LYNDONVILLE — The nightmare unfurled over months for Sarah and Benjamin McIntosh.
The mother and son ran the Inn at Darling Manor, a short-term rental in Lyndonville. Earlier this year, they agreed to rent the converted carriage house to Gary Megrath, a local contractor, from March 25 to April 26.
But as the McIntoshes tell it, the arrangement soon spiraled into the bizarre.
They said Megrath brought four dogs, 20 chickens and two chinchillas into the property. They said he dismantled the building’s propane heating system and rigged it with gas tanks that are used for grills. And then, they said, he told the two that he and his family wouldn’t be leaving after all.
The McIntoshes filed eviction paperwork. Megrath didn’t leave — and began stalking, harassing and intimidating the family, they said.
In September, a court finally ordered Megrath to vacate the rental, and a judge upheld a restraining order filed by Benjamin McIntosh against him. For too long, though, the McIntoshes felt officials let Megrath squat in their building by abusing tenant laws.
“He uses the court system like a criminal uses a gun,” said Sarah McIntosh, 59.
Megrath did not respond to six phone calls between the end of October and early November seeking comment. His voicemail box was full and could not accept new messages on the first five calls. A message was left for “Gary” on the sixth call last week. Speaking in May to the Caledonian Record, he denied harassing the McIntoshes, and in court records he said he never damaged any of their property.
But the clash in Lyndonville is one in a long string of similar stories across Vermont, in which landlords described Megrath overstaying leases and then stalling his exit through legal maneuvers.
‘Half naked, barking at us’
Megrath moved into the inn March 25 with his wife and daughter, paying $800.
“Things got weird right away,” Sarah McIntosh said.
First came the animals: two more dogs than the McIntoshes said were allowed, and 20 chickens in the garage.
Then Megrath told the property owners he didn’t have hot water in the unit.
The owners said they found the propane heating tanks empty, when they had filled them beforehand. The McIntoshes claimed Megrath was responsible for any extra fuel; Megrath said the opposite.
A few days later, the McIntoshes said Megrath dismantled the propane system and rigged it with grill tanks — a fire hazard.
On April 25, after Megrath said he wouldn’t be leaving, the McIntoshes moved to evict him, but he wasn’t served with paperwork until a day later. For Megrath, the timing was perfect: State law says that after 30 days, guests in a lodging facility are covered by landlord-tenant law, entitling them to more rights and protections.
Megrath filed a complaint with the Lyndon town health officer about the lack of hot water. The officer inspected the rental and, along with the heat issue, found no smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors. The McIntoshes believe Megrath had removed them.
“Uninhabitable, is what he called it,” Sarah McIntosh said. “Uninhabitable — yeah, it sure was when he got done with it.”
The city issued Benjamin McIntosh an emergency health order. The dispute played out before the Selectboard, as the Caledonian Record reported.
But behind the scenes, and over the next several months, Megrath began harassing the family, the McIntoshes said.
He would sit in their driveway, staring, and revving a motorcycle. He cut their garden hoses in half, started fires and held noisy gatherings, they said.
The McIntoshes believe Megrath killed the beehive colonies in their yard, which had been the passion project of a disabled family member.
“It was such a joy for him,” Sarah McIntosh said. “Ten years and I couldn’t find anything — his passion — and then it’s gone.”
One August day, Megrath stood in the yard and started swearing, Benjamin McIntosh later wrote in a court document.
“He was half naked, barking at us,” the son said.
A few days later, Ben McIntosh said in a restraining order request, Megrath showed up at Sarah McIntosh’s workplace to try to get her fired.
A trail of lawsuits through Vermont
For years, landlords in several counties accused Megrath of skimping on rent and staying in residences after being evicted, according to court records.
Megrath was evicted from a Barton apartment at the beginning of November 2018. But his landlord soon sued, claiming Megrath had refused to leave.
A judge ruled against Megrath in that case in January, and the parties later came to a settlement in which Megrath agreed to pay outstanding bills of more than $1,000.
In October 2017, a different set of landlords went to court to evict Megrath from a rental in Brownington. The landlords claimed that Megrath failed to pay $2,000 in rent and wouldn’t vacate, even though they had given him an eviction notice.
In that case, Megrath argued that he and his wife didn’t feel obligated to pay because the landlords hadn’t upheld their end of the agreement. He wrote in a letter that the monthly rent was supposed to go toward purchasing the property. And, he wrote, the landlords had reneged on a deal to buy the property.
The case continued until February 2018, when the landlords dropped the dispute because the Megrath family left.
In 2015, another landlord sought to evict Megrath from a rental home in Montpelier and force him to pay rent, records show.
Megrath owed $5,150 and had been occupying the residence despite an eviction notice, the landlord claimed in June 2015 court records.
“I disagree that any rent is owed,” Megrath wrote in response a month later. He also disagreed with the claim that he was occupying the residence against the law.
The case stretched into that fall, when a judge ruled in favor of the landlord and ordered Megrath to pay the rent and leave.
In November 2011, another Washington County landlord asked a judge to evict Megrath and order him to pay rent. The parties went to trial in November 2012. The judge sided with the landlord.
The Megraths had to pay $2,950 and were ordered to leave.
Megrath counters in court
The McIntoshes’ eviction and rent case is still active, court records show, even though Megrath has moved out.
In August, Megrath was ordered to pay about $1,950 in rent to the court while the case remained pending. As of early September, the McIntoshes said Megrath owed them about $4,000.
Megrath wrote in court records that he never signed an agreement with the McIntoshes for his stay at the inn, and that the innkeepers had broken several verbal agreements.
He wrote that the McIntoshes didn’t clean the unit before his family moved in, that there were no working smoke detectors inside and that Benjamin McIntosh hadn’t filled the propane tanks properly.
And he disputed the idea that his stay would be a short one.
“First months rent check was written out to Ben Mcintosh and in the check memo it clearly states first months rent,” Megrath wrote in a July 29 document. “If they were renting it to us as an inn not long term monthly rental we would have had to sign and pay for room and meals tax … ”
According to Sarah McIntosh, Judge Robert Bent said during the court dispute that if she could establish a pattern to Megrath’s behavior, Megrath would be in serious trouble.
Sarah McIntosh dug into court records and found the other cases. But when she brought the paperwork to Bent and other officials, she said no one listened.
“You are not viewed by these systems as a valuable member of this community — at all,” she said. “And I don’t know how many other people are going through this.”
Bent, reached by phone, said he could not comment on the case or McIntosh’s account.
After five years of hosting guests, the family plans to shutter the inn.
“We talked about it a little bit,” said Sarah McIntosh, “but I don’t have the confidence anymore.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: When inn tried to evict a tenant, he launched a harassment campaign.