I have been on Daily KOS a very long time, virtually from the beginning first with my old nym of Genghis Mom and now with Snackdoodle, I think of you as friends and some as family. I am sorry to have to come asking for help but the situation is desperate. Some of you may remember my writings about our nearly 15 year battle with our mortgage lender and the housing meltdown. My home is my only asset along with a 22-year-old car and it was sold October 22. We are expected to leave, but the fact remains JP Morgan doesn't own our note. Our only option at this point beyond moving which we aren't willing to do is to go back into court for the illegal foreclosure and sale, and the breach of our HAMP loan. We have an attorney finally to do this but he needs $5,000 minimum to start. We can't raise the money fast enough because we need to file ASAP so I am asking for your help and will be forever grateful.
www.gofundme.com/…
or Paypal using cclark1 at cox dot net
UPDATE
I thought I would give everyone an update. As of today, we have raised $1425 on Gofundme and $200 via Paypal for a total of $1625 of the $6000 we will need.
I thought too you might enjoy knowing a little more about us and the house. When we bought the house from my mother it had been split into three apartments. Our thought had always been to put the house back to the single-family home it was meant to be. When the upstairs tenant moved that first summer we decided to take down the wall and reclaim a bathroom and what had been two bedrooms and a big hall turned into a kitchen. It was almost too easy. We also cleaned up the backyard which was a mess and put in a patio with pavers.
Left to right our downstairs tenant Fred, my oldest son Chris, my brother-in-law Terry, me and at the BBQ with the mullet is my youngest Bill. My sister-in-law Dianne was the photographer.
In 2008 we were hit by tornadoes all over town and our neighborhood fell victim to 115mph straight line winds that did about 40K in damage to the house. The wind and jet-propelled ice beads striped off shingles, raised the roof a couple of inches, blew down our beautiful Black Hills Spruce and broke every window on the West side of the house. The video was taken just minutes after it happened.
You can see the neighborhood is friendly. The cinematographer is Chris, Bill is the one in the cap making the phone call, I am the husky female voice saying I am taking Jack in the house and of course my grandson and Mom. It took a little while to get things fixed it was over a year to get our roof replaced because there were so many damaged in town. We weren’t the only ones with a blue tarp roof in the neighborhood the next spring.
We decided to replace the stucco and batten boards, they were cracked and chewed up by ice pelts flying at 115 mph. This is what the house looked like as we were working on replacing and repairing.
New windows on the front upstairs. a new paint scheme and eventually a porch on the left side to replace the one that was there years ago.
When Fred our tenant in the basement apartment moved we took the opportunity to remodel it and make it an 1100 Sq Ft 2 bedroom instead of a single. I was getting close to retirement and the plan was to rent the apartment to supplement my SS. We would live in the main part of the house while I was alive and when I was gone the kids could move to the basement apartment and rent the upstairs. My 401K had taken such a hit on the market down turn it made better sense to use that money to redo the apartment because it would pay more every month than the 401K. Our neighbors across the street were having problems, her husband was disabled and waiting for his SS disability, I had been helping them pay their rent but I couldn’t do that indefinitely. We thought if we could get the apartment done ASAP we could move them into the apartment. So my youngest wrecked out the old apartment and completely remodeled it in about 5 weeks. To keep the labor costs down he did the majority of the work himself. It turned out really nice.
The market rate for it with utilities included, cable and WiFi is about $1100 a month. They moved in and lived there rent free for a year and then when he got his SS they paid $500 a month for the next 4 years. It was enough time for his wife to get a promotion, their son to get out of high school and to get on their feet financially. We haven’t been renting it because things have been so up in the air on the house.
So now my family, starting with the current pets, we have always had at least a dog while in the house. When we bought the house it included her dog a big old love sponge Rottweiler named Zeus.
We have two cats, Murphy and Rocket. Rocket is a big baby and terribly immodest.
Sleeping on the arm of my recliner must be handy for scritches and pats.
He also likes my mobility scooter and I am thankful he doesn’t have opposable thumbs!
This is my son Chris, my grand Gabriel and our rat terrier Jack, who also liked having stories read. Jack went across the rainbow bridge three years ago.
This is my silly Scottie Frodo, he is now about 18 months old.
And this is Chris with Frodo, they love to wrestle. Frodo growls and grumbles and it sounds like a battle to the death if Chris stops wrestling the growls stop like a switch was turned off. They are hilarious to watch.
So this is what has been happening at our house the last few years, have many more pictures but the object wasn’t to bore you.
UPDATEII