Some great reasons to buy, not rent.
Victim Eviction
Dorothea Thomas of Jacksonville, North Carolina, was attacked in her apartment by an ex-boyfriend. Thomas, a police officer and former Marine, suffered six gunshot wounds but was able to escape by jumping out of a second-story window. When she was released from the hospital a week later, she found an eviction notice on her front door: Her landlord said the attack violated a “no-disruptive-activity clause” on her lease.
Gas Attack
Landlord Joseph Hammock evicted the tenant from a house he owned in Lanett, Alabama. When the tenant refused to vacate the premises, Hammock tossed a tear-gas grenade into the house. No one was injured; Hammock was arrested.
Duel Personality
Christina Tuzzolino and Clyde Davis of Lakeland, Florida, got behind on the rent. Bad idea. Their landlord, Harland Pollard, showed up to collect his money…with a sword. He chased the tenants into a bedroom, then locked them in by nailing plywood over the door. Tuzzolino and Davis called police, who helped them escape through a window. Pollard was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and false imprisonment.
Crazy House
Seventy-year-old Rebecca Neely was surprised to see an ambulance pull up to her Chicago doorstep one day. Even more surprising: The paramedics had a court order declaring her mentally ill and committing her to a mental hospital. Who had signed the order? Carla Baity, the property manager of Neely’s apartment building; the two were in an ongoing dispute about the apartment. But since Neely was not mentally ill, police called it an “unauthorized removal” and launched an investigation of Baity and her property management company.
Family Feud
When Damon Hopkins’s landlord raised the rent on his Philadelphia apartment by $100 in 2001, Hopkins saw it as an attempt to get him to leave…so he refused to pay the increase. Then he was evicted—and he refused to go. Then his landlord shot him. The landlord, Laverne Hopkins (she claimed the shooting was self-defense), is also Damon Hopkins’s mother.
