I was watching the fire in my fireplace last night and many thoughts ran inside my brain.
I pulled up a chair and gazed into the fire, feeling the warmth thinking of days gone by and diaries up on Kos about cold and homeless..I have been both.
I had bought some wood at 50 cents apiece due to Vet's getting worse on his mobility and I had no one to chop some good firewood around my yard. I built a fire to keep down that 400 dollar electric bill and thought about a lot.
As I gazed into the fire, I glanced over to our 8 year old sleeping on the couch covered in my quilt from Daily Kos, when I swapped quilts with her and knew it was 28 degrees outside with a windchill much lower. This is Florida and Florida IS cold at times regardless what people say. It is a different kind of humid cold.
I remembered how no matter what the wealthy right wingers say, some people are just not ever going to own, possess, or keep things they have worked for. I honestly believe I am one of those people who will never possess much material assets in life judging from all of my hard work and circumstances beyond my control that took it away.
I was brought up in a middle class home. I think it was upper middle class. I was brought up to believe that if you worked hard, saved, made good choices, weighed your options, be thrifty, helped others, one day you would be financially secure. I was never told anything about investments. I always worked where I had insurance and always
paid into social security. I worked for almost 30 years. I worked hard and never ever
lived on subsidized housing, food stamps, just everything a conservative republican would expect. Everything a conservative ( so called) would demand. I was a democrat though. I also probably qualified for subsidized and should have known about it and would certainly have gone that route. It is needed.
I was and am independent to a fault. I never was one to bet on the horses, play the lottery, do drugs, get high, or covet what others had. My first husband bought us, or I should say him a 25,000 brick home when I was 20. He told me I had to go to work and make the payments. I was already working one job and raising our son but he wanted to upscale from the mobile home we had and the trailer i was fine with me. A 14,000 Mobile home in the late 60's was nothing to sneeze at. Of course when he wanted a race car the house had to go and he sold it and pocketed the money and moved us into an apartment. He gave the mobile home away. Women did not have a lot to say about those kind of matters in those days. My first of many glances of the war on women.
We were divorced in three years so it didn't really matter. I had bootstraps made for pulling and a lot of combeback spirit. I made several comebacks. I am pretty combebacked out. I lived in apartments and mobile home for years to come.. Rented.
I had low wage jobs, few benefits and an education not helping much in Georgia. I could not save much because Nixon and Reagan and Bush were leading things most of my working life.
My second husband and I found it, purchased a repo Mobile Home in a Mobile Home park in Acworth,Ga and it was adorable. I worked for a commercial cleaning Franchise and was an office manager and there was a mortgage company in the building. I got to hang out at the water cooler with the secretary. She told me about the home. I was tired of renting. I paid.. No one but me came up with the 500.00 and the lot rent because my husband was out of work.. He was between long haul trucking jobs. He was always between jobs. We got that home with the island kitchen and it was nice to pay Mortgage insurance. We decided to put it on a little piece of land about a year later.
There were dogwood trees, oaks, and almost an acre of land facing Lake Alatoona. We paid 5000.00 for the land. The problem was it was undeveloped but he assured me he could get the septic, lights and water put in. BIG MISTAKE. I had been now working at a realty company for nearly a year because the franchise cleaning business moved to San Diego..It just went away one day. These were Reagan years.
Moving day to move the mobile home had arrived and I called to find some movers.
I called Destiny Homes. This home had orginally been purchased at that lot. I was told there was a subcontractor who moved homes relatively inexpensive. Six hundred dollars and it could be moved. Well my husband was selling cars at the time and he was not there for the move so I took a day off. I watched the big rig pull into the trailer park and jack it up, make sure the skirting was all down and piled neatly on the side for the move, along with backing up and securing the home. All was taped down on the inside. I had made arrangements for a septic man to dig the tank and I purchased the tank on agreement of 60.00 a month. The digging was 400 now and 300 later. My husband had already started digging the ditch to the water and lights.
We could rough it as it was March and we had a motel nearby till all work was completed. I had my income tax back and all of this was possible because of our return.
One of the most traumatic things you will witness, materially is what I was about to witness. The trailer only had to be moved about one half mile up the road. I was following behind the 14 X 70 long long trailer when I witnessed the driver crash my home into a huge oak tree. He never stopped. He backed up and kept going. I was honking and crying and this was before cell phones. I had homeowners insurance but that does not cover a home in transit. He drops the trailer on my newly purchased lot and fiberglass insulation flying !!!! Pink and silver strewn everywhere !! I got out of my car stunned and shocked. He walked around the trailer and said. " Ah, it's not too bad. I can fix this" . I said, " What?" The whole living room is caved in and the master bedroom looks like it is destroyed. I was just dumbstruck. I went down to the little store and called my husband to get up to the lot now. Well I get back and the trailer mover is gone. I call the police who never show up and tell me to contact Destiny Homes. Destiny Homes tells me they are not responsible as he is a contractor. They would however contact him and find out who he was insured with. I had no phone. All of the calls were being made from the local motel that I had sense to rent to calm down and think. My husband arrived from his temporary job...( they were always temporary) and finds me standing on the property just in tears. He gets the mover's card and calls and calls and there is only the answering machine. We call Destiny back to find out the contractor had no insurance and has been dropped as their contractor. Done deal. They are no longer in this picture. I was young. I was about 33.
My husband gets some folks he knew to help him put plastic sheeting up but the trailer is not on blocks or set up or nothing. The wind starts howling and I turn and go to the motel while he is fooling with the plastic on the broken windows and crashed front.
In the meantime, everyday I go to work and the septic man had dug about a 5 foot hole which I should have just buried him in. He doesn't show back up and has 400 of my dollars. We try to live in this mess until we get lines connected, it is finally blocked and
set up and no word from the mover. I had only paid him 200 down so at least I was still holding the rest of the moving fee. I call the police again and Bartow county does exactly what you expect good christian folks do....Turn it over to the county permit and ordinances so they can come out and condemn everything. As the weeks drug on, my husband ended up in the hospital over pneumonia. My 15 year old moves in with some friends up the road and I am hauling water from next door. Trying to get in touch with the septic guy and the place is cold, dark, wet and ruined. I to this day have no clue where the mover is.
I was 33 with a mobile home I can't live in. I had a hole with no septic tank installed.
I had a light pole with no wires. I had a water line partially dug and a husband in the hospital along with a kid living in a campground RV with friends.
I go to Gatlin Realty to get my paycheck on a Friday and got it but it bounced. I sign a promissory not to the bank and cover more experiences till I can track down what happened to the Realty company that now has a padlock on it's door so now I am unemployed and then turned down for unemployment insurance. No one ever paid me back on that loss either. No accountability, even though I tried.
The code inspectors give me a 30 day letter to leave or comply with code. My husband gets out of the hospital....gets a job with a 48 state trucking company and I am stuck in a motel with bills and woes.
I call every single person involved with that trailer and say.
" Come get it". I sign the deed back over regarding the land to the seller. ( Didn't stop him from listing it on the credit bureau though)... The mortgage company I guess comes to pick up the salvage and I send my late step father to hunt down the septic man and get my money back. I never stepped foot near that place again. My late stepfather found the septic man and got me my money back. I know there was a showdown of sorts and the guy was facing an angry step dad but no blood was shed.
I couldn't live in a motel forever and I couldn't live in that trailer on that land. I rented a small mobile home and my son was about 17 and stayed there and I just left on the truck to parts unknown with memories of the American Dream turned nightmare. Now my son had married earlier and had a small kid so I did not abandon my son. He had found a job and was there with his young wife.
I can still feel the cold wind. I still hear the plastic sheeting and I thought of this last night as I gazed in the fire. The credit was gone.
I never owned anything else until we tried to buy a house in Ga...me and Vet and the guy swindled us on a contract to deed but even though it took me three years I got most of our money back through Dept of Consumer Affairs and him swindling other folks.. on that same kind of deal and bought that home that the banks stole. We lived in our home never missing payments until we tried to get modified to a lower rate and they stole the house . 10 years and never missed a payment ....Everhome Mortgage..listed as the one who finally got the note on that home who is also listed with the DOJ along with Citi Bank and Bank of America.
That's it. I own no home. We rent. We are supposed to try and buy this one but no one is lending and it does not look good for financing.
See.... some of those rentals had their problems over the years too... one apartment burned because a maintenance man was smoking while we ( my x and me were working ) . They never were accountable for losses they caused either.
We lost a few jobs in the Reagan Bush era and finally got into property management. It just was not meant for me to own a home.
I put my name on a class action lawsuit. I am still checking to find a mortgage company for this house but to tell you the truth... the Freedom of owning your own home is a pipe dream for many who can't afford lawyers to sue. People who get their kicks from others misfortunes...prey and I don't mean pray. Right now I don't see how people who work hard, try to save and scrimp and barely get by will ever accomplish a lot financially. I tell my kids this but I know deep down it is probably a lie. We live day to day and as I opened Alan Grayson's email quoting a line from Network that said, " I am mad as hell and ain't taking it anymore".... The memories flooded.
And that as they say is the rest of the story of people who try as hard as they might to accomplish and face sickness, and all sorts of mayhem yet struggle to just get by no matter what the one percent think. It is just a pipedream for many. Disappointments to far too many.
We have to change our wills because we don't have a house in our name to leave behind. We do pay the taxes here. That is how bad I wanted out of Ga. I hate Georgia with a passion. I know Florida will change when this idiot governor is gone.
Guess what, we are exempt from taxes but no matter it is in our contract and I got a nice roof over my head. One never really own anything. Doesn't matter if you lose a piece at a time or in one big chunk.. Loss is Loss. So if you are down and out over about to lose or have lost ...trust me ... you are not alone.
Peace out OPOL.. I get where you are coming from with your move to Costa Rica.
Even if you don't like Elvis... listen to the words