Lauri Ann's New Life

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.

Playdough Tools

Even though we have discontinued work on our mobile home due to the upcoming move, I am still a huge fan of Craig's List.

Here in Santa Cruz, California, the unemployment rate is 6.1% compared to the national average of 5.8%. If you ask me, both figures are low compared to actuality. There are many people that don't get counted in those statistics, such as people who have already used all their benefits, but still can't find work. People such as myself that were 'self-employed' and businesses went under or closed, so they have no benefits. I'm sure here is not any different than many other parts of the country going through the same things.

As I scroll through the "Wanted" category of Criag's List, I come upon families after families that are asking for help for Christmas. These are usually parents looking for a way to bring Christmas to their children. Of course you always run across a person or two that are putting things on their just to try their luck, but many of the requests are sincere.

When I see some of the requests, even though I can't help financially, I do respond with places people can go for help, or ideas that may help them in their requests. One such post I came across was from a father in the area who was asking for another family that he might exchange gently used toys with. As he said, "gently used to you would be new to my kids". A lot of these families have barely money to eat on, let alone by Christmas gifts for their children.

One post I came across was from a woman with 3 children who didn't know where to turn. She had been to the Salvation Army who told her they already had done their Christmas sign-ups. Another charity that is popular in this area does gifts only for foster children, so there is no "getting on the list". I suggested a few charities I know about where she may find help, and then suggested the 'toy exchange' idea in her area. She and her husband are working on it. I happen to know in her area unemployment runs rampant. Hopefully this will help families that are too late for their children "to get on the list".

Little Tyke Table

Last post I showed you the new door and window that replaced that trashy looking tarp on the front of our home office. Yesterday, Nick called me to let me know he had 3 pints of paint to finish it. Today I will be calling him to let him know the paint won't be necessary. We are losing our home and will be out of here by the end of January.  Thank goodness we didn't spend a ton of money to fix up this place!

We had a pretty good case against the park owner for denying us tenancy, but now that the City has done away with all rent control leaving the park owner to charge what ever he chooses for space rent, there is no point in even fighting any longer. He has raised our rent over 300% and according to my lawyer, could raise it again every 90 days. I'll tell you, I just want to live in peace for a change. I don't know how these people who have been fighting with him for the last decade have lasted. Many of them didn't. And it's getting worse here everyday.

We've had quite a few just walk away from their homes. A couple people have died in the past. Their surviving family members swear it was the stress from the park that finally did in their loved ones. There are a couple now that have cancer and feel they don't have the strength to fight cancer and the park owner both, so they are walking away.

I have never known the old adage "there's no justice for the poor" as it has appeared in the mobile home park. The park owner and his lawyers have and are breaking laws at every turn, but there appears to be no way to stop him. People are either too intimidated to fight, afraid they will lose their leases, or they can't afford to fight the deep pockets of the park owner. His lawyers are known for inundating their opponents in paperwork until their opponents break. They are doing it to whole cities, what chance do little, low income, elderly people have? Not much I'm afraid.

I'll still be carrying on with the blog, but maybe with a little different angle and more tips. I'm not sure. We'll just have to see what direction God takes us. LOL

Start

Replacing the Tarp

We are now walking through a front door we got from Craig's List. To the left is what we started with. Talk about looking like "trailer trash", but it had to do until it became a top priority. I think the day it became a top priority was when my neighbor said how trashy our place looked, and she hadn't even been down to see it. When I responded she said "Well, that's what everyone tells me". I had just assumed everyone would understand rebuilding this place doesn't happen over night, but evidently I was wrong. LOL. For appearances sake, the outside is more important than the inside.

It also needed to take top priority as we are still fighting the park owner for tenancy, and expect to be going to court any day now. I surely don't want him to be able to use the fact that we are an "eye-sore" to work against us.

Primered, Ready for Paint

My whole point about this blog is how you can rebuild on a shoestring budget doing it from sites like Craig's List and Freecycle. I have to say that in our journey, we have met an angel or two. One is a guy named Nick Meltzer. We originally met him when we were selling the dessert flagstone in front of the porch. Come to find out he has all kinds of salvage stuff he sells very reasonably. We've been able to call on him more than once for things we needed. We got both the door and the window from him. The door is a solid core door, (very heavy) complete with deadbolt, door knob and all. Needless to say, he also has some primer and paint, which I'm waiting to see what he has now. In the meantime, Tom found a small can of white primer, and painted that on this last  weekend. (It actually looked a lot better before the primer, aye?)

We'll be painting the fence around the porch white, but I'm thinking about possibly introducing a 3rd color around the door and the window. The mobile is a very light gray siding with white trim. I was thinking about a teal maybe, for the door and the trim around the window, or do you think we should just paint it white? I'm open to suggestions.                                                

Hide-A-Bed & Cat Stand

As promised in my last post, here's a picture of our new (new to us) queen size hide-a-bed. The cushions are in great condition, and they tell me so is the mattress. We couldn't have gotten it any too soon as my oldest daughter spent a couple of nights here last week, and my son is coming for about 9 days on the 26th of this month. Not only are the cushions in great shape, but all that blue are custom made slip covers to just unzip and throw in the wash when necessary. Truly a steal at $35.00.

Tom finally got around to making a scratch pole for the cats. We had left over material from the carpet we had gotten off Craig's List, and from tearing down a lot of Larkin's mess around here. It turned out really great except the top peace is just a little too small and the cats hang out over the end. LOL. I think we're going to have to change that to just a flat platform that is a bit bigger in circumference. Tom's a little worried that if he does that, it will tip too easily, so we'll have to do a little research first.

Sign Outside One Resident's Home

The Surf and Sand Mobile Home Park has been in total chaos since the park owner and his attorneys sent out the lease packages, income verifications, notices, and intimidating letters. For homeowners in the park, the park owner has to give 90 days notice before he can raise any rents. For me, since I have never been accepted for tenancy, the park owner has tripled our rent and is calling it "Storage Fees", effective July 1. He and his attorneys still say we have no right to occupy my mobile home. The lawyer I spoke to says he can't advise me to pay it because the park owner could just keep raising it and still never give me tenancy. I paid what the space rent should be plus the utilities, and am expecting an eviction notice anytime now. They gave me until 5:00 last Monday to pay the difference and I advised them I wasn't going to, so now they have given me until 5:00 this Monday, the 18th to pay. I am going to have to retain a lawyer eventually, so lately I'm working on how to raise money for a "legal" fund. LOL.

Residents of Surf and Sand Beg for Mercy

So far we've had pretty good luck with the things we've picked up on Craig's List. The one place I would spend more money if I had it is on labor. I'm pretty excited about the carpeting we picked up. I finally saw it the other day laying in the living room and hallway. It's amazing how much homier the mobile home feels with just the addition of a carpet. Where I'm having a problem is getting it actually tacked down. I had advertised for a carpet layer on Craig's List, and of course took the lowest bid. We all know the saying "You get what you pay for". When the gentleman answered my ad, he sounded as if he could get it done right away. As it turns out he comes to me to do the carpet after he works another job putting on a roof somewhere else. By the time he gets to me he doesn't have much time left, either because he's got some emergency at home or because it's getting dark, etc. Evidently his bid was low enough not to motivate him to get me taken care of. This is a problem for us as we are under a time limit and are waiting for the carpet to get laid to move our furniture in. I've paid him in part already for the work already done, but it's like being between a rock and a hard place. I really can't afford to go now and hire someone else to get it finished. I had a long talk with his wife last night and she was going to help motivate him. LOL.

We just picked up a Queen size box spring and mattress that the people took such great care of it, it was wrapped in the original plastic when we went to get it. It's incredibly firm, which my old body will have to get used to, but it's great for my posture. Between the King that we just downsized from and this Queen, I've probably grown 2 inches since our last Queen size bed just by standing up straighter. LOL.

We should be out of here this weekend and living on the other side of the hill by Sunday. It wasn't as fast as I would have liked, but it is what it is. I'm having a heck of a time finding boxes for packing. When we moved in here we gave all of ours away. It's not like the old days where you could drive behind a few stores and pick up tons of boxes. Now they have them all broke down and bundled. It seems the ones listed on Craig's List are gone before I've even seen the ad. Speaking of which, I better get back to packing the boxes we do have. Time is ticking away.

Just remember, if you have a shoestring budget, the one place to spend the money you have is on the labor for things you can't do yourself.

Not everything goes according to the "rebuilding" plan that I have in my head. As I mentioned once before, a friend of ours is moving and is on the same timeline we are. He also has to be out by the end of the month. He's had a couple of yard sales and is to the point of just giving the rest of what he doesn't want away just to get rid of it. One of those things was a 10' metal shed. Originally I didn't know he was getting rid of it. I thought it stayed with the property. Since the Perp already had a plastic 10' shed at the mobile home, when my friend said he was giving his away I jumped right on it. Like most mobile homes all we have is a carport. There is no place for storing anything, least of all Tom's tools.

According to my friend, taking this apart was supposed to be about a one to two hour job. I have no clue what he was thinking. It took two guys almost 2 days to take it all apart. There were a million screws and square bolts to be undone and not only that, but my friend had painted the shed so all the screws were filled with paint. Not a job for the lighthearted. LOL. I just kept reminding Tom how much it would cost if we had to go buy a shed. That took a little bit of the sting out of it.

Now we're down to "crunch time". This is where I try to line things up in order for us to be out of here within the next few days. I want to leave enough time for the landlord here to paint, etc. before the new tenants move in. We have the carpet for the mobile. The very first thing I need is to get it laid right away so we can move our furniture over there. Unfortunately, this too has to be done on a shoestring budget as we don't have hardly any money left and we still need to get a truck. I put an ad on Craig's List and have had one offer that is at least realistic for us, and the guy seems to understand the position we're in. The other 2 offers I had were rates guys normally charge. If we could afford to pay that, I wouldn't have put the ad up. Helloooo. LOL.

Another thing I have to put my attention to is the fact that there is no door to my office. Where the green tarp is in this picture is where the Perp totally ripped out what ever door was there. I have no clue if it was a slider or what, but there is no frame, nothing, just wide open space. Needless to say I really don't want to move all my office furniture and computer in there without even having a door. Of course, now that's truly being "open for business". LOL.

According to the "rebuilding plan in my head" things fall into order 1,2,3... In reality it doesn't work that way. It seems when you get down to the steps of moving into the home you are rebuilding or remodeling, so many things have to happen almost at once!

If you live in the San Jose, Santa Clara, or Santa Cruz area and have items you would like to get rid of from a remodel or demolition job, we are still looking for appliances, a bathroom vanity (36" wide), a door to my office (81.5" x 67"), and laminate for the kitchen and dining area (approx. 170sq. ft). Will exchange for a ton of advertising if you are a company or have a business. Just contact me at lauribeamish@gmail.com

Kitchen/Dining Area

This is what our kitchen looks  like right now. Pretty friggin' empty. LOL. We now have kitchen cupboards thanks to a nice couple in Boulder Creek that remodeled their kitchen. These pics are how the cabinets looked in their house. Not bad, and the boys said when they picked them up they were still in pretty good shape. We picked up the cupboards, countertops, and kitchen sink. All we need now is the laminate for the floors and the appliances and we'll be "cookin' with gas". (If you remember that saying, you're probably close to as old as I am. LOL).

 None of the appliances came with the cupboards, but I actually saw an old fashioned stove like this one on Craig's List and was thinking at the time how cool it was. I think we need something a little larger though since we can't even get everything for a holiday meal into a full sized oven now. Something else I've been seeing is a lot of "double ovens" but I'm not sure I'm willing to give up the cupboard space. We would have to do a double oven and then a separate stove top. The kitchen just isn't that big. We've pretty much decided on a free standing oven and range. Tom was right in the fact that it is a lot easier to find an electric stove than it is gas, which is what we are set up for.

The sink that came with the cupboards is cast iron and heavy as can be. Even though we got a kitchen sink already, we may go ahead and leave the one that came with the cupboards just for the ease of it already being a part of the set up.



It appears we also got our carpet thanks to Zion Engineering, a demolition and remodeling company located in San Francisco. Lucky for us a lot of the stuff they rip out during a remodel, he posts on Craig's List either for cheap or to barter, etc. Tom said these guys were so good and so fast it was like watching a bunch of busy bees around a behive as they were tearing this place apart. Tom and Scott say they "think" it's enough carpet to do the whole mobile home. I'm hoping. Part of the carpet is an off white Berber. I'm not a big fan of Berber, but it will look nice in my office and in the extra bedroom downstairs. The rest of the carpet is regular carpet, again in an off white, but should be consistent for the living room, hall and our bedroom. I'll tell you, of all the colors of carpet, white is probably the last color I should have in my house. I am too busy and just not very good at keeping anything white clean. LOL. At the same time, with as small as the mobile is and as dark as it can be, white should be a good color for making it "feel" bigger. It will make a nice contrast under our dark wood furniture.

If anyone has any suggestions or offerings, feel free to leave a comment or contact me by email. We appreciate it.

Beautiful!

We took a trip over to Capitola to check on the mobile home today. Haven't been over there in almost 2 weeks. I was half afraid. I didn't know if the Perp had been back, and if he had didn't want to know what else he had done. Legally he had until tomorrow to get his shed off my lot, and it appears he did exactly that. (Darn it. Nice shed. LOL). He must have come and done it all in the middle of the night or something, because it would have taken a pretty big truck and my "Watchdog" never heard or saw a thing. Everything else though was as we had left it. Thank you God.

I had put a couple of ads on Craig's List asking for anyone who was remodeling and getting rid of their old stuff to please consider us. (In fact I need to do that again) This really nice lady emailed me and had me send her my email so she could keep in touch after my ad ran out (or got toppled with multiple others). She has been wonderful! She not only had a kitchen sink for us, but she has done a ton of remodeling, some even in a mobile home, so she is a great source of information for some of the stuff I want to do. God Bless her! You just never know when God will put just the right person in your path. LOL. I ran an idea for the bathroom shower over tub we have by her this morning, and she was able to tell me what would not work, which is the part I would like to skip (getting it wrong part).

It felt so good today going over there and putting the kitchen sink and garbage disposal where they will be, approximately. It actually helped get more of a vision of where everything will go, precisely what we need, and how much room to do it in. I know that it is a much larger project than what I am envisioning,
that nothing is ever easy, but I'm excited. It's amazing how one small step in the right direction can do that!
It was a great day for rebuilding a mobile home.

On top of us getting ready to move here, I've been helping out a buddy of mine that has to move also. Friday through Monday last, he had a huge yard sale. I've been doing some advertising for him, and then showed up early a few mornings to help him get organized, etc. We ended up getting the ceiling fan, which the picture doesn't do it justice as to how pretty it is, to go over our dining table. We also picked up a 1/2 horsepower garbage disposal for the kitchen.

My friend had a lot of wood trim, etc. that I thought would be great for the doorway that's open on the porch, soon to be office, but Tom said there wasn't enough that matched. It is a rather large opening. I did remind Tom if there was anything (tools, garden tools, etc) that he was going to want to pay retail for later on, that I would probably kill him.

I also went yesterday and picked up some moving boxes from some people just a couple of blocks away. I had come to a stand-still in the packing. These boxes are quite large, so I have to be careful not to fill them with so much heavy stuff we can't move them. Even though we have hand-trucks, at some point human hands have to move it somewhere.

Someone is emailing me that is remodeling their house and they had 2 bathroom vanities. They look great, but unfortunately our space is probably half of their smallest one. I am waiting with baited breath to see if they are redoing their kitchen. LOL

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!

We were able to get into the mobile home yesterday and see the bathroom and back bedroom which we weren't able to see from the outside a couple of days before. I was both surprised and happy to see that the toilet and tub/shower were still intact. He had taken out the vanity in the bathroom and replaced it with a pedestal sink. There is a mirror and some kind of pebbling on the wall behind the sink where the medicine chest used to be. He did a terrible job on the plumbing to the sink, as you can see by the picture.


I called the police yesterday right after we got there. I really didn't want to disturb anything before having them file a report. I also re-posted the "No Trespassing" signs that the Perp had torn down the last time he went inside. As we were waiting for the police to show up, we went ahead and got most of the measurements for everything and started figuring out what could go where.

I am very happy to report it looks like I'll be able to keep my office set up and my china hutch. LOL. The rest is questionable. Actually, the living room and dining room furniture we have now came from the mobile when I sold it, so we should be able to just move it right back Not so sure about my bedroom furniture as it is a bit larger than the furniture we had in there originally. This guy tore out the sliding closet doors that went the full length of the bedroom, so it has been tempting to think about arranging things a little differently this time.

 The police finally came and supposedly filed a report. I'm going to test that theory this morning. There is a nice rubbermaid shed outside, mostly on my driveway, partially on the lot next door. It's full of tools etc. that belong to the perpetrator. Stuff he leaves behind by law, he actually has 15 days to retrieve before I can do anything with it. I had told my girlfriend who lives a couple doors down that if this man came back, to call 911 immediately as I don't want him doing any more damage.

We weren't home long at all when she called to let me know he was there and she had called the police. The policeman that showed up happened to be the same policeman that had filed the report for me earlier. The perp told him the shed was on the other lot, not on mine, and he was retrieving his tools. The policeman told him if he went inside the mobile he would be arrested, and then he left for another call. The Perp is supposed to send two of his co-workers today to retrieve the rest.

Bathroom before "remodel" by Perp

This morning we are headed out to get new locks for the doors and look for a sliding door which somehow the frame has been busted. There happens to be a warehouse or "yard" with a lot of used items for contractors located not too far from the mobile. I've put an ad on Craig's List for anyone in the area that is remodeling and wants to get rid of anything (cupboards, flooring, etc). I keep looking on Craig's List for things we can use, along with Freecycle. We're pretty broke with paying the landlord here yesterday along with our 30 day notice. I will be trying to get packed pretty quickly and told him I would try and help him re-rent.

Now that we've assessed the damage inside, we can start with the re-building.