Ch 7, Ron, the drug dealer

It soon became clear to Ron that he was going to lose his house. Just to pull it out of foreclosure would have cost him 4-5 months of mortgage payments (maybe $2400-$3000). On top of that he would have to pay legal fees of maybe $1000-1200 to get out of foreclosure. And then, of course, he not only owed the utility company maybe $500 in overdue charges, but he would have to pay for them digging up his front yard and capping off his sewer line. And even if he did that, he would have to pay them to dig it up again and re-connect the line.
So Ron was in no position to come up with $5000-7000 just to get everyone off his back. Virtually every dollar he got his hands on was spent on drugs. I can't say what he was hooked on. I never knew, but I suspect it was either crack cocaine or methamphetamines, both of which can ruin a person almost overnight.
Right after this 'investor' stopped by Ron's house and talked to him, Ron came over to my house and asked me if I wanted to buy his house. I was in no position to do so, and I'm glad I didn't even try.
He took me on a guided tour of the property because I had expressed some interest. He showed me that the garage door (one-car garage) had collapsed after he had run into one side of the garage and had wiped out one of the tracks that the garage door depended upon. He showed me that the door leading from the dining room to the garage would need to be replaced because somebody had used a battering ram to gain access to his house.
He showed me a gaping hole in the family room ceiling where a ceiling fan used to be, and explained that at one of his parties somebody decided to try to swing on it. He showed me the bedroom windows in the back of the house. Three of them had multiple BB holes in them.
I asked him about the roof, because I had seen a roofing company replacing his shingles a couple of years earlier. But what I saw was not 'replacing', but nailing new shingles over the existing shingles. I contacted a couple of roofing companies and they confirmed that by Florida law, it is OK to re-shingle a roof without removing the old shingles. So Ron had 2 layers of roofing shingles on top of his house.
He showed me the back yard where he had a very nice in-ground pool. Problem was that the pool was about half full of very dark green water, and there were literally thousands of tadpoles hovering at the edges of the water line.
Alongside the pool was a hot tub that measured about 6' x 6'. It had a nice naughahide cover over it. I asked Ron if he wanted to keep it. He told me that it didn't work. I asked what the problem was. He said he didn't know. So right there I offered him $40 for it, and he took the money. Later that day my oldest son showed up with a small flat bed trailer and we loaded it up. My son told me later that he had to spend about $50 to get the hot tub up and running. So, for a total out-of-pocket expense of about $90, my son got a large hot tub that would sell for maybe $900-1000 brand new.
That was the first of my deals with Ron. While we were in the back yard I asked Ron about a 10' x 10' aluminum storage shed he had in the back corner of the yard. I asked Ron if he planned to haul it off or sell it to the investor. He told me that what the investor proposed did not include the storage shed. (I found out later that the investor, indeed, was counting on the storage shed to be part of the purchase deal).
So I asked Ron if he would consider selling it to me. He said, "Make an offer". I said, "$40 bucks, just like the hottub". He took it. But I had no way to get it out of Ron's back yard. The direct route, right out thru the fence gate and onto the street was blocked by the work that the utility company had done to cap off Ron's sewer pipe.
My only option was to take down a couple of sections of privacy fence between Ron's property and mine. I used car jacks to lift the side of the shed high enough to get rollers under the side of the shed. (It was impossible to take the shed apart, as I had hoped because the screws that held the marine plywood flooring to the base of the shed were so tight in place)
So I used several 10' lengths of 4" thinwall pvc pipe as rollers to move the shed from Ron's back yard about 50 yards to the back corner of my own yard. When that was done, I replaced the 2 sections of privacy fence.
To this point I had spent a total of $80 for a hot tub and a storage shed, and I was feeling pretty darn good about my trading savvy. But Ron wasn't done with me, either.

Huh?

this is killing me....don't make me wait two days again plzzz

Wuvie, what do you mean 'huh'?

I guess I am lost. Is this something that happened to you?

lol you have to go back and read all the chapters 1-7

Yes, Wuvie, it is all true. No BS, no phony stories, no made up stuff. It all happened. And I would have had to be nuts to try to make up something as bizarre as what happened.
And it really is bizarre. But when you are living next door to a drug dealer, however likable and unassuming as he may be, his daily reality may be far different from yours or mine.