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The last video you post of him was funny as heck. I am still amazed I made it through the winter on half my income. I did accumulate debt doing it but my debt level is still below twenty thousand and that included what's still owed on my house. I am about half way through remodeling the duplex next door, I've never been so nervous about renting it out as I am now with this no evict stuff. I am going to have to be extremely cautious or look for a decent sect 8 housing applicant. That's guaranteed money because they only pay a small portion of it. In my thirty some years as a landlord I've rented to a couple of them, it works out pretty good if you can find decent people. I'll probably start showing it the start of next month. Then I'll spend the summer paying back my debt so I don't have to go through such a tight budget over the holidays. You talk about honkering down, lol, lucky I had so much food I wouldn't have known what to do with it all and I still have lots of it.

Why did you lose income?

Last year after my son and his girlfriend had problems and she moved out and he suffered a mental breakdown. He's doing much better now after seeking help, he has even managed to go back to work for awhile. But for four months he lived there and wasn't working. I wasn't eligible for the government's rent program because the state put a rule in place on the money that the person who was behind in rent had to prove that moving forward they could pay the rent. Sort of sucked really, if the landlord lost the money they should have been able to just plain get it back, that was the intent of the whole program. You couldn't evict anyone but in reality I wouldn't have evicted evicted him anyway, he was my son and he was suffering a mental breakdown but none the less I figured he'd end up back with her, which I was right, if I gave him papers but I had no lawful right to serve him papers. When they lifted the no evict mandate for about a month that's exactly what he did do, moved back in with her somewhere else.
To be honest with you though I did struggle with the aftermath of it all. That was the side of the duplex I raised them in. It was really hard to even go over there and witness the mess left behind. I had all these feelings of the loving home we were being washed away by the devastation, you know it was like how could one tarnish the memories or disrespect may be a better a word, what it once meant to us. It wasn't just the stuff left strewn all about but there was a couple holes in the wall, one rather large, because basically my kids don't hit women so when she made him mad enough he hit the wall. The walls were just filthy, I mean filthy, I can't emphasize filthy enough. Then there was the damage to a brand new stainless steel refrigerator I bought, four years old and the front dented all to pieces...and the pocket door, well I can't even go there describing it but it will take some work trying to get it back to half way decent looking. He was never the cleanest of my two sons, they actually were popular opposites in that regard but she also was a super slob. That was the reason she didn't have custody of her kids when he ran across her after years of not seeing her since high school. I knew it before I rented to her, I have pictures of their first apartment and they are horrendous. But they promised to keep it clean and even said I could come over and make sure they were....but that ultimately ended up accusing me of trying to interfere in their life....so I had to let it go unless it got so bad it was on the verge of being a health issue. She's also one of those people that never see's any fault in themselves, never ever, ever, ever....so she can find an excuse to blame just about anyone else for every shortcoming.

My house has it's own quirks being a hundred and twenty one years old. Keeping those quirks dressed up is quite the job, mix that with the mess, the emotions involved, etc., it was baby steps to move forward. Of course getting them to come and sort through the rest of what they were going to take vs throw out came with it's own challenges also, as a matter of fact this last Easter I finally got them to get the last little bit scatter about over there. But getting them to pick through it all through the winter did remove a lot of the debris that was in my way helped get me to stand back and look objectively at the task at hand, it didn't look so overwhelming. I did the biggest challenge first removing a what they call popcorn coating on the hallway wall leading upstairs with it's original wallpaper underneath to get at a crack developing underneath, once I got that done it makes everything else look like a breeze. The second biggest challenge I couldn't deal with right away, which looked like a massive hit by something that crush in the wall, I'd have to take that entire section out and replace it with drywall....so I did the living room last week in between working on the hallway wall. It's done except working on the pocket...but the woodwork I usually do last anyway. It's looks nice with a fresh coat of paint, inspired me enough to knock out that wall in the bedroom and get the drywall hung. Tonight I will probably be in good enough shape over there having patched a couple of fine cracks in the dining room to proceed to paint that while I am waiting through the process of taping and mudding the drywall in the bedroom. But I am emotionally getting over the carnage and moving forward, hopefully my son will continue to get stronger emotionally, it was just a whole lot to handle to tell you the truth.
There was other stuff emotionally, like what seemed or appeared to be a lack of remorse, especially on her part. I think she was relishing in some thoughts it was beyond something I couldn't handle materially on my own rather than finding any emotional barriers I was having. Once she witnessed the process of myself moving forward, well, I am not afraid to admit somethings, and sometimes, when it comes to somethings, I am just so bad to the bone. In that regard it was all due to the fact that I was always one of those girls who was considered like just one of the guys, those guys taught me a ton of stuff when I first bought this house and they taught me well. I have to admit though it was nice having the whole place to myself all winter, the loss of the money not so much, the solitude was nice though.

All this is probably way past your attention span....but hey...lol.

I think I got the gist. lol I'm glad your son is better.

I've had a couple of doozies before. Once was the family of mechanics....it took a lot of pre cleaning the carpets with a shampooer and then a professional to get the grease footprints of the carpets. I didn't want to toss them because they were relatively new, actually brand new when they moved in. Then there was the old lady, her daughter and her two daughters....that ended up then the daughters son, they a nephew sex offender, then the daughters illegal immigrant boyfriend finally I said that's it you can all go after they got their gas turned off and the city said I had to get it turned back on for them. (It happened during my four year inspection requirement and he found they had the gas off). He said turn it back on or I'll condemn the place, I told him if he could get them out faster than me go for it. I wasn't about to turn on and pay the gas bill for three adult men. The daughter though was a hoarder, she was a neat hoarder but when the city condemned the place the old lady's relatives just came in and threw the stuff on the floor and took out the furniture. I showed up to see if they were out and here was this seventy some year old lady sitting there with a broom looking at me telling me she'd get it cleaned up. I felt so bad for her, I told her I'd go get my kids and we'd help her. It took my kids and their friends, six of us all together, nearly five hours to take all that stuff outside. There was so much stuff in there you couldn't see one speck of floor from top to bottom of that place. She sat there and told us what could go on the porch and what to throw out, it all had to be out before the inspector came back otherwise he was going to paddle lock the doors and hang a condemned sign on it. The daughter, this is so funny, because like I said she was a hoarder and hoarders just can't let go, anyway the next morning I see her going across the park to the duplex, I go up there and she's having a severe asthma attack, can barely breathe after seeing the pile her mom told us to toss. That's what she gets for not taking care of it in the first place. So yeah I've had a couple of interesting things transpire being a landlord but nothing even comparably as dirty as this.

I forgot to mention he is doing much better, he stays on his medication. When he got a job recently and held it for two weeks I finally removed these markings he made on the pillars outside. They each had an emotional feeling behind them, some good, and one that was a negative....but for him to do that, because I am such a stickler about my yard it had to have been deep, emotional stuff....they drove me crazy being there for months so when the first opportunity arrived I couldn't wait to go out there and clean them off, it was freezing out so it wasn't a easy task....he noticed immediately but I think he felt touched that I somehow knew he was conflicted inside and he appreciated that I saw that and cared enough to leave them there even though he obviously knew it drove me up a wall seeing them.