Lauri Ann's New Life

I cannot believe it has been a little over 2 months since my last post! Fighting City Hall and the Park Owner have literally taken over my life! My status in the mobile home park is still "non-resident", after him collecting rent from us for the last 7 months. We also have been trying to get some help from the City since changing their rent control ordinance against the mobile home owners, but that hasn't seemed to get anywhere either. The park owner and his attorney sent a 252 page income verification and lease packet to many of the residents in the park. Besides the fact that it takes an attorney to go through the lease, many of the provisions seem to be in conflict with both the City Ordinance and the Mobile Home Residency Law. Yet the City of Capitola has done nothing in the way of coming to the rescue. Part time City Attorney Barisone originally said he would charge the owner with a "Breach of Contract" if the lease and new ordinance conflicted. Like all the other bologna the City gave us before the ordinance was passed and lease packets were handed out, it appears this too was just a line.

In the meantime, I am happy to report that we have obtained most of the major appliances we needed. Tom and I were going over the costs so far and we figure the rebuilding costs are less than $100 so far. I had put an ad on Craig's List in the "wanted" section, and this wonderful gentleman that owns "HoneyDo Services" here in Capitola dropped off a very nice gas dryer to us. He said the lady he was working for, after testing it decided she didn't want gas, and told him to get rid of it.

Not too long after we got the dryer, some very dear friends of ours were cleaning out a house and asked if we would like the washer, dryer, and gas stove. Needless to say I was thrilled! but we had no way to haul them. It turned out they were doing some things on this side of the hill, so they delivered them. Who says there's no God? LOL. Even Tom doesn't say that anymore with the way we have been so blessed!

 Once we got the washer it took me days before I could see the bottom of the dirty laundry. LOL. It's amazing the things I did naturally when I was younger, like going to the laundrymat, are such a bother now. It works like a champ!
This was the second dryer we received, but I think it needed a new thermostat. It took forever for the clothes to dry. Actually the first one we got looked more like it went with the washer anyhow. We donated this and the money will go to help fund Grey Bears, a non-profit for seniors to receive fresh produce, etc.







I couldn't ask for a better stove. It didn't take me long to get used to cooking with gas again. LOL. This thing is so great! It's self-cleaning, the digital clock tells you the oven temp, and the timer gives you a 1 minute warning before it goes off. All the bells and whistles. I just love it. I would have taken a picture of the kitchen, but after cooking last night I swear I used every pot and every available counter space there was.






I added a "wish list" to the right hand side. There isn't a whole lot left that we need. I need to add some measurements. I always thought sliding glass doors were just a standard size, but I have since found out that was not true. The office still has the ugly green tarp on it versus a doorway. Tom hooked up the TV and VCR/DVD player out there and I would like to have a door before it rains again. LOL.

So what have we spent the almost $100 on? Mostly things like pipe for the kitchen sink, vent hose for the dryer, screws for the shed, things like that. The biggest part of the money went to our lovely queen size hide-a-bed for the livingroom that we just acquired from a neighbor. I'll post a picture of that next time. In the meantime I'm off to write another letter to the park owner's attorney. He's trying to call our space rent "storage fees" and triple what we're paying without giving the proper 90-day notice. May be time to call Senior Legal.

I am a pretty old broad. If anyone ever asked me, I would not say I am a perfectionist about anything. But at this late stage of my life, I have found out I am a perfectionist about one thing. Contact Paper.

Now I remember why in recent years I had switched to just laying newspaper for shelf paper. Of course usually there is already contact paper on the shelves that is too much trouble to remove. I wash it down with Pursue disinfectant cleaner from Amway to kill all the germs, and then I just lay newspaper. No stick (so it does move, which is a bummer) but no hassle. Perfect.

The cupboards we're putting in the mobile home either don't have any shelf paper, or they have shelf paper I don't want, so I actually used the real stuff. Contact paper. Problems with that are:

1. It sticks. You lay it down and if you don't get it right the first time, you have to very carefully lift if up to shift it. At least it's not like the old stuff where once it touches the surface it is stuck as if it were part of what ever you were covering. Once you laid it down, you were stuck with it, or destroyed it and started over. LOL
2. You may run out before you are done with your kitchen (unless you are a math major). If the contact paper you started with is older, you may not be able to find the same pattern, like what happened with me. 
3. You mention to a girlfriend how you have to go to the store for contact paper and she offers you 60,000 feet of contact paper that is totally different in color and pattern than you already have. You have to make a decision. Do you go on using her contact paper, or do you use her contact paper and redo everything you've already done hoping you don't run out of that pattern too? 

I found some contact paper that has a backing, but doesn't stick like contact paper, but doesn't move like newspaper, while at the same time it's that easy to lay. The only problem with that is I found it at the dollar store and it costs about a dollar a piece to do a drawer. I'm used to paying $3.99 for yards of the stuff!

I haven't decided what to do yet, but it's looking likely that I'll switch to the pattern my girlfriend gave me. It's green and white which goes with both the brown and the white cabinets, AND, I've seen more of it at the Dollar Store. LOL. That's a win!

As I wrote on March 1st in "15 Days Are Up. Are We Tenants Or Not" the owner of the mobile home park here has been fighting us all the way as to whether we may live in our mobile home or not. As of March 2nd, the answer was still "No". So we have gone back and forth now a couple of times, me submitting more information, him not accepting it, etc. I handed him my last attempt on Friday I believe, so I am currently waiting for his next move. It is actually eerie as to how polite he's been each time I have handed him a rebuttal compared to how irate and condescending he was when we first got here. Of course I'm sure one reason is because he has the final say regardless of how much information I submit, but at the same time I'm submitting it to his lawyers, so hopefully that may pull some weight, at least to what he can do legally.

In the meantime, we are continuing to repair and replace inside the mobile home. After all the rainy weather we had and the bad storms, the original cupboards which are really nothing more than press-board are not considered very sturdy. My girlfriend down the road knows a handyman that we just happened to run into at the grocery store. He mentioned he was doing a kitchen remodel for some folks and they were getting rid of everything in the kitchen, including the gas range, refrigerator, and dishwasher. I got so excited! I thought "This is it!" LOL. Silly me. Nothing is ever that easy.

I wasn't really interested in the cabinets, as we already basically had some even if they weren't the best, but I was definitely interested in ending my quest for appliances.

Of course it turned out to be exactly the opposite. When I went to look at everything prior to it being taken apart, I have to say I was a little disappointed to say the least. The gas stove looked halfway decent, but the broiler didn't work and all the burners needed new igniters to light. Needless to say it required a lot of work so I decided to pass. After all, a new one wouldn't be that much more expensive by the time we put all the repairs into this one. The dishwasher turned out to be a bust also. It obviously was leaking under it and had ruined the flooring, not to mention the knobs were gone, and it was just plain ugly. Tom didn't really want to give up the cupboard space for a dishwasher anyhow. This didn't help my case any.

Our Newer Cupboards

What we did end up with was a microwave that goes over the range, so the hood is already built in, and more cupboards. Tom's son was telling me that I might want to reconsider as the microwave is old and will draw a lot of energy, plus it's extremely heavy with not really any way to brace it. Scott also said the inside of it was a mess even tho the people said they only used it to heat coffee. So that is still kind of up in the air as to what we are going to do with it. I think we also scored an upright freezer, but I haven't seen it yet. The Mr. says they don't use it, so as soon as he cleans out the stuff that's in it we can have it. I'm thinking if they "don't use it" there can't be much to "clean out" right?

As you can see from the picture above of the old kitchen the cupboards are coming from, the cupboards don't go all the way to the ceiling. Besides being able to put stuff on top of them, there is a "few years" of dust and grease built up there. Of course while they were hanging, I never thought about that. I did notice how badly they needed cleaning on the front. Most cupboards have residue, etc from people's hands opening and closing them, etc. Trust me, these were no exception.

Tom's Wood Magic

We brought the first batch home after they had been taken out of the old kitchen and Tom went to work on them with some Murphy's Wood Soap and a little magic crayon he has. The difference in how they look is phenomenal! The boys were teasing about how I better not put a picture up of how the cupboards look now or the people we got them from may want them back. LOL. (They're getting new cupboards from Ikea).This picture really doesn't do them justice because the light was poor, but I'll put up a better picture later when there is more to see.

It took a couple of weeks from the handyman saying he was doing the kitchen remodel to us finally getting some cupboards, but I think it was well worth the wait. These are just beautiful, and they are real wood opposed to the ones we originally were going to put up. The grain in the wood comes out so nicely.

If you are going to remodel the way we are having to remodel, on a "less than" shoestring budget where the purse strings are already pulled way too tightly, it helps to see not only "what is" but "what is possible". A little elbow grease and these cupboards are as nice as anything I would go out and buy, but you have to be willing to wait for the right stuff to come along. Patience and vision are necessary and still a virtue, just like they say.

Well it's March 1st and we're still working away here at the mobile home. As I mentioned before in the post on February 13th, the park owner has been fighting us the whole way, though things have been very quiet lately. I had to get my lawyer involved (another expense) and he worked out a compromise with the park owner's lawyers just to get us an application for tenancy. We met the park owner's pre-conditions and I turned the application into the park manager on Feb. 11th. He's supposed to have 15 days for processing. I expected him to use all 15 days, but now it's past that and I don't have an approval or denial. I'm hoping he loses by default, but have a call into my lawyer to find out. In the meantime...

Old Bathroom Set up

New Medicine Chest

The same lady I told you about on Day 13 that was one of the first to help us with some stuff from the remodeling of her house, also had a medicine chest that I bought from her. She gave me a really good price and I just fell in love with it. It works perfect color-wise in our bathroom and it's wood instead of one of those (ugly) metal ones. You know how I mentioned about "cheap labor"? It hits me where I live. LOL. No, that is not a design around the new medicine chest. That is where Tom disliked the rock that the Perp had put on the wall so much, that he pulled it off. When he saw the look of horror on my face, he said "That idiot didn't have a wall or anything behind the rock. I'll figure out something to go around it. Don't worry." Honey, I am looking at insulation of the mobile there. Oh well...LOL.

He totally redeemed himself with this one though. I now have my kitchen floor. Yeah! And it looks so pretty!  We went from this:                                                                                
                                                                                                to this:

Before Laminate

After Laminate..

Not bad aye? Thanks to Tom and our wonderful flooring guy, Bay Area Flooring Broker.

Look here. There's a little bit of the wall so you can see the color, and then see that baseboard? That's not cheap rubber or plastic, Baby. That's a nice wood base. Pretty cool! I thought about sleeping on this floor I was so happy!

Colors Coming Together

 Just for kicks, here's a picture of the "Sidewalk Superintendent".  

Bear At Work

 If anyone is remodeling in the San Francisco South Bay or Santa Cruz County area and wanting to get rid of the old stuff, we are still looking for:

• A gas, free standing oven and range, and possibly range hood
• Cupboards (we have cupboards, but not enough. If you have some like these or you have enough to do the whole kitchen in something else, that would be terrific!)

Scott, Tom's son is fixing the gas and water lines as we speak, so, till the next step...             

Living room to Hall Jigsaw Piece

When I posted a few days ago I said I would be back with the story about the carpeting. Now I'm going to show you what I meant when I posted about "The One Place To Spend Your Money If You Have It". Trust me, we have now learned in the case of remodeling, the cheapest labor isn't necessarily the best labor.

I had put an add on Craig's List in the "wanted" section for someone to lay the carpet we had picked up for the mobile home. Figuring with the economy the way it is I would get a few responses. I got a couple ranging in price from $130 to $600 for the labor. We had the carpet and bought the tack strips, and let's face it folks, we aren't talking the Taj Mahal here. By the time you take out the kitchen and dining area, it's only about 500 square feet. To be exact, it was a small room (my office), the living room, hallway, and two small bedrooms. Even though something told me to go with the guy that bid $250, we were short on cash and $130 looked a lot better. He said he had about 8 yrs. experience laying carpet so I thought he couldn't be that bad. WRONG.

Second Living room jigsaw piece

I should have known when I first met him and he told me he had to help shingle a roof in the morning the next day, but then would be over after that to get started on the carpet. He didn't tell me that would be the story every day. When and if he showed up, it wouldn't be until about 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon and there wasn't a whole lot of daylight left to work. This was before we had anything in the mobile home so there wasn't much lighting. The first day he seemed really gun-ho and I paid him almost half the money, told him I would pay the other half when he got done. We're still over the hill at this point trying to get packed, and so I wasn't here every day checking on him. I did call though.

First he didn't answer. Then his wife answered and gave an excuse that he just forgot his phone, but he had come over to the mobile home to work. Then he was sick. Then he said he had about an hour left to do. Then I never heard from him again and I haven't called him either. We came over with the huge truck full of all our "worldly goods" and the livingroom, hallway, and one bedroom had been done. No carpet in the office or the second bedroom, and what had been done had been totally screwed up. Oh well, live and learn.

I think the only tack strip he layed was in the living room the day he started. You can't tell hardly any is gone out of the box and I'll be returning the second box to Home Depot for a refund. LOL. This is a picture of where he cut and laid it down the hall. Notice along the edge the blue padding showing through.

Then, where the hallway goes into the back bedroom, that's another piece of work. I circled the seam, or where a seam would be if he did those. The X is where our door to the bedroom is. In otherwords, he cut the carpet to put a seam about a foot and a half past the doorway entrance to the bedroom.

Bedroom door back here

And last, but definitely not least, our living room. Now the day he did this, or at least laid it all out to cut it, etc. I was actually here and showed him about how the pieces should go because of the nap, etc. I don't know what happened between the driveway where we had it figured out, to the actual living room floor, but he's got them going in opposite directions with a pretty obvious "would be" seam down the middle. This isn't counting all the little jigsaw pieces shown above. The picture really doesn't do it justice. LOL

Living room center seam

What really got me was this guy had been going through a hard time, he had a little family, and I was telling him I would help him once we got this done to spread his name around and help get him some work, use him with other stuff we may need around here, etc. He just friggin' blew it.

So, take my advice and my examples and don't skimp too bad on the labor. Sure some are going to charge you outrageous prices for something that most people of the same trade can do, and some are going to offer to do it for next to nothing. I would pick "middle of the road" on pricing, and ask for references, another place I screwed up. LOL. As you can see, the cheapest labor isn't necessarily the best!

Here we are 41 days into our new project and this is where we are and what we've been through.

We moved out of our place in Santa Clara. Here I was hoping to get out about a week early to let the landlord have some time to paint, etc. before the new tenants moved in. Instead it took us up to the very last hour of daylight on the 31st of January to get all the stuff in the truck and for the guys to get it over the hill before dark. I stayed behind to continue cleaning for a few hours after everyone else and everything else was gone. I didn't have a clue how much stuff we had packed into that little 3 bedroom duplex in just a little over a yr. After all, we had virtually emptied 3 different storages of "stuff" at 3 different times, so I sort of lost track. LOL.

From this...

Leaving Santa Clara was sort of bittersweet for me. I had found a church home I loved and my neighbors on both sides of me were fantastic! In fact while I was cleaning there the last night, the neighbors on one side of us came over and brought the cutest little ice cream cake that said "Farewell" on it and wished us luck. My neighbor and walking partner on the other side stopped by to say good-by and brought me a couple pieces of pizza thinking I might be hungry since I was working so late. While coming back home, so to speak is wonderful and living on the coast seems like a luxery, I will miss the people and wonderful friends I've made over the last year. I'm just lucky to be close enough to stop by and say "hi" once in awhile.

So we rented this huge 24ft. truck and in my dreams, I thought we would load it, unload it, and turn it back in the next day. Our total bill at the end was to be 4 days, and the guy gave us a break because we were 20 minutes late getting it back. He could have charged us another day, but didn't. Luckily the guy at Budget was pretty good and pretty reasonable.

In order to get the truck back when we did, we unloaded a lot of stuff in the mobile home, but then filled up the whole carport and the front porch. The storage shed is still laying flat out there somewhere waiting to be rebuilt.

We are on a side street in the park that has 8 mobile homes on it, including ours. Only ours and my girlfriend at the beginning of the street have anyone living in them. 2 are "vacation" homes, 1 is rotted out and needs to be taken out of the park, and 1 the owner passed away and his son has it up for sale. We are like at the end of a court if it were a housing track. The street light across from us doesn't work and the park owner is angry so he's declared the two spots at the end of the street that have been used for parking for the last 30 yrs. are a "Fire Lane" and no one can park there.

To this...My new kitchen

We ran into sort of a snaffoo over here in this land of Paradise. The park owner who had been so nice the day I auctioned the mobile home and got it back, has turned out to be quite a bitter and nasty man. The day of the sale he told me he didn't know if I needed an application for the park because I had lived here before, and because the mobile home had always been mine legally. He gave me a disclosure concerning the park, about how he was in a battle to close it, (he wants to turn it into a condo conversion), and said he would fax me an application and I could fax it back. I hadn't received the application so I had left a couple of messages for him, but he never got back to me. I didn't think there was any problem, so I just started moving in. Silly me. LOL.

Our street-all our stuff on the right

The next thing I know, this man is yelling at me for having some of the furniture in the street (remember, there's not another soul down here), telling me I have to move everything back out of here, and then he serves me with a 5 day notice to give up possession of the space my mobile home sits on. Now mind you, before I sold this mobile home to the Perp almost 5 yrs. ago, I owned and lived in or vacationed at this mobile home for over 10 yrs. and never gave the park any problem. The way this guy was acting now I was Enemy #1. Needless to say, I had to call my lawyer and have him intervene. Another expense I didn't need, but help I did.

So now we have complied with all his wishes. I have gotten a copy of the title showing me as registered owner, as that was one of the conditions to me even getting an application for tenancy, and he has 15 days to process it. So we are here waiting with baited breath.

In the meantime, I found my laminate for the kitchen and dining room floor. We're supposed to pick it up Tuesday. I found this guy in San Jose who is a "flooring broker" and has basically factory direct pricing. If anyone is thinking about remodeling or redoing your floors, I would highly recommend him. He's located in Willow Glen and you can visit his website at Bay Area Flooring Live. com 

I have such a story to tell you about our carpeting, but that will have to wait for next time. This has already gotten rather long. If you have any suggestions for cheap remodeling, I'd love to read them in the comments below.

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.

As I've been going through packing, getting ready for the "big move", I realize that even though we downsized quite a bit when we left our last house, I need to do some more. Instead of helping my friend with his yard sale, I better start thinking about holding our own.

I mean, really?

The duplex we're in now is about 1000 sq. ft, 3br./2bath. It's pretty decent size. The mobile home is approx. 750 sq. ft., only a 2br./1 bath, although we are planning to build another 1/2 bath onto the 2nd bedroom. I have collections that I'll never have room to display. I have a huge dining room table that is hoping to be refinished one day. I'll never have space for that. It would take up most of our livingroom! LOL. While I have a big hutch that I am taking with me, I don't need all the dozens of wine glasses, and mismatches that I have held onto.

One thing I learned in the last move is that it is only "stuff". So as I'm packing I will be weeding out more stuff. Where's George Carlin when I need him? LOL

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.

Happy New Year everyone! A New Year brings with it a chance for new beginnings, new projects, and new directions. Due to a "real estate deal gone bad" that is exactly where I am today.

The man that had bought my mobile home on an installment contract decided not to honor the contract and has moved out. The mobile home has reverted back to me to rebuild the whole inside which he completely gutted on the way out. All that's left is the shell. Definitely not resalable.

This is a picture of what used to be the kitchen, going into the living room. He took everything including the kitchen sink. LOL. The first time we were able to see inside the mobile and start to assess the damage was Friday, December 31st, which for a lot of people was essentially a holiday. We weren't able to get in as we need to get a locksmith to open and re-key the locks. I half expected this, but my boyfriend and partner in this project, was devastated. He could not believe anyone with any conscience at all could do something like this. I posted "No Trespassing" signs so if he should come back to do any more damage, I can call the police.

Normally, I would not be able to pursue a deficiency judgment against the buyer, but because he damaged the mobile home, it opens the door for me to sue him. It won't do much good as far as getting what he owes me, but it will be on his record for a minimum of the next 10 yrs.

All kinds of thoughts have been swirling around in my head. I need to look over my Homeowner's policy, which he never paid me for, and see if they will cover anything. We, like a good portion of America, have no savings so we will be doing this as cheaply as possible. This blog will be a record of our journey.

On Friday, just to ad insult to injury, I received a 3-day notice from the park owner for this man's past due rent and utilities. If I didn't pay it, the park owner could demand I move my mobile out of the park. This is just another $560.00 added to what he owes me.

Of course Saturday was New Year's Day and Sunday locksmiths and police non-emergency are closed, so we spent the weekend in the planning stages. We have decided in order to move our stuff out of the place we are in, we will need to put down flooring first. I had found free laminate on Craig's List, but didn't move fast enough. That is my first lesson learned.

Today I am giving my 30-day notice to the landlord, setting an appointment with the locksmith, setting an appointment with the police, and contacting my lawyer. Today I will find out if he took the toilet and shower along with everything else.