Apology and a Story

I want to apologize. In my last post I said, “ I tell this story to point to the public workers that want so badly to be treated fairly ... we have been your customer, I’m sure all of us have, you get no sympathy because you are what we say you are, inefficient, lazy, unempathetic and you move at the speed of tectonic plates. It didn’t take you 6 months to protest budget cuts, did it?” The point I was trying to convey is that the rules are designed poorly and that procedures make action impossible. I got a bit off topic and I would like to say that there are many passionate and capable people working in public service and I know many of them personally. I apologize for the portrayal of your work ethic and motives in this light. Surely there are lazy incompetents in government and their actions give you a bad name. I shouldn’t add to this and so I am sorry. Ok, are we cool now? Good, here’s a funny story.
Let us take a trip in the “Way Back Machine” to 2003. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, you still had to actually prove you were a good risk to get a mortgage loan. My wife and I bought a house. You may not remember, but in 2003 the facts were as follows: real estate is the safest investment in the world, after getting married and having children you bought a house, in a 10 years, after you had saved some money and the house had appreciated, you would sell it and buy a bigger house, home ownership was a thrilling step in the American Dream. I know that all sounds very quaint and silly now, but in 2003, it was gospel.
The strangest thing happened, in 2004 instead of the usual 5-7% increase in my home’s value it was more like 50% and then in 2005 the value of my home doubled. We didn’t really know what to make of it all. I joked to my wife that we should sell the house, find a cheap apartment and sit on the $120,000 until the whole thing came apart and we could buy a mansion. We laughed and laughed! Fall apart, yeah right, I mean, home values might not increase by as much next year, but they aren’t ever going to go down ... we even went house shopping. Business was good, and with the prices going up so fast we thought we should hurry and buy something before it got so high we could never afford it. And then it all fell apart. We all looked to the banks and the government to do something, to fix it, to stop the collapse. The circled the wagons and took care of each other.
The job losses and the business failures and the foreclosures were staggering. My neighbor’s company folded, he tried to start his own company and it lasted a while, but finally he had to find a job, and he did. In Baltimore. Facing the prospect of losing tens of thousands of dollars in equity if he sold, he decided to rent out his house. The first tenant seemed ok, but after two months stopped paying rent. It took six months to evict him and then my neighbor had to fly back and spend two days fixing and cleaning and painting and steaming carpets. During the time that my neighbor was here fixing his house he was approached by the son of our neighbor across the street. This son is a forty-something father of 5 (or maybe more?) who does  not work, but assured my neighbor that he was about to be getting social security disability and would be able to pay. I feel compelled to add here that the man is not from this country, and has not ever held a regular job the entire time he has been in the United States. My neighbor said no and that besides that he was not making the decisions, as his real estate company was acting as property manager and would find a tenant. However, he could apply and see if he met their criteria. He didn't meet the criteria. My neighbor moved. The house became rented to what appeared to be a normal, nice person. Then about a week later there was the neighbor from across the street living there too! Turned out the person who rented it was a friend of the nieghbor from across the street and he had rented it for them to be roommates. I called my old neighbor to let him know what was going on, he was not pleased. Well, all went well for a couple months until the friend left the neighbor there alone and moved away. Now the man who wasn't qualified to rent the house, had the house to himself. According to my original neighbor (the homeowner), at first he got the rent checks, and then the excuses came as often as payment, and then the tenant stopped answering the phone. This man often came to my door late in the evening to ask if he could borrow my electricity, or my water, and I wondered how my neighbor was managing his own rent in Baltimore and his mortgage down here.
I have never asked him about it, but I think one day he realized that the property was not going to recover, that the housing market wasn’t coming back as they assured us it was going to, that he couldn’t afford to go through another eviction process and he just let the property go. It took a while but eventually the notice came to the house that it was going to be auctioned off. The tenant was angry that he would have to get out, that he didn’t get the proper notice, or maybe just that the gravy train was finally stopped.
While this was going on the neighborhood deteriorated. Little by little the grass in front of the empty houses grew, fences fell down, bushes grew to block doorways. Eventually the foreclosed upon left angry and you would drive by homes that suddenly had no trees in the yard, hedges missing, as if a tiny tornado had come in the night. A business sprung up, a club really. You pay dues and then are provided a list of addresses, locations of empty homes ... a squatter’s road map. So we began getting new neighbors, strange people, strange vehicles, odd hours kept.
The tenant found his own business in this mess, I wonder how common it is. Last week he began moving out. I asked him when he and his children were going to go. As it turns out he moved around the corner, another home owner had to move and needed a tenant until the home values rebound, and so he was going over there. He told a sob story about how he was paying rent and the homeowner didn’t pay the mortgage, he spun himself as the victim of all of it, and her got himself a new start, a new home owner to make excuses to, a new homeowner whose phone calls he will soon ignore. But that’s not the interesting part, or the business. Last night I came home and there was a strange vehicle parked next door. As I was going in a man and a woman came out of the house, my neighbor’s house. They smiled at me, “Hello,” they said, “we’re your new neighbors.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re renting the house from Eddie.” the man informed me.
Eddie is not my neighbor, Eddie is the deadbeat, able bodied disability collecting bum who drove my neighbor into foreclosure ... I thought for a minute if I should let the new residents know that they were being conned, that the eviction notice was coming, maybe any day. I just smiled and went inside.
The SOB has lived rent free for the better part of two years, and now he has turned it into an income property! Talk about profit margins! It’s a scheme that would make Wall Street and Washington proud ... these are some strange times we’re living in.