly along. But in the county where this house was, it was
painfully slow. It all depends on how quickly the law serves notices,
how hard it is to find the proper person to serve it to, how far
apart court dates are, etc. It also depends on how well the renter
understands how to work the system, stretching it out. And, these two
were pros. Plead innocent the first time before the judge, to get a
later date set maybe a month or two down the line. When the final
court date did arrive, after six months, and they were finally before
a judge with all the facts on the table, the judge gave them twenty
four hours to get gone. But that back rent money is hard or
impossible to recover, if they don't have a steady job, or a known
bank account that is not moved regularly. Or, if we just generally don't have a clue about where they disappeared to in general. I never saw a dime of that
rent.
Another renter, a year or so
later, wanted to “Rent to own.” I was ready to sell, so we worked
out a deal. With a down payment, the renter takes over upkeep
expenses, pays the property taxes, insurance, and keeps paying about
the same amount each month as they paid in rent until it's paid off.
Then it belongs to the renter.
But this was a gutsy little
woman. The next morning, she called the FBI. A hate crimes
investigation was soon under way. One of the guys came by the next
day. He apologized to her, begged her to call off the FBI. Her
answer: “I don't want to hear it. Tell it to the FBI.”
.
After another day or so, fearing
for her children, she told me she wanted out of the deal. She was
moving. Knowing this was not her fault, that she was a victim here, I
agreed to give her every penny of her down payment back, and I did.
Though legally, the down payment was mine to keep. She moved in with
her mother. She started moving her things, and I took the house back
over.
About three days after the cross
burning, I was fishing on Lake DeGray early one morning. My property
manager called me there. The house was burning down. Nobody was
living in the house, but much of the renter's stuff was still there.
I immediately started getting the names of the fishermen around me,
with their contact info. I wanted to be sure I could prove where I
was when this happened.
When Barbara and I arrived at the
house at about nine AM, it was a total loss, nothing much left to
burn. a few volunteer firemen were mopping up. A large team from the
FBI were just moving in to investigate. I talked to the FBI awhile,
told them what I knew.
The cross burning was easily
solved. One of them had been identified. So, the dominoes began to
fall. While some local people had quickly told the investigators it
was just “Children, playing tricks,” some of the “children”
charged were over forty. Pretty old children.
The house burning was a different
matter. Those charged with the cross burning maintained they knew
nothing about the house burning. A popular idea being spread around
town was that the victim of the cross burning, herself, burned the
house. Though anything is possible, I had trouble with that theory.
She had nothing to gain. I had already given all her money back to
her, for which she was very grateful. Nobody was ever charged in the
house burning, to this day.
As the date for the trials for the
cross burning moved to a court date, she said she was being harassed
by people who came in where she worked, and calling where she now
lived. She moved into another of my rent houses, farther away, and
she, and we, kept her location very secret
Continued Thanks for Reading!
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