Dispossession and the Flood

Lora continues to get rid of stuff.  She went through our closets and filled four plastic trash bags full with clothing we no longer need or wear for the Youth Ranch.  She has also secured a booth at echo consignment, and has taken a truck load of small tables and knick-knacks there for sale.  Although the house is by no means empty, it does feel lighter.

We also received a call yesterday saying our camper was ready to be picked up.  This came as a surprise, for reasons I will explain.

We had gone to the RV show in Boise a couple of weeks ago, with the express intent of buying a camper (at least I had the express intent of buying a camper).   With the exception of the most egregiously ostentatious rigs, we looked at every camper in the show and decided on a smaller Jayco that had most of the features we wanted.  We made the credit application, and of course, the foreclosure showed up.  Someday, I will tell the full tale of the foreclosure.  Suffice it to say that it was the result of an unfortunate concatenation of events -- the loss of my job at College of DuPage, the flooding of our home, the lingering national financial crises that sent the housing market into a tail spin.  We were a statistic, one of the screwed.

The flood itself was traumatic, turning our property into a lake.  The first photo was taken from the fire department boat, the one used to evacuate us from the house.  I have to admit, there's a beauty to it.  The ominous light, along with the bad cell phone photography reminds me of an impressionist painting, a Monet of disaster.

Although we were able to salvage some "stuff," the flood took pretty much everything we owned.  The hardest part, for me at least, was the books.  The second photo is my library, taken on the way out the door to the boat.  I haven't looked at these photos for a number of years now, and again, I have to admit there's a confusing beauty there, the ceiling lamp and the books reflected in the rising water, and the odd distortion of perspective that it causes. The water was to rise another foot, just enough to cover the exercise machine.   Some of the top shelf books were spared the flood water itself, but not the accumulated damp and the smell of fetid water.  Mold would follow, so all of them ended up in a heap destined for the dumpster. 

In the end, my new job in Salt Lake required a move and the sale of the house.  Even if we were dishonest enough to do so, the flood damage was obvious and couldn't be hidden.  We disclosed the flood, and I even sharpied the high water mark and the flood date on one of the support beams.  Then too, because the majority of the insurance money was held by the mortgage company and would only be released after the completion of repairs, we were wrapped in a classic catch 22.  Though the mortgage company insisted that we do so, we simply didn't have the cash on hand necessary to repair the damage, which far exceeded the insurance pay out regardless.  So, in the end, we had a $350K home that was eventually sold at auction for $80K, and even then it was not a particular bargain because a scant two years later, it flooded again.

Because of the foreclosure, we had been denied credit before, so it wasn't much of a surprise when we received an email from the credit manager requesting additional documentation.  Our lawyers at the time had spent over a year and half trying to resolve the issue with the mortgage company, to no avail, and ultimately the matter was simply left unresolved.  It lingers on an otherwise perfect credit report.  We can explain it, but we cannot provide the sort of documentation requested showing a "pay-off."  When we didn't hear back from the credit manager, we simply assumed the loan not been approved.

We assumed wrong.  We had moved on mentally and emotionally -- thinking more of dispossessing ourselves and using the proceeds from the sale of our house to buy a slightly larger rig as a full time dwelling -- then we received a call from the RV dealer, confirming our appointment to pick up the camper.   Surprise!  There was some back and forth, but ultimately the camper was ours.  It doesn't exactly fit the new plan, but it doesn't exactly push it aside either and may turn out to be a blessing.  It resolves one anxiety, the interval between the sale of our house and the the purchase of a camper, taking the pressure off the latter.

So, I take the pickup in today to get the tow package installed, and we pick up the camper from the dealer in two days.  Meanwhile, Lora continues to get rid of stuff.  She keeps testing to see if I am bothered by it.  Although I admit, the idea of dispossessing myself of my wood working tools, many of which I rescued and refurbished from the flood, does bother me some, but the rest of it does not.  We stood looking at the books I have accumulated since the flood, and I am not in the least troubled by the idea of selling or giving them away.  I reminded her that we had been dispossessed before, the difference being, this time it was voluntary.