The Bitch that is Called Foreclosure

Hello, readers of mine.  Summer is underway, but in a month from now, the kids will be returning to school or sooner depending on where you live.  Hard to believe that this summer will soon be drawing to a close in a month.

Two years ago, we moved to Chaska into a 2 bedroom town home that we're renting.  The view from our windows is beautiful.  There is a thickly wooded area in front of us so it's peaceful to look at when we're having a bad day.  It's just relaxing to see it when I'm outside, chilling.  The neighbors we have are great with one of them reminding me of Jeff Bridges's character, the Dude on the Big Lebowski only he's employed.

The five years leading up to now has been difficult.  I know my blogs are such downers, but I find them to be therapeutic when I'm trying to sort things out.

Five years ago, my husband lost his job at a plant that manufactures septic and sprayer tanks.  It was a good paying job, but like some businesses in this hard economy, his company was trying to find ways to save money.  Firstly, they let go of the people who made the most money and had the most seniority so they can hire people to take their places for a lower wage.  My husband was one of them.   The job paid him a good wage of $22.00/hour.  He filed for unemployment benefits and he was able to get them.  Unemployment paid him pretty well.  He was still able to pay our two mortgages and we thought everything was going to be okay.  He was laid off on Memorial Day weekend.

At around the same time Ted lost his job, I found a job working at a hotel.  I loved it there and I made some pretty good money.  The women I worked with were a complete riot and I felt like I fit in with everybody.  I didn't mind all the hard work of a hotel housekeeper.  I cleaned up after some really wild parties, I cleaned up vomit, feces, cum and God knows what else, but I didn't mind it at all.  During the summer of 2009, I worked between 40-50 hours a week.  I was able to help Ted pay bills and the money was rolling in like you wouldn't believe.  But that soon would change.

In September of 2009, the busy season of the hotel ended.  Canterbury Downs was closing up for the summer, Valleyfair only stayed open for the weekends and I saw that my hours were dwindling down to part time hours.  Between September and April, I must have put in at least 20-25 hours a week.

February of 2010, Ted finally landed a job.  He works at another manufacturing plant, but this job only paid him $14.00/hour.  We were still able to keep our two mortgages current but as time progressed, we were starting to feel the crunch.  We didn't go out so often anymore and we tried to find ways to save money but since we had a child, it proved to be difficult.  She was entering preschool and we had that expense.  Plus, we started to use our credit cards more and with that came another bill.  Then in June of 2010, Ted signed us up for medical insurance.  We needed it because of our daughter and pretty soon, me.  The bills kept getting harder to pay.  The busy season of the hotel came up again and my paychecks were getting larger, but I knew once fall rolled around, my hours would get cut again.

In September of 2010, I discovered that I was pregnant with my son.  It seemed like with each passing month, paying our bills got to be more and more difficult.  Upon telling my employer about me being pregnant, my hours were getting cut again.  I was still able to do the job, but the pregnancy with my son was far more difficult than when I was pregnant with my daughter.  I got much more tired and if I had to clean a smoking room, it really made me sick to my stomach and I got some really bad headaches from it.  I kept telling work that I needed more hours and that I was still capable of doing my job, but somehow they didn't agree.

In November of 2010, we made our last mortgage payment.  We told the bank we were unable to pay and we asked them if we could make partial payments and they flat out told us no.  In the meantime, we applied for a loan modification.   We sent in all the paperwork they wanted us to send but they called telling us they lost some of the documents and wanted us to send them again.  Then with each passing month, they asked us for more paperwork, pay stubs and other information.  It got frustrating.  Then there were the endless collection calls.  They called from 8 in the morning until 9 at night and sometimes they called three or four times a day.

In the meantime, I got laid off from my job at the hotel.  From Thanksgiving of 2010 until shortly after Christmas, my hours got reduced to almost nothing.  I was reduced to being the breakfast attendant and doing laundry.  I wasn't cleaning rooms anymore and my paychecks were very scant.  In January of 2011, I was let go.  My employer told me to apply for unemployment and that's what I did.

In March of 2011, we were approved for a loan modification but the payments they wanted us to make were still too high.  We asked them if they could reduce it even more by a mere $100 but they told us no.  I told Ted we should start looking for a new place to live, but then my brother in law called.  He told us he saw a news story on Fox9 about people who were denied loan modifications.  There was a man on the news who talked about how people were being wrongfully foreclosed on and he told us to call him and so we did.

We talked to the man who was on the news and he said for sure, we would be able to keep our house.  He told us the law firm who represents his business had an undefeated record and he gave us a sense of hope.  We decided to go for it.  We were determined to keep our house at all costs so we were getting ready to sue the mortgage company.

In the meantime between March of 2011 and May of 2011, I worked at a telemarketing agency.  I immediately hated it because I wasn't making any sales.  The potential customers I called kept hanging up on me and my supervisor kept on cheering us on.  It was very distracting because other people were talking, they had loud music playing in the background and of course the cheerleaders.  When someone made a sale, someone would bang on a gong which made me lose my train of thought so after a week, I quit.

Also, sometime in April of 2011, we got papers telling us there will be a sheriff's sale on our property and it was to take place in June of 2011.  The people we were working with told us to not worry about it.  They said we would be fine.

In May of 2011, my son was finally born.  He was a healthy baby, born via c-section.  Our stay at the hospital was nice because it gave me a chance to bond with my son and it was an escape from the incessant collection calls.  It was nice to not have the phone ring at all during the day.  When we came home, sure enough the calls came.  This time they resorted to leaving messages on our machine.  The people we were working with told us to not return their calls.

Then suddenly in June of 2011, the collection calls stopped.  Our house was sold at a sheriff's auction but we were still confident we would be able to stay.  The lawsuit that was planned was in the works and we finally got to meet our lawyer after months of being told we would be.  This took place in October of 2011.  By December of that year with the sheriff's auction papers we got, we were to be evicted but the lawsuit we had pending stopped it.  The lawyer told us we could put up our Christmas tree and we did.  Plus, it was December so by law and since there was cold weather, we were allowed to stay.  The eviction papers never arrived in December so that was a sigh of relief.  In the meantime, we signed papers to rent a town home that we were planning to move to, but we had a sense of hope that we'd stay.

In February of 2012, the note we were fearing we'd get came.  It was an eviction notice.  We were told to appear in court on the 28th so we told our lawyer about it and the time came for us to go.  My husband went with our lawyer.  Since our house was owned by CitiBank previously, we found out that Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac purchased our home in the sheriff's auction so the courts were dealing with the wrong bank.  The original bank, CitiBank came to the eviction hearing so upon getting knowledge of Freddie Mac purchasing our home, the lawsuit was now in Freddie Mac's hands so they needed time to schedule a whole new hearing.  We were basically bought more time to stay on our home.

In the meantime, we had a bad feeling about what was to come so we were looking at townhomes to rent.

Also, finally after 15 months of unemployment,  I found a job working at a vegan kitchen so that would take us to March of 2012.

Our hearing was rescheduled for early April and we appeared in court.  We negotiated a deal with the court to pay them a fee until our quiet title case was resolved.  We were to pay them each month.  Tehat made us happy because we still thought we were able to keep our home.  This continued until around June of 2012.

In June, we were ready to go to Ohio for a wedding.  I planned to clean the house, do as much laundry as I could and pack up for the trip.  I had to run some errands and when the kids and I got back home, there was a notice on my door.  It said we had 24 hours to leave our house.  If we didn't, we would be forced out so right away, I took the notice off the door and we headed to a place to fax the documents.  I called Ted and told him the situation and he was not happy.  Neither was I.  We tried calling our lawyer countless times but we didn't get a response.  Not only were we freaking out, but we had this vacation we planned and we were debating on whether we should go or not.  Finally we got a response and they told me they were going to get a hold of the courts to appeal the eviction.  They told us to go ahead and take our vacation.  It was probably one of the worst days of my life.

We left for Ohio so while we were on the road, we got called by our lawyer and they told us the courts would allow them to appeal the eviction.  The paperwork was already submitted and signed.  Also, while we were on the road, I called people who owned rental properties to see if we could get scheduled a showing and fill out applications so we could have a place to live in case if our appeal was denied.  While we were in Ohio, we were scheduled a hearing in court.  If anything, our lawyer bought us more time.

When we got home, we applied to a couple of rental town home properties and were awaiting our court date.  We bought some boxes as well so we could start packing our belongings too.  Then at last, the court date arrived.  Our lawyer was there and he thought we were going to have the court keep having us pay the fine so he talked to the attorney representing the bank and she said she wasn't there for that.  She was there for the eviction and she said the bank wanted to remove us from our home.  It wasn't looking good at all.  Then we were finally called up to the stand.   I was crying because the stress got to me.  The lawyers and the judge talked about our case and it was obvious our lawyer was unprepared.  He tried to reason with the judge, but the judge wouldn't listen to him.  Ted asked the judge if we could have a month to move, but the judge told us we had two weeks to leave and so it was ordered that we had to leave our home two weeks from the court date.  Our lawyer gave us a refund for him losing the case.  It wasn't a full refund but it was something to help us along as we were about to move.  We rented a container from PODS and it would come a week later.

On the way back, we were really depressed and we broke the news to my mother in law who was babysitting our children.  We asked her if we could stay with them until we found a home and she said yes.  We were going to have lunch with her and when we were en route, the landlord to the place where we're presently living called and she told us we were approved.  She told us we could move in August 1, 2012.  That made us ecstatic!  I was happy because I wouldn't be homeless or stuck living with my inlaws long term.

Finally the day came.  We were ready to move but we still had a lot of things to sort through.  The depression of getting evicted really got to me.  It was hard seeing all my furniture leave my old home.  As the  house started to empty, I nearly lost it.  It was also hard on me because a friend of mine passed away and I wasn't able to go to her wake and her funeral as well.  I also wasn't looking forward to moving in with my inlaws for three weeks.

After we got most of the stuff out of the house, there were still a lot of things left but we decided to abandon them. There was a desk we left behind, a couple of cabinets, a whole room of stuff we didn't know what to do with and other things.  Among the things we abandoned, I realized I left behind a Bible my parents gave me when I was in 4th grade, my 8th grade yearbook, a couple of photo albums I forgot and a box of all the Christmas cards and birthday cards we got over the years.  We were afraid that the powers that be would come after us for the big mess we left behind.  I could never get those things back.  When we were leaving, Chloe made a chalk drawing on our old driveway.  It was a family moving and all the family had sad expressions on their faces.

For three weeks we lived at my inlaws.  While I was there, I kept busy.  I went to Shakopee Public Utilities to pay our final bill and I had them turn off the electricity to our home. I withdrew Chloe from Red Oak Elementary and enrolled her to Jonathan Elementary school, I made lots of phone calls to switch everything over to our new address and I took my kids with me whenever I ran errands so my inlaws wouldn't be stuck watching them.  I helped them clean house, I cooked meals for them, I did my own laundry and I got my kids up and ready for the day and Ted got them ready for bed at night.  I wasn't happy living there but at least I wasn't out on the streets.

We moved into our new home and we adjusted to our smaller living quarters.  We went from having a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 living areas and a laundry room to just having a 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 bathroom, kitchen and a small living area.  We were still stuck paying the second mortgage on our home and also, we dropped out of the quiet title case.  There was really no sense in staying on it because we lost our home.

In September of 2013, we filed for bankruptcy and got a discharge on our second mortgage among other bills we were no longer able to afford.

Our house in Shakopee stood vacant for two years and the neighborhood we used to live in is now being converted to a neighborhood for section 8 and low income housing.  We learned other people have lost their homes too.  Also, we had my father in law burn the mortgage to our old home.  There are other documents that we need to destroy as well.  Plus, the lawyer we hired to help us stay in our home has been in hot water and it's been documented so I don't even know if he's still practicing law.

So, with that being said, foreclosure is a bitch.  It turns people's lives upside down and it is very stressful and depressing.  The banks and the government really aren't interested in helping people stay in their homes when they suffer job loss or other circumstances.  It's a slow, agonizing process that many families face to have them see everything they work for get taken away from them.  I wouldn't wish my experience on anyone.  A family should never have to worry if they'll have a roof over their heads and deal with the uncertainty.

I know this blog was a little long, but thank you for reading.  Take care, y'all.

Like Toby Keith said in his song, "Freddie Mac can kiss my ass!"