Anja Hertel said her nightmare began with the stench of rotting food, and the growing horror that the stranger who lived upstairs was not going to leave without a fight.
Hertel had rented out a bedroom suite in her McHenry home to help pay the mortgage, and was initially pleased her new tenant last year was an older widow, a self-described Christian and blogger who sought quiet to write.
But the woman who called herself Jamie Pryce immediately began to fill Hertel’s home with boxes of belongings — 150 of them, by the tenant’s own count, according to records. The tenant kept bringing home bags of food, filling the refrigerator, freezer and even the garage with groceries she refused to throw out long after they spoiled, according to police reports and Hertel.
The tension in the home grew as the tenant called police, alleged that others were stealing from her and changed her bedroom lock, court records show. By the time the mice and fruit flies settled in, court records indicate, Hertel discovered the true identity of her tenant. Her troubles had just begun.
“You can’t just be a kindhearted person anymore,” said Hertel, who acknowledged that she should have conducted a background check. “You have to be so careful. It’s so sad.”
Fighting evictions
Her real name is Marion Berntsen, 74, and she has left a trail of lawsuits from southern Wisconsin to the Chicago suburbs, where court records indicate she has shown a pattern of failing to pay rent and then entangling her landlords — and their uninvolved relatives — in lengthy legal battles to delay eviction. She has a municipal warrant out for her arrest in Fontana, Wis., accusing her of not paying fines for numerous local ordinance violations.
In at least five Illinois cases, Berntsen has fought eviction with her own claims against her landlords, according to court records. She has complained to police and in lawsuits, for example, about a lack of cable service, missing food or limited counter space in the kitchen, the records show. With each lawsuit, Berntsen demanded a jury trial and filed numerous motions demanding relief — always at no cost to her after she declared herself as a poor “senior woman” with physical disabilities.
“She comes into your home, she takes over. She makes life completely miserable,” said John Hosta, of Spring Grove, who evicted Berntsen from his home in 2012 and fought her for months in court. At one point, she sued three of his adult children, another tenant and Hosta’s ex-wife.
After Hertel complained about the rotting food, Berntsen called police 13 times, sought a restraining order and filed a civil lawsuit against her, records show. McHenry County Judge John Bolger, before rejecting Berntsen’s request for a restraining order, described her complaint as “long on outrage and short (on) specific facts.”
“She makes the same accusations. It’s all theft, emotional distress, breach of contract,” said Hertel’s lawyer, Charmaine Ruckoldt, of Wonder Lake. “She knows just enough. She files these 20-page documents. … They are enough not to get thrown out immediately.”
At least two of the legal battles initiated by Berntsen, her case against Hertel and one against another landlord, are still wending their way through the courts. All the other claims have been dismissed. But they cost the landlords in some cases thousands of dollars in legal fees and time away from work, as well as emotional distress, they said.
“The whole thing with the court system is mind-boggling,” said Hertel, who successfully evicted Berntsen in January after a monthslong fight. Hertel has compared notes with the other former landlords — most homeowners who, like herself, were looking to rent out a room but were not legally savvy before their ordeal.
“We should have a judge say, ‘We know who you are. Sorry, you can’t do this.'”
Hertel, like others trying to make ends meet during the economic downturn, had leased the bedroom before without a problem.
Reached by phone, Berntsen at first declined to comment, but then said that people had been stealing from her and police refused to investigate. Of Hertel, she said, before hanging up, “I am continuing my civil suit against her.”
Her current whereabouts are unknown.
‘Strange men’
Berntsen’s legal battles can be traced to the 1990s, when creditors started pursuing claims against her and her husband, Carl, regarding properties in Walworth County, Wis., they had bought. At least four properties were ultimately foreclosed on, court records show.
The Berntsens had unsuccessfully fought to keep their properties from foreclosure and were caught trying to break into a building they maintained they still owned after it had changed hands, police records show.
When one of the properties was put up for auction, “she and her husband showed up at the sheriff’s sale,” Fontana police Chief Steve Olson said. “They walked up and put up one gold coin and then began to claim to a deputy that that was the only legal tender in the United States. Of course, it didn’t fly.”
In December 2005, police in Fontana stopped Berntsen’s vehicle because they knew that her driver’s license had been suspended for failing to pay fines on a traffic offense, a police report states. Berntsen and her husband refused to exit the car, records show.
“We had to break a window to get them out,” Olson said. “It was passive resistance kind of thing. … They called 911, saying strange men in blue with guns are threatening us.”
In that incident, Marion Berntsen was arrested and charged with operating a vehicle with a suspended license, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and resisting arrest. Her husband was charged with resisting arrest. All criminal charges were later dismissed but related local citations were issued against the couple, records show.
There remain at least three municipal warrants out for Marion Berntsen’s arrest, but because they are for local ordinance violations, Illinois police cannot legally pick her up and transport her to Fontana, Olson said.
Marion Berntsen held a real estate license for 20 years before she voluntarily surrendered it in 1994 after the state’s regulatory agency found she had acted “dishonestly and improperly” in transactions concerning a house owned by her husband, according to a Wisconsin public record.
The couple filed for bankruptcy multiple times as part of a “scheme to delay, hinder and defraud creditors,” according to a 2006 judge’s ruling from U.S. bankruptcy court in the Eastern Wisconsin District.
At some point after that, the Berntsens moved to Illinois. Carl died in 2009, and Marion began responding to ads to find places to live, according to records. Within weeks of allowing her in their homes, several former landlords said, they knew they had made a mistake.
Calls to police
Sometimes she called herself Molly, Mari or Jamie, but in 2009 Marion Berntsen provided her real name when she agreed to rent a bedroom in a Mount Prospect condominium, records show. She began filling the refrigerator and freezer with food and refused to throw anything away, the homeowner said.
The homeowner had lost her job, she said, and needed the income. Like the other landlords, she didn’t run a background check on her prospective tenant.
“My whole house became like a storeroom,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation. Berntsen, she said, “called (police) two to three times a week. She said I am not allowing her to move in. I told her it is written that she is renting one bedroom.”
Berntsen paid 11/2 months’ rent but stayed months longer, fighting eviction and filing a suit against the condo owner that was dismissed in 2012.
“It was a nightmare,” the woman said. “I used to see her in my dreams. I would be hiding inside my bed. It was so bad.”
In May 2011, Berntsen signed an agreement to rent a room in a home shared by other tenants in Fox River Grove. The home was for sale, a condition noted in the lease agreement, filed as part of the court record.
There, she displayed hoarding tendencies and refused to throw away rotting food, said William Hellyer, a Crystal Lake lawyer who represented the landlord.
Berntsen called police to accuse others of stealing her belongings and clashed with real estate agents who were trying to sell the house, according to court documents. In one letter to the homeowner, she wrote, “It is difficult for me to believe you’ve gotten away with these shenanigans with other tenants; and I’ve put you on notice in the past that your unconscionable actions directly and through your ‘agents’ are not acceptable and will not be tolerated.”
The homeowner started eviction proceedings in fall 2011, and Berntsen responded by filing a 15-page counterclaim that alleged harassment, breach of contract, theft of food and other accusations.
Berntsen also sued the homeowner’s family members, several real estate agents and two other tenants, court records show.
“It’s the old shotgun approach,” Hellyer said. “It’s calculated to avoid paying rent. … It’s not just once, it’s all the time.”
A judge ruled in favor of the homeowner in February 2012, stating that Berntsen had failed to show up in court. She was ordered to leave the home.
In March 2012, after responding to an online ad, Berntsen moved into John Hosta’s home in Spring Grove and quickly had similar conflicts over her possessions and food, court records show. After she stopped paying rent, he turned off her cable and, one day, dumped her laundry in front of her bedroom door, according to court records. She called police. And then:
“Everybody over age 18 got sued,” said Hosta, adding his ex-wife was named despite little interaction with Berntsen. “She won’t pay you rent. … Then she’s suing you for $50,000, and she’s suing your kids for $50,000, and she’s waltzing through the house.”
After researching Berntsen’s history, Hosta called lawyers involved in the prior cases and decided he couldn’t afford the legal costs. Like Berntsen, he represented himself in court. He initially received little sympathy from a judge after he said he was afraid of Berntsen while seeking an order of protection against her, which was denied.
“The next thing you know, you are in your house and feel like you are in prison,” said Hosta, who began displaying Berntsen’s police mug shot from Fontana where she could see it every time she entered his home. “This lady can do anything she wants, and she’s in your house. You can’t do anything or she’ll call the police.”
He obtained legal permission to evict Berntsen in September 2012 but continued to defend himself against the civil suit until March 2013. Before the case was to go before a jury, as requested by Berntsen, she did not show up at court and a judge dismissed it.
The day Berntsen moved out, Hosta said, he warned a woman who arrived to help load her possessions.
“I said, ‘If she’s moving into your place, you have no idea what you’re getting into,'” said Hosta, who recently filed as a Democratic primary candidate for the 14th Congressional District.
That woman was Suzette Andrews, who said she agreed to allow Berntsen to share a Palatine town house she was renting in exchange for child care.
Andrews recalls Hosta watching them move but doesn’t remember a warning. “I wouldn’t have listened anyway, because (Berntsen) made it seem like he was a hostile, evil man,” she said.
Andrews said Berntsen remained in the town house for nearly a year, fighting eviction during the last three months. She spent most of her time in front of a computer and “monopolized the whole place” until Andrews’ landlord showed up to fix the garage, she said. He discovered rotting food that Andrews had overlooked, she said.
“He went into the garage and totally flipped out,” she said.
A few days after Andrews told Berntsen she would need to leave, Berntsen filed for an order of protection against Andrews and a lawsuit seeking $14,000 in May 2013.
“She said I had stolen all her stuff,” Andrews said. “She was requesting a jury trial, all kinds of drama.”
The order of protection was also denied. “She said, ‘This court is against me, I am taking this to an appellate court,'” said Andrews, who, like others, stated that Berntsen appeared in a wheelchair in court — the only times they saw her use one, they said.
Berntsen’s next stop was Hertel’s home in August 2013. The McHenry woman said she wants to warn others to learn from her mistakes. She will no longer rent her bedroom suite. But a court date, March 6, still looms in the suit Berntsen filed against her.
She accuses Hertel of stealing a list of possessions that include personal correspondence dating to 1965; 400 VHS tapes, including “Dancing With the Stars” episodes; and food, including half a dozen cans of garbanzo beans.
“It’s not really over yet,” Hertel said, with a sigh.
