Stories from Rent-to-Own

There was a house in the middle of nowhere in Frederick county that had no indoor plumbing. What they had was a virtual moat of human waste in front of their trailer/shack. The only way across it was to tippy toe across a few wooden planks. I remember thinking (As I teetered with a 31" RCA TV) "If I fall into this, I will leave the TV, get into the van and never come back to work. They'll just have to send a tow truck to my house to get it back."

It was a hot and humid summer day, so imagine the smell...

There was another house that had no floor in the kitchen. Just wooden slats. To top it off, there had been recent water leak, so the kitchen was flooded with about two inches of foul smelling water. As a bonus they had mosquitoes, so we were nearly eaten alive while delivering their $20 a week fridge.

I mentioned dirt slippers earlier...some houses were so dirty that barefoot residents had a crust of black filth on the soles of their feet.

I recovered a bunk bed set(beds, nightstand, dressor/mirror) from a house that smelled so bad, my partner and I had to take turns. I'd stay inside and dismantle while he would fill his lungs with fresh air until we switched. This was a pet house, with dogs, cats, birds, snakes...did I say that this house stunk? We finished breaking down the bottom bunk and lo and behold-a decomposing cat, right there under the bed. He must have been there for awhile, too. We alerted the owner and she reacted by saying "Huh! I wondered where he'd got to."

There are other filth houses, more about them later.

There were no beat downs. The only threats of physical violence came from customers. I was very successful convincing them not to put their hands on me.

IIRC, after 90 days the manager could write off any lost merch. They would also file replevins, but these could fail due to sympathetic judges. If the judge felt that the customer had paid fair market value he would side with the customer.

We didn't check credit, so defaulting on a RTO agreement was not reported to credit. That may be different now, I don't know. Heck, stores in the same neighborhood wouldn't always alert each other to bad renters. Someone would get a houseful of merch from one RTO, and go to another a block away and do it again.

There was one fella that rented a house full of furniture and electronics to please his sweet young thang of a wife. She had the body of a porn star and dressed in the tightest skimpiest outfits. He worked two jobs to keep her in rented goods so he was hardly ever at home. If he was ever past due the only way we could get a message to him was thru the wife. After a time, we got to the point where we just called her directly and she came in to make payments for him. When she came in the entire office would come to a halt to see her. SHe was really hot.

One day, I'm in the area doing some credit runs and I get a beep from the office. I call in and find out that hot stuff called and needs a service call between 5 and 7 pm. Well, I got off work at 5 so I figured, I'm in the area, I'll stop by and see if I can take care of it now. I get to the house and ring the bell. A few seconds later, there's a lot of activity upstairs. I hear her yelling at someone to hurry up and get going. Loud running down stairs, and then some guy goes running out the back door and thru the hedges in the backyard. Missy comes to the door in an oversized sweatshirt and nothing else.

"DAMN, I wasn't expecting you until 5..." she said.

"Man, I am SO sorry, I got the call and thought since I was in the area-I am REALLY sorry. I'm just gonna go now." I really did feel badly. How was I supposed to know she was nailing some dude while her husband was working. I just wanted to get out of there.

"Well, you're here, just come on in and take care of it."

As previously stated, I was getting off at 5 so I agreed, I'm here. Let's get it over with. Of course, the bedroom VCR was the item that needed servicing. She ran up ahead of me and made me wait while she fixed things up and sprayed a little air freshsner. Even with that, the smell of sex was still hanging in the air. I got to working on the VCR and she went downstairs to wait for me. After I took care of the problem, she called me into the kitchen.

"Since you're here, can I just pay you? It would save me a trip to the store?" She got the money and as I was taking it, she grabbed my hand.

"Please don't tell him. Please?"

I had kept many other customer indiscretions to myself and wasn't about to start talking at this point. I liked the poor husband and didn't want to be the guy that told him that his wife was going behind his back.

"It's none of my business...I have to go." SHe wouldn't let my hand go and I was starting to feel uncomfortable.

"Maybe you could stay for awhile. If I give you some, will you let us slide on the payment this week?" She let go of my hand and started to take off the sweat shirt. Before I could even say "NO!" she had it off and stood before me in all her glory. Did I say that she had a great body? I told her that I thought it would better if I just left. She shrugged and put her top on. I wrote her a receipt and hightailed it out of there.

I was married and even if I had been single, I wouldn't have had her. Two reasons. She was married and who knows how many other guys had been with her.

Long story short, one day I get a call from the husband. He finally found out that his wife was with other guys-turns out the fella that was at the house that fateful day was one of many. He came home early to surprise her and found her in the act. I could hear her crying and screaming in the background while he was yelling for me to come get all of the stuff. Remember, they had a houseful of merch. I was the only one left in the store aside from the as'st manager. So I ended up making four trips before I was finished. Bedroom, set, big screen tv, vcrs, computer, living room set, dining room set, microwave, washer dryer combo...it all came back. The entire time I was in the house she was crying about me "taking all her stuff". If had been a sleazier guy I really would have been guilty of taking all her stuff.

Later I found out that a coworker had taken her up on her offer. He regaled me with tales of nailing her on the floor, in the shower, etc. etc. He ended up getting fired for trying to exchange free rent for sex with another female customer.

That'll do it for this week's Goldmine. I'll see you next week, when the forum goons will be trying to Photoshop Lindsay Lohan's old, big tits on to her new skinny crack whore body. See you then!

– Nick "Mayor Wilkins" Dunn