Her purple fingernail polish, long flowing brown hair and frown beskoke of her dissatisfaction. Our Landy Lady, who shall remain anomymous to protect her dignity, was fuming with barely suppressed anger and resentment. She had been caught steeling our rental security deposit and forced, by circumstances, to pay it back when she least expected.
Shortly after we rented her house near Frankfort, MI, I suspected, from conversations with her and my observations of her character and financial recleness, that she had spent our security deposit.
The lease, which she purchsed from a gum ball machine, requied the deposit but gaver her 14 days to repay it. When it came time to give her our 30 day notice, I reasoned that we could not remain in Michigan for two weeks to sue her in small claimes court to recover the money, therefore, with the most sublime innocence, I suggested, as there weren't any damages, that she could use the deposit for the last month's rent.
We waited with baited breath for three weeks for the anticipated explosion. It came late one evening when the phone rang and an irate male voice demanded what we were doing. The neighbor, from across the street, who was a close personal friend of the divorced land lady, had seen a Motor Home in our driveway and thought we were moving that very night.
Getting around to the matter of the security deposit, he expressed his girl friend's irritation in a most ungentlemanly and snoopy manner. A few moments later, her highly charged voice greeted our ears as we answered the phone for the second time. Threats and imprecations were tossed about with abandon.
We did not seek this confrontation with them, hoping it would not escelate out of controll. After hanging up the phone, Sevilla and I bowed our heads in prayer for devine guidance in this tempetetous situation. We desired to live at peace with our neighbors although we could not allow them to betray thier trust.
She called an hour later, much mollified in temper to inquire concerning our plans. The Lord is graceious and worked to defuse this potentially explosive situation. He did not want either of them or us to become embroiled in legal entangelments or personal amonosities but to live at peace with each other.
We moved out of the house several days later, leaving it cleaner then when we found it, but I am certain, based on my knowledge of her temperment, she is stewing today about her terrible renters.