Oğlu çok tembel bir delikanlı olduğu için paraları yok denecek kadar azmış. Bir gün o kadar zor bir duruma düşmüşler ki...

I´d be grateful if someone might make sense of the red bits of the green sentence for me.

I would expect it means "One day she/they/things fell into such a difficult situation that..." but I can´t quite construe the grammar to make it that...

and in

Sonra cebinden beş fasulye tanesi çıkarmış

why might it not say çıkmıştı - is it to make the timing vague?

many thanks in advance! david

My thoughts as a learner -

The miş tense is used here because there is a story being told. (Hikaye)

The o is part of ´o kadar´ construction - that much, such,

very similar to bu kadar - this much, such

The ler is the 3rd person plural suffix (they) and comes after the miş past tense suffix.

Bir gün o kadar zor bir duruma düşmüşler ki...

One day they* fell into such a difficult situation that...

I agree with your version of the English translation 

I was a little surprised at the next sentence you asked about.

Normally I associate the combination of aorist + past tense to give a meaning of would have.

But since reading Gokuyum´s second post below, I have realised I jumped to an incorrect assumption. The miş suffix is consistent with story-telling past tense. (using çıkarmak)

Later he took out 5 bean pieces (beans) from his pocket

Sonra cebinden beş fasulye tanesi çıkarmış

Henry you cant use ler as personal suffix for things or animals. It is not gramatically correct.

In the sentence you translated, not things but people(they) are in a difficult situation.

I guess you are confused about çıkarmış..Maybe you think -ar is the present tense here but it is not. -ar is a derivational affix here. And it produces new verbs from verbs.  So çıkarmak is a different verb.

Sonra cebinden beş fasulye tanesi çıkarmış.

Then he took 5 bean pieces out of his pocket.

Thanks for the clarifications everyone!

I can see now the o zor bit!

I do mishmash my ´mış´es a bit; I even checked çıkarmak but then managed to discount it. Often one reads the right thing until one tries to analyse things!! but not analysing things equally leads to difficulties

david