| Howdy, LIAers. I've been pretty busy getting moved into my new house, getting to know my new neighbors and getting the Alabama house in shape to sell. Wednesday morning, noticing a huge furor in front of the house in Pensacola, I stepped out to see why there were three police cars, three pickup trucks and several professional looking types in business dress standing around in front of my yard. I kinda wish I had stayed inside. The lady in one of the pickups explained that she is the owner of the house across the street and is being evicted due to a forclosure. Having worked for several sheriffs in my life, I understand that there is a requirement that they execute eviction orders, regardless of personal felings. The problems I had were not with the sheriff or the general concept of foreclosures, but with the way these things are being done in today's world. -more below- |
She explained to me that the loan on her house has recently been sold twice, so that by the time the third mortgage company got involved, she had already made payments to the other two and didn't even know the loan had been sold again. She said she knew she was behind on payments, but part of that was because of payments made to the wrong company. I'm no innocent, so I know people lie. I assume she was probably way behind and it probably was not all the fault of other people. The part that got me cranked up is that she had been given no notice that the eviction order was coming. She had no opportunity to pack up several years of accumulated furniture, clothing, antiques, knickknacks, and all the rest. At the appointed hour a crew of three young men and two women started hauling her stuff from the house and piling it out by the street. In fairness, I have to say that law enforcement asked them to wait until she could send her husband for a U-Haul truck, and they did wait an hour or so. Nonetheless, her stuff was piling up by the time the truck arrived. With her and me moving things over into my yard, quite a bit crossed the street to safety. Then a neighbor next door offered her yard and we just moved things a few yards to the neighbor's. No one will be shocked to know that I was geting pretty pissed off at all this, and I said to the owner (I think of her as the "victim"), "There isn't enough money in the world to hire me to do what these guys are doing". One of the women in the crew heard my comment and I was confronted by her angry husband, demanding that I keep my mouth shut and not talk to his wife. I told him I had not spoken to his wife, nor to anyone in his crew, and he advised me that I was not to say anything like that again or I would be required to leave and stop helping the victim. I have no idea if he truly had the authority to restrict my presence there, and I knew the lady really needed my help so I swallowed my anger and nodded. He then said "You think we like doing this?" Hey, that gave me an opening, so I said, "I can't read your heart, man, I just know you are doing it". He appeared flustered, but remained hostile toward me, shooting me mean looks, etc. But the cool thing is he instructed all the crew to start placing the items in the neighbor's yard, where they would be safe. At that time I had to go pick someone up at the airport, and told the neighbor lady goodbye. The U-Haul was pulling up right then and I knew her things would be safe. I wish I could say I was a better person than I am, but I couldn't just walk away, so, as soon as I was off the foreclosed property, I turned to the crew-boss and said "There still isn't enough money to hire me to to put people's belongings out on the street. I couldn't live with myself"! He took a couple of steps in my direction, but he must have had some idea what it would look like...a thirty year old body builder type punching out a seventy year old Good Samaritan... so he walked away. This is not a typical diary, but it sure was a wakeup call for someone who has considered foreclosures, repossesions and evictions mostly from a theoretical point of view up to now. Things have to change, y'all. Maybe our vote for Obama and every Democrat on the ticket is the only thing we can do right now, but let's at least do that much. Let's take our nation back. |
