Landlord adventure this morning.

[t walgamuth]

I got a call about 10 am today. My tenant in the little house I rent behind my house said about 330 am they had been woke up by a car driving around the house in the yard. The house is located on a dead end alley and is reachable from the cul-de-sac at the end of fifth st. by going left, then left again. There is no outlet but people turn down it thinking they can circle around and be back to another street. It ends by diving down an old rail rightaway embankment. This had happened before and its always in the dark and the drivers are generally drunk or stoned perhaps.

The yard is shaped so that unless you had a jeep you would not get out because of the steep embankments and slippery grass.

This one was a young woman in a pt cruiser. She ran off the edge of the alley apparently and took out a railroad tie I had marking the edge of the alley and ran into the 2" galvanized pipe handrail I built on the steps leading down the embankment to the house. The pipe is bent over about a foot and there are quite a few ruts in the yard where she tried to get away.

After sliding down the embankment she drove over to the other side of the house, turned around and went back and squeezed between the house and a big bush and into the side yard, looking for a way out.

She circled the flag pole and the bird feeder without hitting them then squeezed past the bush and house again mashing a heavy duty galvanized down spout and brushing the vinyl siding and back to the other yard.

Then apparently she tried to get out of the yard by climbing the embankment on the other side of the steps and got caught on the railroad tie there, dragging it back down into the yard.

She then turned around and tried to go down the footpath to the old rail right of way. It was a bit too narrow so when the pt was lodged up in the air on two 8 inch trees and would not go because the drive wheels were in the air she finally gave up.

My quick thinking tenant called the cops as soon as she noted the car driving around the yard and they showed up in time to catch her.

They took the report and such and cuffed her and took her to jail. the wrecker company pulled her pt out from the rail right of way and cut down the two trees in the process, leaving the trees lying in the right of way.

I called the company and found it does have a policy in effect (a surprise).

I know the owner of the agency of the company and had a nice conversation with him. He's working on it.

Never a dull moment in provincial Lafayette Indiana!