I just had to stop by this Ben Franklin yesterday.
I remember my Mom taking us out to lunch at the one in Fairfax when we were kids. It has been over 30 years since I had have been inside one. I used to buy stamps for my stamp collection there. They actually had items that cost 5 and 10 cents a piece. It looks pretty much the same still, just the prices have changed.
Yesterday morning the little restaurant was packed with local folk having breakfast.
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My car chase in Strasburg, VA was pretty weird.
I got there at 7:30 AM. The address was in a tiny little trailer park. It had 9 mobile homes stuffed in there like sardines. All of them had to be 30+ years old and some of them were in pretty bad shape.
I found which home the guy that I was looking for was supposedly living in and went back to my car to wait until 8 AM. I can only contact the debtors between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM (Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA)
At 8, I walked on the porch and knocked on the. The front door was open. The screen door was not latched. The windows were open. I must have knocked and banged on the outside wall for a good 5 minutes and no one came to the door. I couldn’t hear any movement inside.
So, of course I’m getting worried thinking that someone is hurt inside.
So I went next door to see if they could tell me something. That door was also open and again no one answered.
I went to the next neighbor. Someone answered the door. Finally!!! LOL…I was starting to think I was in the Twilight Zone.
Turns out the guy I was looking for stops by the home every couple of weeks. I asked about the open door and the neighbor told me that it is always open. Weird!!
I left after taping the letter to the guy’s door. Then I went to the courthouse to see if I could find out whom the trailer park belonged to, since there was no office and no signage at the property. The lady at the courthouse told me that those records were kept at the commmissioner of revenue’s office…..10 miles down the road, in Woodstock, VA. So…down the road I went. I got back to Manassas around 11 and had two more car chases to do.
I’m glad that this kind of information is now available online….well, most of the time, unless I’m out in Bum-Fuck-Egypt like yesterday. Ha, it’s so nice to be able to dig for information sitting at my computer in my underwear, if I want to.
Tango's Going Ons 
After the borrower has stopped paying the loan payments and has stopped answering the phone, the lender gets nervous. That's when I get to go to their last known address or to their place of employment to see if they are still there and if the car is okay. When I can't find the borrower, I talk to the neighbors. I take pictures of the house and garage if they have one. I'm one step before reposession.
I assume there can't be anything inside the homes worth stealing then? Sounds very strange.When you say car chases, do you mean like driving fast after them in your car?
Very weird…made the hair raise in the back of my neck after I left the second, wide open home that was empty of people.
That trailer park sounded just like one my husband and I stayed at years ago while we were on holiday. It was the height of holiday season and we were camping in a tent. Most of the trailers or caravans and mobile homes were occupied by full time residents but we never saw a single person the whole time we were there. It was like some alternative universe. Weird!