Criminally Inclined "Winterization Crew?" (A Story From Jeff Skrenes)

Photo By John Hoff, for illustration only

I felt a lot better about calling 911 on the rough-looking "winterization crew" (previous story, click here) after Jeff told me this epic tale, which I am including pretty much as he sent it, liquor-longing asides and everything...

In an email dated November 25, 2008, Jeff says:

Here's my story:

I received a series of phone calls from my ex towards the end of the day at work. My standard operating procedure is to ignore these calls as much as possible, although curiosity often gets the best of me. I want to see how badly she's screwed up her life, and I'm rarely disappointed in that regard. I think the German word is Schadenfruede.

Well, the phone calls just did not stop, which is a surefire sign something rather spectacularly bad is happening. I checked the voice mail, and I hear:

"There's an emergency at the house."

John, I have a headache just writing about this crap. Just so you know.

(John replies: Jeff, your personal sacrifice is not in vain. This story about an unsavory "winterization crew" is valuable to the community. Suck it up and soldier on)

Reluctantly, (knowing at least I'll get a surreal story to regale others over a beer) I called her back. It turns out there were two men from Safeguard Properties (219-739-2900 if anyone wants to call and inquire about what happened at 644 Como Avenue in St. Paul) who were there to secure and winterize the property.

A bit of history, here: we separated at the height of the market, right before the crash. By my estimate, if we had sold the house right then, we would have walked away splitting $70,000. Instead, she insisted on staying there and keeping the house, with me getting a portion of the equity as per the divorce decree. With prices where they are, now, I doubt I'd have seen any money even under ideal circumstances. But she was set to remarry and a month before the new wedding, her fiance walked away, leaving her with one income to support a 2-income house. So she walked away and let it go into foreclosure.

So I am actually OK with the mortgage company sending people to secure the place and winterize it. Goodness knows we could use that kind of preventative action more often in North Minneapolis. There are, however, two things wrong with this picture:

1.) first, there has been no sheriff sale, so nobody should be changing locks without making sure I, as an owner, have a key. I would gladly give that key back once ownership is fully out of my name.

2.) And second, the two men had moved some boxes from the attic down into the livingroom. These were boxes that contained my ex-stepdaughter's porcelain dolls, which could probably fetch a nice sum.

My ex showed up to get the last of her things while they were rummaging through the place. After they identified themselves, without any further prompting, they said, "We didn't take anything" and "You can look through the boxes and see it's all there" and "The wedding dress in the attic looks like it's worth a lot of money."

My ex said they couldn't even look her in the eye.

This is how much of a mortgage nut I am. I couldn't help but dig deeper, regardless of how much the scenario made me want to grab a mixed drink of Jack and Pepto. I was compelled to call Safeguard and get to the bottom of this.

They informed me they had been given work orders by the mortgage company (Aurora Loan Services) to put new locks on the place and winterize it. They were nice enough to put in a request to the mortgage company for authorization to send me the new keys.

When I told them about what the two people had clearly done with the personal items, they said that no orders or authorization had been given to go through or remove personal items and "They know this." The only exception, they said, was if personal items in the house were creating a hazard and needed to be moved to make the place safer, i.e. paint or gasoline or what-have-you stored next to a furnace.

The operator at Safeguard said she was going to look into whether these two guys were direct employees or sub-contractors. If they were sub-contractors, they wouldn't be called back for another job.

(John chimes in: well, better investigate to make sure they didn't steal anything at the other jobs, too)

If they were direct employees, they would be subject to disciplinary action, "up to and including suspension or termination."

(John says: Well, I sense one of those "he said, she said" situations coming on)

There you have it. I know I owe you for getting those other policy-heavy stories up there on short notice (click here) (and here) but this still feels to me like you owe me a beer.

(John replies: You had a bunch of free booze at Jeannie Hoholik's house when I got us all invited there for Thanksgiving so...we're even)