By Jim Hagarty
2015
I am managing a property for friends who live in Toronto. The renters have left both apartments in the house so I am getting them ready to rent again. There is a dumpster in the driveway. Tonight, I was in the house with the lights mostly off when I heard a noise in the dumpster. I looked out and sure enough, there was a scavenger, searching through the “valuables” I had discarded in the big steel box. I ducked out of the way so he couldn’t see me and thought no harm could come from it. Then I remembered the bunch of tools I had left on the back porch.
I went out there to discover that the side door to the garage was slightly ajar. It is never open. And there is no light at present in the garage. So I crept up quietly and opened it. There was Our Hero, rifling through the contents of the garage in the total darkness. Total as there are no windows in the garage. He had knocked over some bikes which fell against a blue box and plastic garbage can. He was startled to see me, to say the least, and started sputtering about being a house painter and how he noticed some paint in the garage and did I want the house painted. I said no.
Then he emerged from the garage and asked me about renting the house. I knew he was not serious about the painting or the renting but I played along and took his phone number (if it is real). Said I’d be in touch if we were interested in him.
It’s an old house and garage and all along I’ve been nervous about encountering a big rat as I had heard rats used to nest in a woodpile behind the garage. So I finally met one of them but didn’t know it’d be dressed in a nice cap and a $300 jacket. Along with a big backpack, the contents of which I am now curious about.
Oh well, it’s off to the padlock store.
