If I were Filthy Rich
By Detached09+44 What petty stuff would you do if you won?
I honestly haven't thought about this until tonight when I went down a memory hole due to a question someone asked. I spent a few years in a small farm town from like 10-14 years old. Lots of bad memories. Not a lot of good memories because of my alcoholic dad.
First, the dairy. I was there a few years ago because I was passing through. It's already fallen into disrepair. I know for a fact the owners that my dad worked for don't own it any more I'd find the new owners and pay them off to tear it down. I don't even want any money from it, they can have the scrap wood and metal and shit. I just want it gone.
Second, the trailer park. Probably the worst place I ever lived. I wouldn't punish the whole park, but I remember the spot our trailer was on. I'd pay off whoever lives there currently to move to a different spot (there was no trailer when I was there last, just an empty spot), then pay off the owner of the park to let me dig a giant pit there. Call it a swimming pool I guess. I don't care if they add water or care for it or anything, I just don't want anyone else to deal with what I did in that trailer slip.
Finally, the four-plex. I know it's not the fault of the people that live there, so I'd help them find housing and use my big city lawyer to get them below market rent at an equivalent place (with a long term guarantee) and then buy the building and knock it to the ground. Turn it into a community park.
Petty? Yeah kinda. Cathartic? Completely. Should I be in therapy to deal with this instead of posting on IIWTL? Oh for sure but what is this sub here for if not to dream of everything you'd do even if it isn't massive houses and million dollar cars?
So. What would you do?
Recent responses
+28 @blankblank “Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
+23 @bubonis Full disclosure: I admit this is petty beyond depravity. I never got along with my sisters. Other than the illness and death of my mother in 2017 I haven't said more than three words to them for more than 20 years. The reasons for this are deep and myriad and not worth explanation here, but suffice it to say there is no love lost between me and them. I don't actually hate them; I don't feel *anything* for them, in fact. They're just terrible people and I'm best off avoiding them. That being said. One of my sisters owns a very successful business with two or three locations and probably earns a comfortable high-six or low-seven figure income from it. I imagine myself in a position where I have the money to set up a real estate development company that just happens to develop in the same region where her business locations are. My personal identity/involvement in this company would be as hidden as possible. I would buy up the properties where her businesses are, quietly, keeping her leases intact. I would likely do this under several different DBA names, or maybe even actual multiple companies, so that she wouldn't know it was a single company doing this. I would fix everything better/faster than she's ever seen it before. I, or should I say my company, would be the best landlord she ever had. I may even *lower* her rent a bit just to keep her in place. I would even extend her lease at a reduced rate so that, coincidentally, all of her leases were up for renewal at the same time. As the lease renewal date approaches my company would give her every indication, short of an outright statement, that renewal was in the works. Then, when there was no way for me to extend it further, I'd cancel her lease on every one of her locations. I'd give her the minimum legal time required to vacate every one of my properties. Then, when she was gone, I would re-lease those same properties to other people with the *exact same* business model. In other words, her competitors. And I'd keep their rent insanely low, basically the bare minimum required. As my sister was looking for new properties I would hire people to steer her towards additional properties that I also happened to own. I'd allow her to move in with a minimal lease, set up shop, and get going. Rent would be much higher than her competitors but still reasonable for the space. I'd have her sign a two year lease ("because I'm not comfortable with her business model" or some bullshit like that). And when the two years was approaching the end, I'd repeat what I previously did. Kick her out, rent the space to her competitors at a reduced rate, and move her into more of my properties. There's probably eight hundred illegal things I'm doing in my plan, but it's fun and funny to think about. :-)
+16 @MrsMI1UCAN2 Every once in a while I answer one of these. I am older and running out of enthusiasm to burn fuel and expend energy seeing travel kinds of things. I like building legos. Reddit. Collecting dolls and toys. I wake up at the 1st light of day to feed puppies and kitties and live in a legal state so I can start to get stoned while my coffee steeps in my french press. Simple shit. Hot running water, clean dishes, peace and not getting bombed, legal state so I am not in prison ... we have it all
+14 @DejaStu Honestly, living well is the best revenge. Having a house and car that are both paid for and that you own free and clear automatically makes you richer than most Americans, even those with really big houses and really nice cars. I'd set my own schedule, go where my heart takes me, purge toxic people from my life and social media, live as full of a life as I possibly can. I'd even go into therapy with the absolute top of the line shrink available, someone who could help me tackle a lifetime's worth of baggage and finally deal with all that shit. I'd want the best of everything, including the best me that I could possibly be or become. But. I don't have a shit list. Not really. I could make one, but what's the use? I have too much other stuff to deal with on a daily basis to waste time on that crap. I doubt that the people who have hurt me the worst in the past are wasting much time or thought on me. But... Every once in a while, certain people might suffer certain inexplicable misfortunes. Nothing that they didn't deserve; revelation of infidelities or financial improprieties, business competitors getting a surprise advantage that wasn't open to them. No idea who dropped a dime on them or became their competitors' secret partner. Well, no definite idea, anyway. Maybe they'd hear through the grapevine that someone that they used to know had had some amazing good fortune, and they'd wonder. Maybe they'd even look me up, approach me, carefully, because if it wasn't me, then they didn't want to make another enemy, did they? Maybe they'd remember that I might possibly have a beef with them over something that had happened in the past. Hard to tell; sometimes they really don't know, or they didn't give a shit enough to make a point of remembering. Sometimes they rationalize that shit away. But they still want to check it out. And I'd be polite enough with them, maybe seeming to have a bit of trouble remembering them, but absolutely not seeming like a man with a grudge against them, or against anyone, really. Listen to whatever problems that they had, offer sympathy (in a rather distant, perfunctory manner), and if it went on for too long, interrupt somewhat apologetically and say that I had to get back to my rich, full, untroubled life, and wish them well. If they confronted me with the matter at hand, I'd act puzzled that they'd even think that I would be capable of such a thing. If they then brought up the old grudge, I'd laugh it off; why, how could they think that I'd even still care about that? Living well is the best revenge, if I even had a mind for such a thing, which I certainly don't! Must be someone else, old chap. And I'd take my leave, leaving them wondering if there was someone else that had it in for them... or maybe wondering if they had someone that was basically Batman, but not for crime or evil in general, but for them, specifically. For their shit list. Or maybe therapy would work, and I'd give up on any idea of doing that. Maybe. I really do believe that living well is the best revenge... ...but not the only kind, by a long shot.