Chapter 3: What the Paperwork Said
My lawyer's name was Carol Briggs.
She had a small office above a dry cleaner two towns over, and she wore reading glasses on a beaded chain around her neck.
She did not look like someone who would frighten anyone.
She was exactly the kind of person you underestimate.
She spread the photos across her desk and studied them without speaking for almost a full minute.
"They used a licensed painting company," she finally said.
"Yes."
"Paid in full before the job started."
"That's what the police said."
She looked up at me over her glasses.
"That's actually better for you.
It means this was planned.
It wasn't an impulse.
They arranged it, budgeted for it, and executed it while you were out of town." She set one photo down and picked up another.
"That's not a neighbor dispute.
That's deliberate property interference."
I asked her what we could claim.
"Trespass to property.
Unauthorized alteration.
Potentially tortious interference if we can show it affected your property value." She paused.
"And there may be a criminal angle, depending on how the DA's office wants to look at it."
"Criminal?"
"Entering and altering someone's private property without consent isn't automatically civil.
Especially when there's clear premeditation and an attempt to conceal it — which is what the wife asking your neighbor to stay quiet gives us." She tapped the photo of the painting company van.
"What's the neighbor's name?
The one who filmed?"
"Dennis."
"Is Dennis willing to make a written statement?"
"He already offered."
Carol set the photos down in a neat stack and folded her hands on top of them.
"Then here is what I want you to do.
Don't speak to them.
Don't knock on their door.
Don't wave at them from the driveway.
If they approach you, you say two words: 'Call Carol.' Can you do that?"
I said I could.
She nodded once.
"Good.
Because the moment you engage, they'll claim harassment, and we lose the moral high ground we currently have completely." She pulled a legal pad toward her and uncapped a pen.
"Now tell me everything from the beginning.
The first comment they made about your house.
The exact date if you remember it."
I remembered it.
I remembered all of it.
I talked for forty minutes.
Carol wrote without stopping.
When I finished, she looked at her notes and said, "You've been patient with these people for two years."
"I have."
"That patience is about to pay off." She clicked her pen closed.
"I'm going to draft a demand letter first.
We give them one opportunity to respond and make this right voluntarily.
If they don't, we file." She looked at me steadily.
"And I don't think they'll respond well."
"Why not?"
"Because people who do something like this don't believe they've done anything wrong.
They believe they were justified." She picked up the photo of the gray house and held it up.
"They'll say they improved your property.
They'll say you should be grateful.
And the moment they put that in writing, they've handed us everything we need."
I drove home and parked in front of my gray house.
I sat in the car for a moment and looked at it.
Then I went inside and waited.
Three days later, Carol called.
"The demand letter was delivered this morning," she said.
"Certified mail, signature required."
"Did they sign for it?"
"The husband did." A brief pause.
"He called my office an hour later."
"What did he say?"
Carol's voice was completely even.
"He said, and I'm quoting directly: 'Your client should be thanking us.
We did her a favor.
Nobody wants to live next to a yellow eyesore.' Then he hung up."
I sat very still.
"He called back four minutes later," Carol continued, "and told my assistant that if we pursued this, he had a cousin who was a real estate attorney and we had no idea what we were getting into."
May you like
I asked Carol what she thought of that.
"I think," she said, "that we should file."
