Lauri Ann's New Life

If you had been following along before now, then you know we had to leave Capitola. I will tell you, I love mobile home living, but never again unless you own the land underneath it also. I owned that mobile since my late husband died in 1995 and in the end, it wasn't worth two cents. I don't mean the actual value, like a dollar price, (although it wasn't worth 2 cents that way either) but the way these lawyers are able to help park owners cheat people out of their homes is amazing. With the park owner of the Surf and Sand, because so many people in there are older and really low income, it seems impossible to stop him whether he does things legally or illegally. I can't tell you how much money was pooled together to try and stop him, how many of us begged the City for some kind of help, and all of it was to no avail.

But now, we have gone the complete opposite as far as scenery is concerned. Oh, we're once again living in a mobile/manufactured home, but the land is part of the deal, along with the Homeowner's Association. What I mean is the "culture shock" of going from living by the ocean, to living in the desert.

In one way when you drive through here, there is so much flat desert land and it seems so vast. No green. Then you go through another part and it's all beautiful, green golf courses, and homes like Beverly Hills. I look behind the homes across the street and see beautiful mountain tops with snow on them. The couple of plants we have in the rocks out in front of our house I wasn't even sure if I'm supposed to water or not. LOL.

And I can't believe I actually love it here! I don't know why. You spend time in the forest, you spend time near the ocean, and you just drink in the beauty. You can't help but love it. I drive by brown and sand, and more sand, and I have to look it up on "google" to find out what is to love here. LOL. For some reason I just do.

Besides feeling like a cat with 9 lives, I also feel like the Clampetts, who just picked up and moved everything to Beverly Hills (except they had money. LOL). I need to put a big "shout out" to my girlfriend Shirley in Capitola, and Tom's son Scott, who made it possible for us to do this. This is twice now Scott has been there for us when it came to moving from place to place. God Bless him. We owe you big time, Son. LOL. And Shirley, cocktail hour is definitely missing something here without you. Haven't even found a good bar yet.LOL. God Bless you Sweetheart.

Looking Down to Capitola Village

It's no wonder people hate to leave here. This picture was taken New Year's Day. The sun is out. People are walking their dogs. The temp is almost 70. The water is like glass, disappointing only the surfers. I walk my mother in her wheelchair along the cliff to enjoy the sunshine and the scenery.  We like to sit out there and drink up the sunshine, watch the people from afar, and every once in awhile see a beautiful classic car go by.

Just a few days before Christmas, the scene we came home to was this-
The workers are stripping out the asbestos before getting ready to demolish the two mobile homes across the street. The blue one on the left should have been gone a long time ago. The one on the right affected me much more than I would have figured. The family there used to bring their little kids on holidays etc. and they would at times join my kids when they were little for fireworks in the middle of the street, etc. That mobile had been passed down in the family, and now all it is is an empty lot and a memory. Mr. Reed, the park owner, had taken that mobile home by a Warehouse Lien Sale after raising the rent there by 400%. He demolished 3 mobile homes in here that week. Can everyone say "Merry Christmas"?

Empty Lots and Their Idea of a Brillo Pad

Since we quit working on our place when we realized we wouldn't be able to stay here, I figure this will be the fate of our home also.

So now we are looking frantically for a place to go. Money is short due to having to pay the increased rent all these months so we could stay here as long as we have. I'm looking for other possibilities around this area, and then have also been looking in SoCal or Vegas. Once again I turn my attention to Craig's List. LOL. Brokers have all kinds of listings on there, but more importantly to me, there are people who are trying to sell their homes themselves who are a little more open to negotiations than a broker might be. After going through all we've been through over the last 2, going on 3 yrs., for the first time in my life I am looking for something secure. I have decided we are all too old to have to be doing major moves every year. I just don't have the energy anymore, and we don't travel as light as we did when we were in our 20's. LOL.

old bar/new office

While we've been waiting to find materials we need to rebuild our mobile home, we've been packing and planning. Tom is the "engineer" type, so he's very good at drawing out a room, figuring dimensions, etc. Some of the furniture we have here is furniture that came out of the mobile home when I sold it, so we will just take it back and set it up similar to how it was before. I didn't realize until showing the place we're in to prospective renters, but some of the furniture we have now is just LARGE.

I have a couple of favorite pieces that mean alot to me as they have sentimental value, so I would like to be able to take them with us. Enter Tom. He has been taking the dimensions we have for the mobile home and measuring our furniture to see if it will fit and where. God Bless him, because it looks like it will work. We have decided to turn what used to be the bar area off the front porch into an office with it's own entryway.(The part that has the attractive (lol) green tarp).

condition of "office" at mobile (porch)

my office now not including bookcases

As you can see, I have a ton of stuff "stuffed" into my office where we live now. Tom has measured all pieces and says everything will fit including the couple of little bookcases I have that aren't pictured here.

In the livingroom I have a hutch also that is very important to me, but it looks like that's a "go" also. I am so happy! The only thing I see we can't put up in the mobile home will be the King size bed we've gotten rather used to sleeping on, but there is just no way! I will sacrifice going back to a Queen to get my dresser and his Armoire in. Once again, very oversized furniture when you consider if you buy an old mobile with the dresser drawers and everything built in.

If anyone has done this before, or knows of salvage yards basically all mobile home stuff, I'd love to hear. You would think with Capitola having a ton of old mobile homes that there would be a really good salvage yard over there. The one on 38th is great, but not much for a mobile home. So now you know what we're doing while we're waiting for materials to rebuild our mobile home. Never a dull moment. LOL

I've been spending most of the time packing, showing the place we're renting here, and looking for materials. When you're looking for free materials, you definitely have to be patient waiting for the things you're looking for to appear. I have joined Freecycle, the Santa Cruz chapter, figuring it would be great to be able to find some stuff on that side of the hill instead of having to cart things all the way from San Jose or Santa Clara. I have received a couple of responses to my ad for remodeling materials, but I am afraid we are poor as church mice so coming up with even the reasonable prices people are asking for materials is tough.

My watchdog who lives a couple of doors down from me in Capitola says it's been really quiet over there the last few days, so I guess the Perp is either laying low or moving into his own place long enough to leave us alone.

Masterbedroom closet doors ripped out

On Tuesday I was over at the mobile home in Capitola all day. I had missed a couple of measurements the day before that you don't realize you need until you're mapping everything out. I got the size of the master bedroom, but how deep are the closets? I had measured the width of the second bedroom, but got to talking about where a second bathroom was going to be, and forgot to measure the length of the bedroom. Dumb stuff like that. As we are here measuring furniture to see what will go where, I realized I missed the length of one living room wall and the width of the opening for the bathroom vanity.

We found the most delightful little locksmith in town. He's obviously been in his little hole-in-the-wall shop for a long time. I would hate to have to take inventory in that place! We had taken in the handle with a lock in it from a sliding glass door. This sliding glass door had always been the main entrance, and remember this mobile was built back in '61, so the lock was ancient. He was great. He had the lock re-keyed quickly and probably in better shape than it was originally, and gave us two keys for not quite $10.00. I was impressed, and as luck would have it, it's right next door to my girlfriend's bar in town. Nothing like a cocktail while you wait! LOL.

The Perp was supposed to have 2 of his workers come at 4:30 to pick up the last of his tools, etc. We waited until slightly after 5:00 and no one showed up. I called the policeman who had taken my report and who had come out on the trespassing call the night before. I let him know I didn't appreciate the fact that I was there by this guy's time and he didn't show up. I don't feel after him gutting my mobile home that he should be allowed to come and go "willy nilly" unsupervised. I don't know if it will do any good, but at least it's been reported in case he breaks in again. I had a long talk with my lawyer and just to file the forms for the deficiency judgment costs approx. $500.00. He says he needs a retainer of $1500.00 to do the paperwork, file the papers and have him served. Needless to say, that's going to have to wait awhile.

Yard torn up and overgrown

While we were waiting, Tom tore out a bunch of the brush, picked up a ton of nails, and tore down a fence that encroached on the neighbor's driveway. She had fought with the Perp so much about his stuff and her lot, she doesn't even come over to Capitola anymore, and has her mobile up for sale.

We came home to a "For Rent" sign in the front yard. I shouldn't be surprised. After all, I did give 30 days notice. It just seemed like he had the sign up rather quickly. LOL. I told him I would help get the place re-rented so I put an ad on Craig's List for him, as he doesn't do any computer stuff. It's a great place in a great location. He shouldn't have a problem getting it rented again.

Yesterday was sort of a "catch-up" day. I had let everything go here while I was taking care of things in Capitola. Tom spent most of the day looking to see what work was available over there, and drawing plans for the different rooms in the mobile. I got a text from my daughter. She's a manager at a Chili's in Moreno Valley. She said Chili's is looking for a General Manager for the Chili's in Capitola. What a coincidence, aye?

I got a couple of responses to my ad on Craig's List looking for anyone remodeling. One was a guy who has two bathroom vanities, one of which I thought I would probably like, but unfortunately they are both too big. One response was from a handyman that says he has flooring, etc. he doesn't need, and the other a retired contractor that has sinks, etc. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have. When I was over the hill on Tuesday we went to a salvage yard to have a look around. That was quite interesting, and a little more expensive than I would have thought. I don't think we'll be doing much business there unless it's for stuff we absolutely need and can't get anywhere else. He did seem to have a little bit of everything!