Last night, after a long day at work, choir practice, and doggie walk, I opened my mailbox and saw a letter from an attorney. To my surprise, the lawyer was offering her services, writing that she had become aware of my upcoming foreclosure on May 5 and that she could help me save my home. I was like, WTF??? The mortgage payments on my condo are current, so I knew this wasn't right. Besides, even if I were facing foreclosure, I'd be contacted by the bank and its attorneys first, not some ambulance chaser. Nonetheless, I sighed, mentally preparing myself for calling the bank in the morning and trying to find out whether due to some clerical error my home was in jeopardy.
Then I noticed that the letter was addressed to "Homeowner #909." I'm in unit 910. Unit 909 is downstairs. Whew. It was indeed a mistake -- the mailman's.
More below the fold.
I suppose now I know why my former downstairs neighbor, Peggy, suddenly moved out. My boyfriend and I never had much contact with her, except when she called the HOA to complain about a water leak. The only time I set foot in her condo was when we had to renovate her bathroom because of said leak. I have no idea whether she rented or owned her condo. She introduced herself only after we had paid for her bathroom make-over.
Peggy moved in a couple of months after the previous resident had died. When I realized I had a new neighbor, I went downstairs to introduce myself, but she did not open the door, even though she was obviously at home. Whenever I saw her outside, she was polite enough, but she appeared to be distant and suspicious of people. She walked with a cane and hardly ever went out or received visitors, except for one man whom I would see repairing things on her balcony. Inside her place, I noticed an abundance of family portraits, but none of those people ever appeared in the flesh.
About five months ago, one weekend there was a lot of moving van activity in the complex, so we didn't realize until later that Peggy was gone and her condo was empty. Since she was not exactly our favorite person in the world, we did not inquire what had become of her. Now I know -- she or her landlord went broke.
I was reminded of the fact that foreclosure does not only affect one's living conditions and credit record. It is also humiliating. The records of one's misery are accessible.
I remembered a day in my early teens when my mother told me that my friends Susie and Claudia, two sisters, were not going to be invited to my birthday party because their mother had declared bankruptcy. My mother, who worked for a newspaper, had access to the "deadbeat register" (as she called it) and noticed a familiar name. The girls were not welcome in my mother's house because we were "decent people" who didn't associate with "riffraff."
As a consequence, I decided to have a potluck at church instead of a birthday party at my house since I did not believe bankruptcy was contagious. Susie and Claudia came and brought the most food.
Here in the United States, where most people are up to their ears in debt, the stigma isn't as bad, but it's still there. People who lose their house are those who "made bad choices." But I had not considered the vultures who try to make money off others' financial misfortune. Of course, there are all those debt consolidation people who constantly advertise. I have also had an encounter with the repo man (another story for another day). The letter (in English and Spanish) from the lawyer made me wonder who else comes out of the woodworks when financial disaster strikes.
I wonder what it's like trolling the foreclosure listings in hopes of business. Are those lawyers successful? I know if I were in trouble, I wouldn't wait to hire an attorney until the foreclosure date was only a couple of weeks away. How many mishaps, accidents, and scams happen in the context of bankruptcy? What became of Peggy? (I intend to try to find out.)
I put the letter back in its envelope and put it in the box for outgoing mail. Next time I see our mailman (whom I know since he is friends with my dog -- go figure), I'll give him a hard time for scaring me.
If any of y'all want to share foreclosure-related tales of the grotesque and the plain old "just wrong," here's the place. Let's make this what Matt Bonner calls the gym for which he is a pitch man -- a "judgment-free zone."