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"I'd have killed everyone in the neighborhood and killed myself before that happened," said Robinson.
Robinson claims that the real reason the neighbors sued had nothing to do with the condition of the house he moved into their neighborhood. He says the lawsuit resulted because Greg Brock, the neighbor who eventually initiated it, wanted to buy the lot he put the house on.
"I bought it out from under him, so he got mad," said Robinson. "I don't like his ass. I've been living here my whole life. He's some Yankee that thinks he runs something and he don't run nothing."
Given all of Robinson's troubles, one has to wonder if he is actually making any money. Robinson says he's still in debt from the Providence Road move, which cost him $95,000. That figure includes the $40,000 he spent to buy a lot on McKee Road for the Providence Road house and about $55,000 in fines, penalties, damages and other expenses.
But Robinson, who says he makes between $10,000 and $15,000 on every house he moves, insists he's still making money.
"I've got eight houses to move right now, at $10,000 to $15,000 a piece. I'll have them all done before June. I'm going to make a fortune. I have made a fortune. I just don't have no money. I been putting it all in these houses."
Robinson says he thinks the house, one of the three fixer-uppers he owns, will fetch half a million dollars from buyers once it is renovated.
"Eventually I'll have them fixed up and I paid cash for everything, so I'll be a millionaire," said Robinson.
Terry Hoke has some doubts about that.
"He's crazy," said Hoke, who lives next door to the lot where the famed Providence Road house still sits up on wheels. "It would cost him as much to fix up that house as it would to build a new one."
Not so, says Robinson. He gets very defensive about how the condition of his house is described, particularly in print. He's still steamed at local print and television media -- particularly the Charlotte Observer -- for describing it as "decrepit" and "crumbling."
"Is there any way I can sue the cocksuckers?" Robinson asked a CL reporter over the phone. "They hurt my business when they describe the house that way."
"Does this house look decrepit to you?" he asks, holding up a picture of the barely damaged house right after it was first loaded onto the moving truck. The house in the picture, which was taken at a distance before the move, bears little resemblance to the crumbling, decrepit house that now sits on McKee Road, its porch dangling from its rear end.
The daily newspaper is one of a long list of folks Robinson says he's suing or plans to sue or would like to sue. Though he says he's not the type to sue people for no reason -- he doesn't believe in that, he says -- he claims to be involved in 15 to 20 lawsuits against people he says owe him money or are trying to destroy him financially, though CL could find no evidence of that at the county courthouse, where Robinson has no current civil cases on file.
Whatever the case, Robinson says he has no choice but to take legal action against the City of Charlotte, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the Charlotte Department of Transportation and the state Department of Transportation, which appear to be his primary targets at the moment.
"They put me through so much shit," said Robinson. "I can't keep suffering losses like this."
Robinson said he has plenty of money to fight all these people in court because the people he moves houses for have lots of money.
"They thought the $100,000 cost of the Providence Road situation would break me, but there's $900,000 more where that came from," said Robinson.
This time it's personal
Robinson's issues with these agencies are as personal as they are professional. He claims that city officials, for instance, caused him such an inordinate amount of stress over the Providence Road situation that he suffered a heart attack that did permanent damage to his heart after a four-hour meeting with them during which they threatened to tear down the house he stranded on Providence Road.
"I had just won the whole thing," said Robinson of the July meeting. "I had made them all feel stupid. That's why they let me keep my house. But then when I left the (Government Center), they had towed my car. When I saw that, I had a heart attack and had to call the ambulance. Now my heart skips beats after that. This is documented."
