h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I found out this evening that I'm homeless... at least temporarily.

At the beginning of January I arranged for my house to be cleaned. It was somewhat short notice for my house sitter, but the cleaner was due to leave the state for a month and I, hoping for a timely discharge from this nursing facility, called the house sitter three days in advance, then waited to hear that cleaner mission was accomplished. The party consisted of the cleaner, J, her husband, and a mutual friend; they were shortly joined by friends of mine, neighbors from across the street.

What they reported back to me was that the house is uninhabitable.

Apparently, the house sitter let cats from next door have free access to my house by leaving the cat door open. The house was littered with cat feces, even on the kitchen counters, and the landlady's carpet was soaked with cat urine. The toilet is broken. My sofa is ruined, as are all the blankets and linens and pillows that were on the bed. All the papers on desks and tables were ruined, and after 11 months I hardly remember what they were. The cleaners wore masks, but J still threw up when she got home.

Today a home health nurse and her supervisor visited the house and the verdict was made official: the house is unliveable.
Now I am hearing about a discharge date in just a week or ten days, and I may have to be shifted to some assisted living here in Albuquerque while I try to organize a new dwelling place, unless I can find that place immediately. The idea of having to direct the packing and removal of my stuff from a distance of 150 miles exhausts me in advance. At least, I'm assured, monies will be made available, through Medicaid, to cover the cost of the diaspora.

The cats, my cats, on the other hand, are just out of luck unless I can very quickly find a new home and a way to move them here. This upsets me.

Tomorrow I'll try to find out what the officials found. I hope they condemn the place, so that my landlady can't rent it out before she spends a fortune to fix it. Did I mention that the house sitter is my landlady's daughter and that they both live next door?

I have no words...

Shocking lil

What GDZ said ...



Mol

Good grief. Absolutely shocking news Lil!

Oh no! That's awful.

How could anyone do that? It's just so irresponsible. And the fact you gave her three days warning in which she apparently didn't even bother to even go around and check the place out is just appalling.

That's appalling, I can't even imagine how someone would be so irresponsible, particularly with her mother's rental property. I hope you find a place soon, and can get your cats with you again.

This just brings tears to my eyes. I am so sorry for you.

Awful. Just awful.

Lil, I am flabbergasted, dismayed, furious and very concerned. I guess my question now is whether not not your landlady is a party to it or also a victim.

Seeing as the landlady lives next door, with her 35+ un-housebroken cats, and seeing as the house sitter is her daughter, also living next door, it is extremely difficult to understand how Landlady could have been unaware of conditions in the house I rent, unless they are both so inured to conditions in their own home that they saw nothing amiss.

Because why would anyone in their right mind allow a rental property to become unrentable and destroy a part of their income?? I spoke to one of the official visitors this morning, and she says the odor of cat urine is pretty unbearable and the building will likely be condemned.

And that sets off magma bursts of rage, when I think of how nice my home was, cosy (albeit cluttered) and sweet smelling from the yankee candles I always burned in the evening... and what it must be like now.

Suddenly I'm a bag lady, with rilly rilly large bags, and I am frightened.

It'll be okay Lil, and those idiots will realise when you don't come back what they've lost.

That's really, really awful! Words fail me - are they out of their minds? Did they think you wouldn't notice, or something?

They are ignoramuses.

Buggaration, Lil.


I have no more words.