Were we too nice?

The days and weeks we waited for our official "kick him out of the apartment" day seemed to drag and drag. I was on my last couple months of pregnancy, work was wearing me out, and the four flights of stairs we had to climb several times a day to get to our temporary home seemed like mountains. Needless to say, we were past the point of being ready.

The day came, and we waited. Waited to hear that the Marshall posted the eviction notice on his door. Waited to get the official "its all yours". But, it didn't come. We followed up with the Marshall's office and at that point, not surprisingly, their office wasn't all that on top of things. He was backed up and the secretary couldn't give us any sort of time frame. More sobs.   

Tom, bless his heart, was a lot more forgiving during this process than I was. He called Mr. Wrong and agreed to help him move out. I was not so happy with this, I didn't think he deserved any help. Tom even payed for a UHaul and some how got some of our friends to help out too. They moved a bunch of his big stuff, but didn't really make a dent in the place. He knew he was supposed to be out by the date he signed to, but he wasn't moving with any sense of urgency.

The Marshall's office finally served the eviction notice, a week and a half late. We were notified, and relieved that there would finally be an end in sight. Mr. Wrong called us the same day and said he had just received the notice, but he wouldn't be leaving until the very last day possible, which would be another five days. I smile now thinking back on that phone call. It was the first that I had heard Tom actually raise his voice to Mr. Wrong. In Tom's words, "How could you do this to us, especially after my friends and I helped you move?" I could believe it, he didn't have any problem putting a pregnant girl on the streets. We of course explained things much more dramatically to him, but in my head it seemed justified. These five extra days we had to wait would seem like nothing to anyone else, but to us, it seemed like another 5 months. It was the middle of November at that point, and we had already scheduled an appointment with the contractor.

To his word, he did finally leave, but not until the last possible minute.

And he left us with this.

The next 6 months went something like this...

We decided that an in person conversation with Mr. Wrong was needed. He agreed to meet us outside the apartment on the street. It started off friendly, at least the exchange between Tom and him did. I just stood there angrily staring him down, I was pregnant and very upset. Tom so nicely explained that we had been trying to help him find a place, which was true, but he was being very picky. Tom spent many nights searching apartment listings trying to find him a suitable home. Turns out, nothing was quite right. Either the neighborhood wasn't good enough, or the apartment wasn't nice enough, and he really wanted to stay nearby. I guess I could understand, I mean he had been there for 13 years, but he had since August to find a place. He was basically being priced out of his neighborhood, but so were we. We would have liked to buy on our quaint tree lined street, but we just couldn't afford it.

It takes a lot for me to get upset, or at least visibly upset. I was  sort of trailing behind while Tom and Mr. Wrong walked down the block. I couldn't hear what they were saying over the bubbling anger in my head, but I assumed the conversation wasn't going anywhere quick enough. I just started yelling. Yelling at Mr. Wrong, telling him the obvious, he was living in our house, we were paying for him to live there while we lived on the streets. Of course we weren't really on the streets, our dear friends were taking us in, but some days it felt like it. He proceeded to yell back at me, quite a scene we caused walking down Washington Avenue. I laugh now thinking back on it.

A few more months passed by. I got bigger and bigger quickly, and more and more uncomfortable. We slept on anything ranging from the floor, to air mattresses, twin beds, pull out sofas, and even just sofas. Eventually we had to ship Addy off to Utah, we had a hard enough time asking people to take us in, let alone a dog. The Riches got in trouble for storing our stuff so we had to rent a storage unit for our junk for only $200 a month. It got difficult knowing that I only had the stuff that fit in my suitcase to keep me sane.  We had to iron and re-iron the same clothes week after week. I at least had an excuse to buy some new things, I didn't fit into much for long periods of time.

By August we had stayed in at least 11 different homes of our friends. Some of them more than once.
Cliftons, Pulfer's, Palmer's, Butler's, Romney's, Moore's, Reynold's, Esposito/Heywood's, Polizotto's, Lindsay's, Riche's. I am sure I am forgetting some.

Things hadn't changed by August either with Mr. Wrong. After one particular phone call, we knew we were in for the long haul. In New York, tenants have crazy rights. They become legal occupants of a space if they are there over a certain amount of time, regardless of a contract or ownership. He became aware of this law at some point and told us in so many words that we would have take legal action if we wanted him out of the apartment.

Imaginably, this wasn't great news. We had heard of cases like this taking years to resolve.  But we didn't have years, we had a couple months before there would be three of us. And we were growing very tired of no privacy, uncomfortable beds, eating out, and walking on glass all the time. Don't get me wrong, we owe the world to those that put us up, but after a while it begins to wear on everyone.

We found a lawyer, discussed our options, and decided to take him to court. We left it all in the hands of our lawyer. Our hopes were high, but let down quickly when we were told we needed to wait at least a few weeks for her to schedule the date. After we didn't hear from her after three weeks, we called and it shouldn't have surprised us at that point, but she "misplaced" the paperwork, and never sent it in. Great, add another month of waisted money and uncomfortable living to the pot. Sob. Sob. Sob. The soonest the court date at that point could be scheduled was for the first of October. And even then, this didn't automatically grant us the rights to the apartment. It could then go on for months after that.

Things started to look up a bit when a dear friend in the ward asked us if we wanted to stay at her place for a month while she traveled to Europe. This was music to our ears. A three bedroom apartment to ourselves for a month? It saved our sanity. We also ended up staying with her for at least another two months later down the road. She liked the company, and we liked not having to move ourselves around every weekend. She had enough space that we could kind of take over her living room at night, and when I had a day off in the week, I had the place to myself.  I don't think I could have made it without her.  I felt bad for her  too. There were many nights she had to listen to my sobbing or yelling. Things just didn't seem to be happening for us, at least not quick enough.

The court date finally arrived. I made sure I wore the tightest shirt possible just so that my belly would be front and center. Mr. Wrong didn't have a lawyer representing him, and actually agreed to settle out of court. We settled on him moving out in a month, on the condition he didn't have to back pay us the $8,000 he owed us. The judge must have had sympathy on us too, she apparently didn't have a reputation for signing favoring landlords, she usually sided with tenants, giving them at minimum 2-6 months to vacate. We got ours down to a month, I guess the bump won her over. Our lawyer couldn't believe it, she insisted that someone was looking out for us. If that was true, it seemed a little late for that. He was to be out by November 12th if I remember right, and if he didn't the Marshall would drag him out. At least that's what we thought. 

Should I have gone with my gut?

We set a closing date. Middle of April if I remember right, and told our landlord we would be moving at the end of the month. Surely by then our tenant would be out right? He had known since last August the place was for sale and people would be moving in.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. Sitting in the conference room looking across at our lawyer and the lawyer representing the seller. Somehow I knew. I knew it wasn't going to work out. They handed the paperwork over to me to sign, and as I did, the tears fell down on to the paper and smudged the ink. Our lawyer could clearly sense I was upset so after it was finalized he stayed to give us some words of advice. He said, "Don't wait. Start the legal process now."

But we waited. You see, I wasn't the only person involved in buying this apartment. The other, was more optimistic than I. So we gave him some time, too much time.

Meanwhile our move out date was fast approaching and we were no where near getting into our place. Dozens of phone calls were made to, lets call him, Mr. Wrong. Sometimes he answered, sometimes he didn't. Each time he did answer he said he was looking for a place and had a few leads. This same conversation happened each week over the course of the next month or so.

We packed up all of our stuff, including 2 suitcases and left our cozy apartment. Little did we know how valuable something like privacy would become, unfortunately we realized all to quickly . Riches offered to let us store our stuff in their pseudo basement, the Romneys let us crash on their floor, and the Cliftons took our dog, while we straightened things out for the next couple weeks. We still didn't have any progress after the two weeks was up, so we then moved ourselves to the Riches futon for a week.  Work wasn't going so well for me at the time, I had just switched stores and I wasn't as welcomed as I was in previous locations, so being around Katie gave me daydreams of being a mother. "Coincidentally" those wishes came true, although we are not sure when, or where, they did. Although I wasn't aware of it at that point.

After that week, we stayed at Dom and Katie Moore's house for the weekend, then moved over to the Butler's house for a week. The Butler's were going out of town and needed someone to dog sit and take care of their house. We jumped at the chance for some space. Next we moved to the Cliftons for a couple weeks where we met back up with our dog. She was already at this point starting forget me and preferred hanging out with Sara and Rusty than me. It broke my heart.

One afternoon while hanging out on their couch I turned on The View. I don't remember what those crazy ladies were talking about but all I remember is I started crying, no bawling. I knew it wasn't a good sign and by that point we had changed our minds about wanting a baby. I mean come on, wake up Beans, you are homeless. I ran our to the drugstore and took the test. Yes, two pink lines appeared. I called Tom crying. What were we going to do?  What if we didn't get in our apartment, would I have to move home? A million scenarios went through my head, none too comforting.

During all of this believe me, it did occur to me that maybe we should rent an apartment. But you see, we were paying a mortgage, and maintenance fees, none of which we were being reimbursed from our tenant. We couldn't afford another $1500 in rent on top of what we were already paying. In the end it might have actually saved us money being we had to eat out every meal and pay for a cab every time we moved houses. But we didn't think long term at that point. We were still thinking short term. Surely he would find a place soon. I mean, it had been almost two months already.

In the beginning....

we were optimistic. The place was inexpensive and all of our friends had what seemed to be an "easy" time getting a loan, closing, and getting in. Unfortunately, the stars didn't align for us.

A day after our offer was accepted, we ran to our bank and began applying for the mortgage loan. We scraped together a down payment from various sources, and deposited the funds into our account. Unlike most places, I don't know if it is New York specific, or what, our bank needed to know exactly where the money came from, how long it had been in our account, etc. Needless to say, the money wasn't from our savings. In addition to that specific interrogation, there are also a lot of co-op specific issues that arise when going through the mortgage process.

Every week it was the same story. I would call our mortgage broker, she would tell me, "we need this or that signed, now we need this document, or I'm just waiting on this paperwork to get back to me." We dealt with  this for literally 6 months. Finally, in February, they phoned us saying it was complete, it was ready for closing, time to set up the meeting with our lawyer. YEAH! FINALLY!!.

Oh but wait, the day before we were supposed to close we got another phone call, this one with not as great news. It went something like this

"I'm sorry Mrs. Bean, we weren't able to verify that the funds for your down payment were in the bank long enough before you applied, and some of the sources you received your money from, we don't accept. So I am sorry, we are denying your loan."

I said something like this.

"What? after 6 months of dragging us along, that is it? what do you mean you don't accept where our money came from, it isn't laundered, we borrowed it from our parents."  Sob. Sob.

The crying didn't help or make a difference.

At that point I didn't know what to do. Luckily someone from work recommended a mortgage broker from another bank that supposedly could get things done "fast". I called her that day, and to her reputation, it took less than a month. (Fast for New York time).

We called the seller and told him we were ready to close. We did think it was a bit odd that he hadn't even bothered following up with us, now we know why. He said that because it took so long for us to get everything together, the value of the apartment had increased an additional $50,000 and he was adding it to our initial offer price. Clearly that didn't work for us. Our lawyer gave us some options, and we decided that we would sue the seller if he tried to raise the price. The seller then came back with the worst scenario possible, and we took it.

"OK then, the tenant is your responsibility."

August 2004

Wow! Hard to believe that three years ago we started the process of buying our first apartment. What is even harder to believe is that we have only been living in it for a year and a half. I will explain, but it might take a couple days to do it, it is a long story.

We had contemplated buying an apartment, not hard though. Most of our friends were doing it, and it seemed like a good and easy way to make some money to pay off Tom's student loans. Unlike most of our friends, we only checked listings every now and then. Our friends Chris and Brooke had recently purchased a home on Sterling Place in Prospect Heights. We didn't know much about the neighborhood except that it was home to Tom's Restaurant, one of our favorite breakfast joints, but it seemed like it was up and coming. They called us one afternoon to tell us there was an apartment for sale around the corner from them, literally, for a really good price, almost unheard of at that point. We went one rainy August afternoon to check it out. Not really sure what we would find. Well, here is what we found.

I don't think I have ever seen someone with as much clutter as this fellow, Mr. Wrong. This is a view looking into the kitchen and the open door is the bathroom. If you look above the clock you will also see a large hole. This was storage that went above the bathroom that made the ceilings really low. Pretty weird. If you look directly above the kitchen the ceilings are dropped an extra three feet, also weird.

The gorgeous bathroom, definitely an oasis. Note, low ceilings, and a great light fixture.

This is a view to the bedroom. Notice the accordion door with the dirty plate of glass above it. The door and wall is also on a diagonal. I also love the oddly placed tin can light on the ceiling.

His dimly lit bedroom. The walls actually sort of glow from the window outside. I thought he was always watching T.V. And the curtains, I don't really want to know what those symbols are.

Well there are many more pictures that I could share, but unfortunately it is hard to make out what they are. Believe it or not, we actually didn't offer right away. I know I know, how could we let this gorgeous lofty like apartment get away, but we almost did.

It took us a while to think about it. We even checked out a couple other places in the area. To be honest, I don't even know why we decided to buy it thinking back. I hated the kitchen, I was really scared at all the work we would have to do on it, and I wasn't quite sure how we were going to pay for it. But after all we offered, and they accepted.

Then it began, the journey from hell.