Brenda insists that Garsombke is simply out for money.
"When we moved into Franz's place, you have every good intention that you are going to take care of it, and you hope to be left alone and left to your own business," she says. "But we haven't been, and I've become very discouraged and upset. With Franz, we have done absolutely nothing. He feels like he has us in this position that we have this terrible background and he will do anything to get what he wants."
Phung Huynh
Juan Manchego
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In January, she says, Garsombke told them that he'd been laid off and would need his house back. "But our lease is good until January 2003, and we said, sorry, we couldn't just up and move. Our kids are in school, and we have incurred financial expenses. And he said, 'That's too bad for you.' Then he told us a little birdie had told him we'd been evicted before. And I said, 'That isn't any of your concern. We have not broken the lease, and we are not doing anything wrong.' This is just a form of harassment.
"There are a lot of slumlords here in Colorado, and they say they will do this and that, and they don't," Brenda continues. "But we've learned that if we have to call the police so they can document something, that's what we will do. I'm not saying we are perfect, because we aren't. No one in this world is perfect.
"Maybe if Franz had done his job, had asked some questions, had asked for references and checked Social Security numbers, we wouldn't be there. Now he's just mad."
That's for sure. "They don't understand what is right or wrong," Garsombke says. "They take normal people to places they never think they would go in terms of revenge and justice."
For his part, Garsombke would like to make sure that the Manchegos can never again rent a home in his neighborhood -- or anywhere else. Although he hasn't had any luck with the police, Garsombke, like McLean, has been collecting information about the couple and their past, information that he hopes can be used in a criminal case.
According to Phil Parrott, a chief deputy district attorney for the Denver DA's office, that might be a possibility.
"We get 12,000 complaints every year, and we only file 350 cases a year," he says, explaining why his office didn't pursue the case after Casement filed his police report. "If we filed criminally on every one of those, that's all we'd be able to do."
McLean contacted his office back in 1995, Parrott says, but his records indicate that she never followed up with requested information. "I was particularly interested in the daycare fraud that was going on," he says. "The real-estate fraud would also be interesting. This was interesting to me then, and it's interesting to me now. It all raises the prospect of criminal investigation."
Nothing would make McLean happier. Or Garsombke. Or Stone or Casement or Aandahl, or Ranieri, Hernandez, Cusick, Aki or any of the other people who've had unhappy encounters with the Manchegos over the years.
"If I did this to someone else," Ranieri says, "I'd be in jail."
Ranieri hasn't seen the Manchegos since the day he evicted them. But he's seen their cars around the neighborhood, and every sighting brings back bad memories.
Aandahl runs into the Manchegos all the time at the Mayfair King Soopers and at the bank. "She chased me once," she says of Brenda. "Now we just ignore each other." Cohen has seen them around the area, too, and avoids them if he can.
Stone just bought another rental property; he's imagined them showing up there. "I keep my eyes out for them, that's for sure," he says, "and I've laughed about what I'd do if they turned up."
McLean glimpsed the Manchegos at the local post office where Juan keeps a P.O. box. She keeps up on their whereabouts by way of the mailman -- the same one who helped Franz.
All of them know that even if Garsombke is successful in evicting the Manchegos, they'll probably turn up somewhere nearby. They seem to love the neighborhood.
