A move is inevitable

I have been living at my current household for almost 6 years, I moved in November 9th, 2013. It was just my bf, his mother and his schizophrenic brother. I had gotten a job down the street with his friend and traveling 80 for work at a minimum wage would not be convenient.

My son and I picked up our stuff and uprooted our lives. It was the best thing I could have done for the both of us.

Anyways, during this time, we have been here, there have been issues with the home. As far as I have been aware of, the landlord has not made any updates or offered to fix issues we have. I know my M-I-L restroom leaks, so I can only imagine the extra water we're paying for our bill. I know the water in the front, which is where we can shut off the water, leaks too a little in the front, and I know my M-I-L already bought and changed the faucet to try and avoid the leaking, it's better but still a small issue.

A while ago a pipe broke and he had a huge problem in our living room because of the leak. Things got messed up but I convinced my M-I-L to reach out to landlord. Someone came but they had to come like 3 times because there were still issues. We rented carpet cleaner because it would suck up the water. It was such a hassle and inconvenience we had to throw away damaged items.

Earlier this year the wooden porch in the backyard started falling and I suggested to my M-I-L to tell landlord to fix because it's dangerous to go outside. I was trying to set up for my son to practice pitching in the back yard, when that happened, I will not send him because we don't know if it can fall and hurt us at any moment. This was like Feb/March and it's now end of October and still it has not been fixed.

Our Kitchen Sink, fell in about last week of August, this time I urged my bf to let the landlord know because we cannot wash wishes and function well with that essential need for daily function. He sent notification with our rent payment to the landlord, with pictures and landlord replied with eviction letter stating that house has too many issues and rather have us move out by end of October to fix and sell. They mentioned that if we would have informed them of issues before they came up they would deal with them. But, we let them know about the porch and decided not to fix. How were we suppose to know the wood surrounded the sink was rotting and it would fall in. I don't know if there are termites but it that whole counter needs to be replaced to be able to be fixed.

This family has been here since like the late 80s, around 30 years paying rent every month without delay and lack of attention to their own home, causes them to ask us to move?

My M-I-L told me when she told them about garage door not opening, they told her that they didn't need it as much so they would not fix it. That door has not been open, I wanna say more than 20 years ago. I feel like this landlord has taken advantage of her not knowing her rights. She is in total fear of letting them know more issues in risk of rent being upped. She had mentioned this happening in the last. Since I have been here, rent has gone up 2-3 times and I get it, market changes but as rent goes up no repairs were made to the home.

With these news, the stress gets you and you worry about how alone you feel and everything that needs to be done. My son still has the rest of this 8th grade year and a change in the middle of the year can be detrimental to his grades and how he we succeed next year. I would rather not remove him from his school and allow him to finish. I was so worried when I heard the news and I cried, with everything I needed to go. My bf just said relax, let's find a place first and then we will worry about everything else. I felt so alone for a few days. I talked to my friends, and shortly after they started helping us with information on our rights and helping us by sending us homes to looked like. I no longer felt alone. With the information they were providing, I felt empowered and fortunate with their knowledge. It's crazy how you can go a whole life not really having friends you can trust  with your every day life and issues, but my baseball Moms and Dads have been the greatest friends and support I could have asked for.

Right now we are starting to go to open houses and see what we can do since we know no matter what we must move but there will be an internal fight within the household because this will finally we our own place but my m-i-l wants to take all her furniture and unfortunately we want to start new and do not want anything. We will see what happens but as we are seeing homes, they are smaller and there is no way it would be smart to take anything other than essecial. I hope she can sell and get a little cash in her pocket or something.

I remember when my parents lost the house in Fontana after 10 years, the stuff we had built up, it was a lot. Can you imagine 30 years?! The garage is full of stuff, nothing in there has been touched in over 10 years, I just see a headache to throw away. Wish us luck, I can't believe I'm in a similar situation again. My knees are not the greatest right now so I will need all the support to be able to assist. It's just me an my bf and my 13 yo son. I am hoping this is where we will ask for help once, it's time to leave.

To new beginnings....

New Day 2/1

Today I wake up at home on a friday and nowhere to go ...

My reality until yesterday was work, work, work.... I worked from home extra hours, I travelled to shows and worked extra hours and even my daily routine was  all work and no play because I always wanted to make sure everything was done and everything was good.

Everything changed yesterday evening, I guess the company is downsizing or something so they let me go. I was still in the middle of invoicing customers.  I just got back from a show and there was one more in march.  Right now what needed to done is making a list of what we needed to order from the new items we sold and ship out all the asap orders. Right now there's a lot of work, on my end. I felt weird not being able to finish what I began. I always made sure on my end everything was done right and always went the extra mile to make my customers happy.

In fact, I was their only contact. I spoke to one yesterday who ended up not being able to make it to the show and she told me that she was going to go and treat me to lunch. I created bonds with them because great customer service is what keeps them coming back. I suppose it's part of who I am. I am a people pleaser in a sense but because it's in their interest. I was always looking out for the company so I made our credit card authorizations, and our vendor application, and our price list, and some new policies to help us not be stuck for non payment. I mean, it was my job, to have the best interest and now I feel weird ... I have so much work to do and I can't do it. Is this weird that I want to finish, and I worry that someone who has never done this will do it wrong and that they'll lose money... I always went the extra mile, but will they??  I guess I shouldn't worry anymore but I do.

I was there since the beginning for 5 years... I did learn a lot. I had to self teach myself because we were all inexperienced and the owners were new to it as well.