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I don’t know how many people actually want to read about this stuff, but it is my blog so read it or don’t. Anyway, we left off last time with us finding out on a Monday night that we had until Thursday Morning at 9:00 AM to be out. After the initial panic subsided and the first phone call to the mortgage place saying what in the name of all that is holy and right is going on. They said, well the house is sold, there is nothing we can do. I say what about the modification? They say well we were working on it until last Friday and then it was closed out. Insert your favorite string of four letter words here.
The next call got my wife home from work and research started on the internet trying to find a lawyer that could help us. Well at 7pm most were not available. We had some friends come over, and console and offer advice but wee spent a sleepless night learning that this was not a unique situation and that we were not even in a minority of people being foreclosed upon. The loan modification stuff seems to lead to foreclosure as much as it leads to an actual modification. More four letter words go here.
Early the next morning calls started to lawyers to see if there was anything we could do. After a few calls back, we found out that there just wasn’t enough time to do anything and we needed to get our stuff out before the sheriff’s office came and took it away. Again with the four letter words but then to action. Get a storage unit, rent a U-Haul, get some boxes and get started.
Let me say here that it is great to have friends and a support group like we have with our Church. Over the afternoon of Tuesday and Wednesday we had something like 75 people helping us pack up and get our stuff into the truck. With a lot of sweat and grunting and unloading we filled one of the large storage units and another smaller one in 36 hours.
Finally on Thursday the (derogatory adjectives deleted) guy from the constables office came to change the locks and kick us out. Right at 9AM. A few phone calls later and we had another 40 people throwing all of the stuff left in the house on the lawn. We had light fixtures, plug covers, and other things that I hadn’t even considered taking. I did take the kitchen sink too, we had just remodeled most of our kitchen in April and did a darn good job. We didn’t know at that time that the house had ALREADY been sold. Four letter words yet again.
So finally all of the stuff is out and we just have to get it into the storage unit. Now get this, the crooked lawyer that does most of the foreclosures in the Salt Lake Valley used the Tooele County constables office to get us locked out. Now Tooele county is over the mountain to the west of Salt Lake County where we live. They apparently have a limited authority partway into the valley and do not have to follow some of the more lenient rules that the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s office would. More four letter words and yes that is all in the stuff to the lawyers. Again with the barely legal questionable actions.
Finally, after 2 hard days packing and unpacking and trying to keep the kids sane, we were able to return the U-haul and crash at a hotel. My Aunt graciously took the 3 older kids and distracted them with a movie and some “normal” stuff and we couldn’t have been more grateful.
It is oddly freeing to be homeless. Even with all of our stuff (minus a few clothes and my laptop) in storage, we didn’t have an address. We had no place to go back to, no place to list as home. There were opportunities that presented themselves as flights of fancy to move across the country and some to just roam for a while. We did decide to stay in Salt Lake for now, but we could have gone anywhere and done anything. We opted for a hotel for a week and then a place to rent. We will decide where to go in a year….This is a big country and we have virtually no ties to Utah anymore… But we still have a home with our family. (extended family is not an issue…that is another post or novel waiting. That one actually hurts, but that is what Catharsis means eh?)
More to come in this series, I hope it is at least entertaining for some of you, let me know!
Kettlebells factor into the next post, stay tuned.
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