Why stay in a house with half its roof blown off? He has even gone after those who left the house a second time, bellowing harder than before. But the most apt description for me, at least today, is the debt distrainor as described by Reverend Samuel Johnson. A ‘distrainor’ is a licensed by fire-by-force debt collector who sits on the debtor in every way until he pays. “The distrainor is a man of imperturbable temper, but of foul tongue, a veritable Thersites.