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Losing a house. True emergency. Please read.
10 years ago
General
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Commission Info and Prices:
FlyingFire.net
TOS:
FlyingFire.net .
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Well... fuck. I never thought that I'd be writing anything like this, but my roommates and I are all in a rather dire situation with the house and bills. I can't make myself do a GoFundMe because I feel like it's not the right way for me, personally, to do things. I would rather do something that gives back to the person(s). So I'm going to do that right here, right now... but before I do, here's what happened.
The house is under the gun. Some things got missed during the rebuilding of my basement apartment while I was in Ohio with Dark, at FurReality. While I was in Ohio for nearly four weeks, I took the time to get some things straight while things happened here in Minnesota. Although, unfortunately, a lot of things were all taken on all at the same time in my downstairs apartment.
I came back to find that multiple projects were happening all at once, in the amount of time that I had been gone. Things had gone hardcore, and the construction led to some bad things being found out. This led to bad things happening to the funds because of those discoveries. The kind that make you wonder how anything was working in the first place.
In other words, there was black mold, no insulation, pipes were in improper areas. Such as the pipe from my tub apparently just sitting over the hole, and in no way connected to anything. The wiring was completely awry and it's a miracle there wasn't an electrical fire... and that's just some of the issues. Mid way through this renovation, the money ran out, and some bills caught us unprepared. Now, if we miss this next payment on the house, we're out, and it's only in a few days... being the 31st.
I'm not sure what else to do, other than fling my commission doors so wide open that the door jams into the wall. We need 2K to stay in our home, and I'll be streaming so people can see that there is progress happening, that I am working, and that I'm doing everything that I possibly can to do all I can for the house and for you guys as well. As for anyone who currently has a commission with me, I'm working very hard on all of them as well. I'll be posting scans and such later on today. When I have the funds, I will be making a large mail run to send everything out to be mailed.
Here's hoping things work out. I've changed a few things on my Commission Site: http://flyingfire.proboards.com/thr.....sionary-prices . Also, please reference the site to see my Halloween deals! :3 There's still a little time to have fun with the season. ^__^
I'm opening for anything and everything, including my highest tier commissions.
Just comment below in comments to claim one, note me or poke me on my Skype, which is carrieakrueger.
All Slots Open!
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It's unfair to you. Completely. You shouldn't do it. So people who are commissioning you really aren't helping you personally. They are helping your landlord through you. Am I the only one who sees this as wrong? How are others here okay with it?
I think a lot more people would help you hit that $2000 goal if you took that money and got yourself an apartment and moved out.
The reason I posted the above at all was to get (hopefully) some discussion going between you and your friends, both internet and real life. And I realize some of your friends live in that house with you. This isn't a "your friends don't matter, save yourself" argument. It's an argument over "accountability". Did you sign a contract marking you as responsible? No. It isn't your house. Your landlord made a series of mistakes and it's up to your land lord to clear them up. It is not your responsibility. It is not your room mates responsibilities. Do you or your room mates believe that your landlord will learn from this experience? Has your living together been pleasant or stressful to the point of insomnia on a weekly and sometimes daily basis? Will this change if you drum up the money? Is that fair on you or your room mates?
As for your landlord. It's his responsibility. Sure, help is appreciated but even he must know it's not up to you. It's up to him. He should be asking for money, or taking on a second job, or getting a loan with the bank, or applying for government assistance or any other number of things. But that's for him to do. Not you.
This is exactly my opinion of the situation as well... however.... It is currently her only place of residence, and the same for another of the tenants. They have pretty much nowhere else to go should this living situation go bust.
If I had the money, I'd move Fire out here to live in a place with me, since housing is far, far cheaper out here, but unfortunately I do not have the funds to do that.
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As an update here... I honestly am not sure how to react to all of this. On one hand I see a lot of people who genuinely care about me, don't want to see me in a bad place and want to help... which I thank you all for. You don't know how much it means to me to see that here. It's amazing to read through. But... on the other hand, I tried to keep this journal short, readable, and with enough info to let people know what's going on. I think I failed and people are attacking the homeowner.
t's a long story. A lot goes into it, but I well go into it for the sake of fairness. Especially seeing as how initially, all the homeowner wanted to do was help some friends, and have a place to call his own. It's no secret that I came out of my parents and damn near dove into the place I'm currently at. My parents house is one of those constantly in progress kind of places, and with my parents getting older, it wasn't getting the care and upkeep it needed, plus a bit of hoarder instinct and you get some interesting things happening... in even a relatively large house like my parents.
They always had projects, so tools, paint and more were always laying all over. No to mention the tables, chairs, desks, etc always had.. things on them. It was messy. It was smoky, and people were always walking through the house. It was never quiet, there was always talking, yelling, doors slamming, and a lot more things.
During one point, I simply stopped functioning. I didn't know how to work around the stress of having so many people around, so much clutter, so much smoke in the air and no privacy. I ended up locking myself in my room as well as I was able, and hid from the 'house world' as well as I could. It wasn't the best or wisest thing I could do, but it was what it was... friends kept me sane. I hung out as much as I could... especially with Griffin, Pat, Aerak, Kizith, Bear.. the furmeets were looked forward to with a fervor I hadn't felt in ages.
And a wild Derf appeared. It was sudden, out of the blue, random. He was contacting me asking to come to the furmeets. I was baffled by this, and wondered what was going on. Did he see me as a threat? Why would he ask permission to go to the furmeets? To me, this seemed odd. (To those that don't know, he used to come to the furmeets about six years ago before moving off in another direction. We'd stopped talking and basically took a break from one another, as things had become sour.)
I decided we should meet up and talk at the nearby coffee house called the Dancing Goat, ordered one of their amazing Hot Chai's, and waited. The man that walked in I almost missed. As in, I didn't recognize him. He was now baldin a bit. He was far thinner, and looked incredibly nervous.
He didn't see or recognize me, and moved right past. Amused, I watched him order, and smirked when he finally turned and saw me. If he hadn't been standing, I'm sure he'd have knocked a chair over from jumping. It was the first day of a renewed friendship. I learned a lot about him again and we started to talk a lot about moving.
That's when he tossed the idea around that maybe he'd buy a house. By this time, he'd met my friend James. I'd introduced them thinking the two world war nuts would get along great, and that at least it would be amusing to see how they would react to one another. One was very farmhand, one was very business oriented. They quickly became friends, and plans actually started on getting a house.
Little did I know that he was shopping for more than one person. He asked me to live with him, and I was excited by the prospect, but unsure that I sould be able to do so, given that I didn't have a job. He suggested I simply do my art, and I thought harder on it. When he and James knew each other well enough, he invited James to live with us. I was reluctant. I had never met James in person, and I didn't know if I could live with someone I had not even met once. Skype is one thing, and real life meetings are another.
Irregardless, plans were made, and we all conversed deeply. The plan would happen. We would all be roommates. I was optimistic, and when we finally got the house, I was ecstatic to move in and have a whole level to call my own. Chris had a room upstairs, James had a room across... and I had the entire downstairs apartment.
Then Anthrocon came I had to leave for awhile, and though I was excited for the con, I was nervous about the repair job that my kitchen needed. I tried to shrug it off, but I couldn't quite. They tore down the kitchen ceiling when I was gone, and I came back to see that I suddenly had no ceiling, and one hadn't filled it's spot. I inquired upon this and asked when it would be fixed, since during my stay at Anthrocon with Tenpin, Griffin had temporaily moved in to help, since his home was busy undergoing ascessment.
I learned that help was coming and that his father would be the one to look at it. I let it be, seeing as his father was the one who had pretty much built his lake cabin in Upper South Long, so I had faith that he could help put up a ceiling. That's when I found out, later on, that Griffins residence had been condemned. He would have to stay with us. I fought the idea, because three was what the house was built to hold.. not four.
They later on went ot go and get James. I held out hope that they might be able to fix my ceiling when they got back after a day or two of rest. I debated doing it on my own, but I didn't have the money, know how, or resources, so I was forced to wait. I got to meet James in person for the first time just before the furmeet. He was dressed for travel, that was for sure, but his clothes were worn, hole filled, and I had a hard time trying to imagine why he would keep them, but I knew his funds were all invested in moving, so I let it go. After all, first appearances rarely tell you everything about someone.
James dog, Athena was sweet and shy. a shepard with the heart of a meek mouse. Griffins cats came soon after and they were a handful and a half, leading to me watching over them, then parting them, and keeping one in my area so that I could watch him while Whiskers, the semi-evil kitty, lurked upstairs in upheaved fury at having been moved from his home and bathed as soon as he arrived.
Getting to the point, here, Chris wanted a house of friends because he knew he couldn't have a full on house without some help. In his want to help, he undertook projects, and they drained his resources bit by bit. His father, who said he' help, decided abruptly not to help, and others fell back as well. We still had help from friends both old and new, and I saw some progress take shape.
Lastly is the project that happened while I was gone this October. I went to FurReality, and to see my friend Dark. An early birthday present of sorts to him, and a relaxer for me. What could go wrong? I was there for FurReality, and had a splendid time. Darks place was lovely as well. Seeing him is always something I look forward to, and I constantly threaten to bring him up to Minnesota to keep. Heh.
the project that was supposed to take place was one for the kitchen. I was tenative about it, but I knew what I wanted to see. So I went through picking the colors, tiles, etc. I even had a wall color all picked.. but the project became one that turned to the bathroom. This became the point of focus and I knew there was no way out of it, so I went with it. This is where the real troubles began. In their eagerness, want to give me a real bathroom, and limited time, a lot happened, and a lot also fell apart.
As everyone saw, written above, there was mold in the bathroom... black mold, and it had been making me sick when I was in the downstairs apartment. When they tore out the bathtub to fix a pipe, they found a whole host of other dangerous issues, and thus work began in the bathroom. I have to say that I had no idea that a bathroom could be such an expensive project, take so long or cause so much duress.
I see parts in both arguments. I am not the homeowner. I am not obligated, I haven't signed anything... and on the other side, I see my friends pouring their all into a home, a place to be. I see them doing all they can to do something nice and worthwhile. Perhaps I'm too innocent and seeing this in a way that others don't... but do I see mastermind manipulators? Are they tyrants, plotting, etc? No; they're just people. People I trust enough to live with, no matter how irksome they can be from time to time. No one can say they're perfect. No one is. I'm not going to bat for them as much as I'm trying to give everyone a bit of insight to them.
A great many of you have messaged me on FA, Skype, comments, shouts, called, texted... I have been a busy kitty trying to answer everything. o.o;
If you all have more comments, questions, concerns, etc, feel free to tell me or let me know. I can and will explain more in more detail.
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Now, I perfectly understand where our land-lord comes from when it comes to his gripes about me. Yes, I am a bit lazy. I tend to gravitate more towards things that I enjoy, or make money then the polar opposite. But when the chips are down, and the situation requires. I have stood up and tried to move mountains. That is who I am, and unfortunately, that's not what our Land Lord is seeing. He just see's it as a refusal to help with ABC, when in fact, I'm trying to take care of DEF. This is just confirmation bias in play here. Don't go ranting at the guy for it, because everyone here suffers from it at some point or another, and in some way or another.
Now, I know the sentiment here, it kinda rings of an old horror film with the house ghost chanting "GEEEET OOOOOUUUUT!", but me and FlyingFire aren't exactly in the greatest situation to do that, and even if we did, right this second, we'd lose a friend, and become the bad guy to many. But staying here could result in us being homeless, or stressed to the point of health problems. Neither option is ideal. It's a choice between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Unless someone has a third option for us to take, me and FlyingFire are out of ideas, except to baton down the hatches, and ride out this storm as best we can.
Stop defending this person when he's clearly out to scam you out of your money and become a criminal. This is not what I would call a "friend". The "lease" alone tells me he's absolutely crazy. I guess if you decide to wait it out, best of luck, but don't come crying to people on here when it all goes down the shitter.
He shouldn't have started renovating any more than the moldy bathroom before making sure that he was financially stable, and had the money for the rest of the renovation saved up.
I truly feel that there isn't a big difference between what normally happens (paying rent) and being asked if you could give a little more. Nor is there anything wrong with that as long as one thing is true IT IS A LEGIT REQUEST. Or to put it more plainly YOU CAN SAY NO. As long as these statements are true, I can see nothing wrong with that, normally.
But Considering he forced this issue(in spite of the finding the health hazards and problematic construction faults which should have been found by any home inspector worth anything. But that was his fault for not wanting to hire a home inspector not yours or your other roommates fault) by forcing a renovation while not having the money for the basic mortgage payment in the first place. You and your roommates are kind of caught in a catch-22 situation.
On one hand you are facing homelessness and let's face it homelessness in a Minnesota Winter is not really an option I'd suggest.
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On the other you kinda have to help a jag-off who forced himself into this position with no regard for the other people in that house.
I can still remember the discussions you, tank, myself and he had where he whined that "...everything I want is illegal..." when we tried to inform him on the law.
I have one question why did he want YOU to make the GoFundMe? Why couldn't he do it? Maybe because he didn't want to give his Social Sec. Number out? I recently found that out about GFM.
I don't know what to say, but I hope that this turns out for the best and you will always have a bed to stay here if you need it my friend.