My mother once said of a woman whom she knew, “Everything she touches turns to shit”. Benjamin Franklin said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get”. Mr. Franklin’s statement is the same as my mother’s, in reverse and couched in family-friendly language. He could afford to be more sanguine because his life was easy. That was because he had a wife who disciplined his children for him, fed them, took them to hockey practice, chess club, choir practice, physical therapy, dental and optometrist appointments and paint-ball meets, and administered beatings. He could focus on discovering electricity and being Poor Richard. My mother did not have that luxury; she did everything herself while my father was at work. I believe that the burden of caring for my siblings is what drove her to swear like a longshoreman.
Women need wives. That includes women who turn everything they touch to shit. That would include Tess, a woman who lives in my park in central New York State.
Tess lies. Her lies turn things to shit. If you ask her and her HOB, Jay, why they are short, they will tell you that their SSI did not arrive, they got COVID, they will pay next week, they will pay next month, they will pay as soon as they get signing authority over their now-deceased mother’s bank account. If you come back a week later, they will tell you that her son has a hole in his brain, they got COVID again, they will pay you next week, plus a hundred dollars, plus whatever is taken from Jay’s paycheck as garnishment. If you ask them the week after that, they will say that their brother screwed them out of some money, that they are on the phone speaking to a lawyer right now to free up funds to pay off their entire debt and that they cannot get vaccinated because their doctor told them that vaccines would make them infect other people with COVID.
(Around 2005, everyone became a storyteller. LinkedIn profiles now list functional roles as “Diesel Mechanic. Lover. Storyteller”; “Financial Accountant; World Traveler; Storyteller”; “Web Designer, Mother, Storyteller”. Highers-up in corporations like Meta, Proctor & Gamble and Apple have titles like “Chief Storyteller”. Defense attorneys and prosecutors are urged not to give evidence but to “tell a story”. Psychotherapists describe their job as “collaborative storytelling”. Some of this is marketing, advocacy or therapy by another name, but much is bullshit by another name. When residents tell me stories about why they are short, I ask them to save it for the judge. I just want two data points, i.e. a date and a dollar figure. I don’t much care for any other information, and I don’t need the data they give me put in narrative form.)
Tess lies when she speaks with me and she lies in open court. Two months ago, she ODed on a drug. The EMTs came to her home, resuscitated her, and took her to the hospital. When Dee Dee, the manager of that park, saw her later in the week, she said, “I hear you went to the hospital on Tuesday”. Tess said, “Oh, yes. I had to go because my potassium levels were off”.
Tess has not paid a penny in lot rent for two years.
We took Tess and her HOB to court a few weeks ago. The judge adjourned for two weeks. At the follow-up hearing, we agreed that, if Tess moves out no later than the end of this month, her debt would be extinguished. If the lot is still occupied on July 1, a warrant of eviction and a money judgment will be issued.
Tess and Jay own their home. After the hearing, Tess advertised the home for sale. A very nice couple, who I will call Peter and Meredith, said that they would like to buy it. They filled out an application for residence in the park. Peter is a city bus driver; Meredith works at a clerical job. Their background checks came up clean and their references were excellent. Their income exceeds their spending. I spoke with Peter over the phone. He seemed personable, responsible, and endowed with common sense. Dee Dee told me that they were due to buy the home they day after we spoke, and that she would meet with them to sign the lot lease immediately thereafter. For a moment, it looked like the good guys might gain some ground.
The euphoria lasted about twenty hours. I had underestimated Tess’ ability to screw things up.
The first whiff of something off came when I emailed Peter to tell him that he was approved. I attached a copy of the park regs and told him that terms of the lot lease would be a monthly lot rent fee of $440 if paid on or before the fifth, a security deposit equal to one month’s lot rent, and water billed monthly according to usage. He emailed back and said, “I thought that lot rent was $380 a month. Are you sure that this is not for some other park you own?” I emailed back and said, “Sorry, no. Lot rent in that park is $440 if you pay on or before the 5th. I am not sure where you got that information from”.
Tess had told him that lot rent was $380. She had sent him a copy of the most-recent lot lease that she had signed as support for that statement. That lease was from 2019 – but she had blacked out the dates.
The next day, as I was attending the NYHA regional meeting, my phone farted. It was a text from Dee Dee saying, “Looks like I won’t need the lease for Tess’ old place after all”. She attached screen-shots of a few texts from Peter. Peter and Meredith had decided not to buy the home because Tess does not have clean title.
When I called Peter to discuss, the first words out of his mouth were, “You would not believe the way this woman lies!” I said,
-Uh, yeah, I would.
-She lies when she moves her lips!
-You are preaching to the choir.
-She embarrassed me in front of you!
Peter was embarrassed that he had been misinformed about lot rent; I found it refreshing to speak with a guy who had a sense of shame. Peter told me that, when Tess had purchased the home from the previous owner, she had never sent in the title to be transferred into her name. I asked whether the title was signed over to her specifically, or whether the previous owner had simply signed it over in blank. He said that it had been signed over to her specifically, but that she told him that she had gone to the DMV and had asked that it be transferred into her name on an expedited basis. I said, “You know, you can’t get manufactured home titles transferred at the local DMV? It has to be done in Albany.” He said,
-Really? She said that it was being taken care of at the DMV in town.
-The division that handles manufactured home titles in Albany is manned by North Koreans and people who washed out of the Russian army because they are too mean. Even smart, well-intentioned people have trouble dealing with them. Do not, under any circumstances, rely on Tess to control the title application process.
-Do you have any other homes available?
-We have one that will be rehabbed next month. It is older but in good shape. And we have clean title to it.
-Email me when that one is ready, please.
-I am so sorry that you had to deal with this.
Here’s how the Tess situation will game out. She will be unable to free the lot before July 1. We will get a money judgment and a warrant for her eviction. The money judgment will be executed by garnishing Jay’s wages. That will pay $50 to $150 per month, without interest, during the summer months, through Judgment Day. Because she does not have title, she will be unable to sell the home, and I will not buy it from her. The home will either sit on the lot or on an empty piece of ground at the end of the park for six months. At the end of that time, there will be an abandoned property proceeding and I will buy it. The abandoned property paperwork will clear the title. I will be out two and a half years of lot rent, five to thirty grand of transaction costs, and the brain-damage of dealing with Tess. But as I write this, I realize that I might be underestimating Tess’ ability to turn things to shit. She might pull a bogus ERAP application out of her hat. She might sell the home to someone who does not care about the title who will pull it out of the park, damage the leach field and leave me holding an empty lot and an uncollectible money judgment. She might get the judge to take pity on her because her son has a hole in his brain. She might do something that no rational person could ever predict. She could be the fat tail that bursts the paradigm. Her reach exceeds her grasp, but her grasp is, unfortunately, quite long – and everything she grasps, she turns to shit.