File a complaint, both for the kid vandalizing your property and for his threats. Tell them you want an order of protection and restitution.

You can easily get a judgment against him in small claims court, but in this situation you are afraid of violence, so you need to talk to the police. Even if you don't want him arrested, you need to talk to them to document this NOW in case he escalates the situation or in the not unlikely event there's another incident in the future.

You didn't say when he got out of prison/jail, but if he's on parole or probation there's a good chance that his PO would be interested in this.

Since you know where this guy lives, where he has a car, and where he works, it would be a pain in the ass but contrary to what was said you COULD enforce a small claims judgment even if he tells you to go to hell. You just have to wait for a period of time and get the sheriff to execute the judgment. You could have his car seized and sold off, for instance; that might be worth it for schadenfreude alone even if the time it took wasn't worth it.

Do NOT follow the idiotic advice of the davis and others who advise you to respond in kind by threatening him or breaking his shit. You don't want to end up an ex-con yourself. You have the moral high ground, even if you were stupid to deal with this guy in the first place (and not calling the cops after his kids vandalized your place), but you need to keep it this way

Either chalk this up to experience and move on, or take it to the police and/or courts. But if you are afraid of him, you should go to the police first. Threats are not just words, they are harassment, and harassment is a crime. Someone with his record will likely go from being tough guy to cooperative once the po-po shows up.

I have to agree with the other letterwriters in marvelling at your (lack of) business sense, and this episode may be considered an expensive lesson in business administration.

First you quote a guy (whom you KNOW to be an ex-con no less) a price that is half-off. Why would you do this? He's not your best bud or your mother-in-law.

Then, after he has already stiffed you for resitution on his kid's vandalism, you give him a half-price job again, AND you return the car without payment? Have you not heard of a mechanic's lien? Are you a total pushover? Because you sound like it.

No mistake, you are the victim here and this guy is a dangerous douche, but if you're running your own business you've gotta be more savvy than this.

If people would stop feeding Brightstar "Trees on Mars" 65 and his ilk, there would be a lot less crap to wade through in these letters sections. On that note, Salon, where are your developers? We've been asking for many moons now for a modern comment system with such advanced early '90s features as, I don't know, threading? Does it have to be so painful to flip through the letters? Maybe even some AJAX, but I know I ask too much. What would salon be if we didn't have a "click on the 1 2 3 4 [5] 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ..." and wait 5 seconds-based navigation system? I'll renew my lapsed subscription when I see some improvement around here.

To get back to gurdypi, who asked an actual question back around page 5 or so, as to solutions.. Well it is easier to "doom and gloom" then provide solutions. It sounds like you are doing most of what you can personally, in terms of energy efficiency. The only other significant possibility mentioned was "reduce/give up meat, especially red meat," which would apply also to some forms of fish and seafood that are being depleted. But as has been mentioned in other threads and not in this one, above and beyond conservation, the #1 thing you can do is not procreate (any more) children. If you want to add to your family, adopt. Conservation can reduce your footprint by some fraction, but procreation multiplies your impact many times over without limit. Especially in the pessimistic scenarios, bringing more children into the world is highly irresponsible. All the problems being discussed here are primarily driven by overpopulation. There needs to be policy to address energy efficiency, alternative energy, conservation, and so on, but there also needs to be policy to promote smaller families. And that doesn't just go for the developing countries.

Most coverage is on the concentration of wealth, not income. Both figures are naturally going in the same direction. Time to elect a Democrat. Even if they didn't make it better, they would definitely not let it get as bad as it will continue to get under the disastrous Republican/conservative/neoliberal policies.

Why the hell isn't anyone paying attention to John Edwards? I'm looking at you, Salon.