Manatee Crooks
"We love your
house,” they gush. “When we saw your
listing on Craigslist, we heard God say; "THIS IS THE HOUSE FOR YOU.” He is a little tousled with sloping shoulders
and a paunch hanging respectfully over his belt. A thatch of graying hair spills over his
earnest face. She is blond, matronly,
with hair sprayed like cement.
“Can we move in
tonight?” he ventures brimming with eagerness, bouncing his caterpillar
eyebrows. He pulls out first and last
month’s rent plus deposit in crisp greenbacks.
Their credentials check out. She
is a nurse looking for a similar job in this area, he is retired from what, I
wasn’t exactly sure but it sounds good.
Their credit record is clean.
With the sensitivity of a fence post I mutter to Jim, “probably too good
to be true.” “Keep an open mind,” Jim
shoots back, his usual optimistic self.
I’m thinking, if my mind were any more open, my brains would fall out.
Not long back from
a building project in Brazil, which had substantially diminished our dwindling
resources, we have a building trip to Haiti looming so the news of the dream
tenants was like finding a Stradivarius at a yard sale.
This was the first
house Jim built when Esson Construction Company was birthed in 1987. We were sitting on the brick steps of our
home in the heart of Gulf Breeze, Florida when the call came that our building
loan at 14% interest had been approved.
The house was a speculative venture, which I do not recommend. Jim put
heart and soul into that first endeavor.
The property
rested among patchy ranch styles on a ribbon of black asphalt. Holley by the Sea was a golfing community in
the infant stages, promising every amenity for your future success, fulfillment
and pleasure. This lot, of course was nowhere near the golf course. Jim erected
a 1400 square foot bungalow style house on that half-acre strip of sand pickled
with red mud and cactus scrub, about all that would grow on that $5000
lot. Blue with white trim and white
shutters, all that was missing was the white picket fence.
That was almost 30
years ago. After that first house and with blood, sweat and tears, Jim built
his construction company towards its eventual success.
We never did sell
that house. When one of the contracts
fell through at the last minute in 1994 our first year in missions, we decided
maybe God wanted us to keep it. Our
first renter was a single guy. He stayed for 12 years, never complained that the carpet was wearing out and was
never late on the rent. He helped pay
for that house until he bought his own.
After that, it was renters with dogs that
had apparently lost all bladder control, doors pulled off the hinges, fist
holes in the wall, backed up toilets, blinds that looked like accordions run
over by a semi truck and mustard colored paint in the kitchen that would make a
blind man sob.
The pest control company we paid $200.00
each year to treat for termites never informed us that termites were making a
smorgasbord of that blue house probably because he never stepped foot near it
or because he figured we were far away in the Congo or Sudan held captive by
restless savages.
It took over a year to repair, done
sporadically whenever we were in the USA or late at night to repair the damage
from the monster termites.
That’s why we were elated at the too good
to be true renters. The eager couple
furnished the house from garage sales and flea markets, or so they said. Everything matched perfectly. It looked fabulous. They insisted we look.
Several weeks later with the Haiti trip
under our belts, we return from a trip to Cuba.
A church needs rebuilding. The
church leaders want us to take the project and life seems pretty good. The charter plane taxis into Miami airport
and the stairs roll into place. The wind
hits us hot and heavy, like a blast from an oven, pleasantly scented with jet
fuel. My skirt flaps around my knees and
I grab my hair as we maneuver down the gangplank. Brimming with hope, inspiration and dogged
determination, we don’t even mind the long lines in customs.
I’m relieved to talk freely in the good
ole USA after a successful week keeping my mouth clamped shut about
communism. Our church actually gave Jim
a roll of duct tape right before we left for Cuba to tape my mouth shut. I naively thought it was for construction
until Jim clued me in. They gave me Tylenol PM.
After weathering customs, we sit to wait
for our next flight. There was no phone
or Internet service in Cuba so Jim powers up expectantly. Phone messages stream into his cell phone
like a ticker tape parade and e-mails by the truckload. Jim listens to messages and sits studying his
shoes with a grim face. He turns to me,
obviously perplexed. My words come in a
rush. “They did what?” He supplies the salient parts of the
story. I don’t even feel like saying, I
told you so.
Our dream tenants,
claiming to be the owners, were renting our home to multitudinous individuals,
collecting deposits in cash. The Bonnie
and Clyde of rental fraud used our same ad from Craigslist, pictures and all,
substituting their phone number, which of course was now conveniently
disconnected. Infinitely resourceful,
they told one renter that there was an electrical fire that would delay the
availability of the house by two weeks, giving them time for additional victims
and more deposits.
At their large
estate sale, I just know they sold that brand new industrial sized front
loading washer and dryer they rented from a local rental company. I could remember thinking, “how could one
couple have that much laundry.”
One bilked tenant
thought to check county record for the real owners, saw our name and found us
on facebook. There were panicked
messages there as well.
The last we heard,
the couple was somewhere in South Florida, no doubt pulling the same
scheme. Unless…..there were other schemes. We wondered if it wouldn’t have just been
easier to get real jobs.
I guess you could
say our fraudsters successfully avoided the awkwardness of sad goodbyes to
their two gullible landlords. Ever
thoughtful, our crooks kindly left us two storks, fastened securely on each
side of the front door and, a porcelain fish sitting jauntily on the steps with
a long curling plant growing from its
gaping mouth!
