A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 19
This is the fifth year in a row I’ve run this series in April.
Today’s story: Bank Repossesses Wrong House, Sells Off Homeowner’s Stuff.
An Ohio bank is refusing to reimburse a Vinton County woman whose house they unjustly repossessed while she was out of town.
Katie Barnett recently returned home after being away for two weeks to find that the lock on her door had been changed. She crawled in through the window to find all of her stuff missing.
Barnett suspected she had been robbed — and she wasn’t too far off.
It seems that, while Barnett was gone, the First National Bank of Wellston arrived at her place of residence, broke in, and took possession of all her belongings, including the house.
Except, as it later turned out, they had the wrong address.
“They told me that the GPS led them to my house,” Barnett told 10TV. “My grass hadn’t been mowed and they just assumed.”
Phoning the local police to report the incident did Barnett little good, as the McArthur Police Chief refused to investigate and considered the case closed.
But for Barnett, the ordeal is very much ongoing.
With all of her stuff either sold off by the bank or thrashed, the homeowner presented the bank’s president with an $18,000 estimate for restitution.
He refused to pay up.
“He got very firm with me and said, ‘We’re not paying you retail here, that’s just the way it is,’” Barnett recalled. “I did not tell them to come in my house and make me an offer. They took my stuff and I want it back.”
Okay, that’s bad. But this is even worse: Texas Man Finds Home Gone After Demolition Crew Sent to Wrong Address.
The three-bedroom ranch-style home overlooking Lake Worth had been in David Underwood’s family for decades, so it struck him as rather odd that he was having a hard time locating it after returning to Fort Worth from an out-of-town trip with his wife.
“We rounded the corner and my wife, Valerie says, ‘The house is gone David,’” Underwood recalled to the Dallas Observer. “I’m looking at the yard, so I looked and I’m like, ‘Wow, OK.’”
All that was left of their cherished property was a concrete slab and the sense that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
They were right on the nose: While the couple was away, a demolition crew had been sent by the city to tear down an adjacent house, but were accidentally given the wrong address.
“On July 12, 2013, contractors demolished the wrong property on Watercress Drive,” the city said in a statement released this week. “The property to be demolished should have been 9708 Watercress Dr. The property that was demolished was a vacant structure located at 9716 Watercress Drive.”
Vacant, because Underwood had been fixing it up so he and his family could move in on a permanent basis.
Suffice it to say, the house now needs more than a bit of caulking and a once-over on the unkempt lawn.
The obvious approach is to go 99%-er vs. 1%-er. Blue collar dude and blue collar wife, working four jobs between them to support them and their five kids, come home from a rare family outing only to discover (A) their house has been demolished and (B) all their stuff has been confiscated and sold, repossessed by the local bank.
The family — let’s call them the Kramers — explores every legal manner of recourse only to discover they will get nothing back due to a tiny loophole and the fact that law enforcement authorities are basically beholden to the President of the bank: Nick Pickering. You know, the wealthy jackass whose smiling face adorns billboards all around the county with the bank’s motto, “You’re like family to us.”
Enraged by the situation, I see the Kramers joining together with a common goal: Revenge. I mean fairness is a huge issue among kids and the parents can justify this path as a learning moment for their children. Just imagine the heartwarming scene where Dad and Mom gather the young ones together, explaining the situation in a dispassionate adult manner, ending with this:
Dad: So kids, the moral of the story is, if you fuck with the Kramers…
Mom: The Kramers are sure as hellfire gonna fuck with you.
What emerges is a litany of strategic insults and assaults on Nick Pickering and his entitled-silver-spoon-born-on-third-base family, with an appropriate response from the rich toadies and their armed thugs. Can you say rising action? All leading toward the big ticket item: The Pickering Estate. This 35,000 square foot multimillion dollar behemoth is going down… in flames… if the Kramers have anything to say about it. “Kids, it’s time to even the score.”
Remember how Kevin saved the family’s stuff in Home Alone? This is the direct opposite of that. Tentative title: “Your Home Is Pwned”.
There you go: My nineteenth story idea for the month. And it’s yours. Free!
What would you do with it?
Each day this month, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Gender bend, genre bend, what if. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are all valuable skills for a writer to develop.
See you in comments (hit Reply to join the conversation). And come back tomorrow for another Story Idea Each Day For A Month.
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