Sometimes the worst of duties can trigger the funniest of stories. You know how it is. You had to scoop six inches of snow from your driveway and met your future husband in the process.
That didn’t happen to you? Well, another story, another day.
This story involves evictions. Yeah, those worst of duties. Bear with me, though, because this one is funny.
My sister, Ann, and I have a small property management company. One of our duties for our landlords is being sure the rent is paid on time.
A tool we sometimes have to use is called “Demand for Compliance,” which basically means, “You have three days to pay your rent or move out.”
We call those three-day notices, and they have to be hand-delivered to the rental unit. We used to be brave and knock on the front door to present the paper to the tenant. If nobody answered, we’d then tape the notice to the front door.
So, on this particular day, we had a three-day in hand. Ann drove, so I got to go to the front door. I knocked and, when I didn’t get an answer, taped the notice to the door.
Then the front door flew open, and the tenant, a fire-plug sort of person, stormed out, ripped the paper down, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it on the ground. “I don’t accept notices on my door.”
It was a much longer sentence, but I washed out the four-letter words for you.
Then the tenant bolted into the street after a little dog that had escaped from the house. The tenant was still turning the air blue with ugly words. The clean ones were, “Hey, get back here, Foofie!”
The tenant wasn’t supposed to have a dog in the house, either.
I was still standing at the front door, coughing from the blue air, and watching the tenant darting around the street like a defensive safety trying to tackle a quick-footed halfback. Foofie was the running back, with a good head of steam toward the end zone.
This was a pretty entertaining romp in the street, but then I remembered that my vulnerable position on the front step.
I smoothed out the page, re-taped it to the door, and sprinted to the car. I was ready for a fast get-away, but Ann said, “I’m not moving until that dog is gone. Just what we need is to run over the dog, too.”
We did finally escape in the blue cloud.
We still have to post 3-days occasionally. But now, if this worst of duties comes up, we flip a coin to see who goes to the door this time. We’ve learned a lot. No knocking now. We do a tape-and-run.
And we’re as fast as little Foofie.
