‘Jason! Over here,’ Kyle hollers, you need to see this.

‘What’s up?’ I say, walking toward Kyle and Taylor who appear to have had their attention taken by something in the grumpy next door neighbor’s house.

Holy fuck.

This isnotgood news.

In fact, this absolutely stinks to high hell…

‘Is that who I think it is?’ I say, knowing full well that I am absolutely and totally looking at Werner Hodge. ‘But what the hell is he doing with Christopher Snoot?’

‘I don’t know man, but whatever it is, it doesn’t look too friendly,’ Taylor says, a concerned look on his face.

‘Come on, let’s get closer,’ I say. ‘But we don’t want either of them seeing us. Not yet anyhow.’

The three of us go into stealth mode and crouch-walk toward the boundary between Nick and Christopher Snoot’s house.

It’s not like I’m a fan of Snoot by any stretch of the imagination, but my initial impression here is that Werner Hodge seems to be intimidating him…

‘What the fuck is going on?’ I say in hushed tones as I look to Kyle and Taylor.

‘I don’t know, bro,’ Taylor replies. ‘But I think it’s worth recording it, just in case.’

Taylor raises his cell phone so that it can get a decent view of what appears to be some kind of heated discussion.

Judging purely from body language alone, this is very much the case of one man being the aggressor – and that man is, no surprises here, Werner Hodge.

In the time I’ve known Hodge, he’s bullied a lot of men and pushed people around to get what he wants. If I was a gambling man, I’d say that Werner Hodge had something to do with Snoot trying to cause crap between me and the boy.

Part of me wants to make my presence known right this second – hell, maybe I could take out two assholes in one swift maneuver?

But I know that I need to show restraint.

It’s even possible that this whole thing could be a rouse to get me to react and land myself in some serious trouble.

I need to play it cool.

I need to work out what the fuck is going on here…

I need to get closer.

As I crawl toward the boundary fence, I begin to hear what is going on between Werner Hodge and Christopher Snoot – and it’s not good.

It seems like Hodge is bullying Snoot into selling his property, and Hodge’s plan is to buy all the properties on this street and turn it into a large, luxury series of apartment complexes.

And that would mean… Nick’s house would have to be sold too.

But it gets worse the more I listen. Hodge tells Snoot that he’s bribing someone at the town planning department. Unless Snoot agrees to sell, he may end up being faced with a compulsory purchase order from the local authorities.

I’ve heard of big developers trying these kinds of tricks before, and sadly they often get away with them too.

This is fucking terrible.

I actually feel bad for Snoot too. It’s not like I like him or anything, but seeing an innocent man being pushed around by a bully like Werner Hodge isn’t nice.

Something needs to be done about this – and it needs to happen fast.

I’ve got the footage recorded by Taylor, but I don’t think that will be anywhere near enough on its own.