Local Man Receives "Second Notice" Home Warranty Mailer, Prepares For Imminent Foreclosure

In what residents are calling "the most predictable overreaction of the week," local man Greg Harlan, 47, spent his entire Tuesday evening convinced that an envelope declaring "URGENT: SECOND NOTICE – HOME WARRANTY EXPIRING" was either the precursor to a legal proceeding or a late stage notice of a foreclosure process that was under way on his perfectly fine three-bedroom ranch.

Harlan, who is up to date on his taxes, mortgage and insurance and has never once considered purchasing a home warranty in his life, discovered the mailer mixed in with his usual assortment of credit card offers and supermarket circulars.

The envelope featured an official-looking font and red "TIME-SENSITIVE!" stamp usually reserved for actual IRS correspondence or ransom notes. Inside, the copy warned that prior written and electronic communications had been ignored and that this notice was "URGENT!" and that his "coverage" would lapse "any day now" unless he acted immediately.

"I don't even know what a home warranty is!" Harlan said out loud to no one in particular while reading the notice for the third time.

"But if they're sending a second notice, that means there was a first notice, right? And if there was a first notice, that means I was supposed to do something. What if my bank knows about this?

"They said they sent electronic communications too," he said as he researched the company online and refreshed his email for the third time in two minutes.

Neighbors confirmed that Harlan's home, built in 2018, has never required more than the occasional lightbulb replacement. His roof is under warranty from the builder, his appliances are still covered by the manufacturer, and he has never needed a repair for anything more dramatic than a clogged garbage disposal that he fixed himself with a YouTube video. None of these facts appeared to calm him.

By 8:17 p.m., Harlan had already tried - to no avail - calling the number on the mailer and drafted three separate responses to the notice in his head, ranging from "I never received the first notice...!" to "Do you take credit cards?" to "Please send the paperwork so I can sleep again."

At the time of publication, Harlan had decided to "Just wait it out..." and was seen standing in his driveway staring at his mailbox as if it might produce a third notice, a fourth notice, or possibly a small fine for failing to respond to the second notice of the thing he never requested in the first place.