A New Home For Christmas
Donation protected
At the absolute worst time of the year, we’re losing our apartment due to our roommate not paying rent.
tl;dr - We need to move by December 31st, 2018, and we need at least $1200 to put down for a new place, plus up to $2200 to cover anything our roommate doesn't pay of her back rent.
Who We Are:
Hi! We're Danielle and Toby - two queers in our early 30’s and their two cats. We’ve had some major setbacks over the past two years: Health problems including uncontrolled asthma and the resulting missed weeks of work, anxiety/ depression, emergency dental procedures due to infection, a bad injury to my dominant hand, my mother’s sudden unexpected death, a tree crushing our car, and two emergency trips to the vet. We had managed to tread water during all of this, getting some help here and there, and were starting to do ok - getting our feet back under us and getting caught up on bills with the intention of *gasp* maybe being able to get ahead for once! Then life decided to throw us another curve ball.
What Happened:
Here’s the honest situation. We screwed up. We trusted someone that turned out to have terrible money management skills, for longer than we should have due to a combination of trying to be understanding, and also not knowing all our options about getting out of our lease. We trusted our roommate to be a responsible adult and to pay her portion of the rent like she promised she would. This didn’t happen. She had a job, lost a job, got a seasonal job, and seemed to be pulling mad hours. Somehow though, extremely little of that money made it to her rent. We reminded, we gave offers to help get her to her bank or wherever to get checks and whatnot to pay, we begged. The office was also not super good about letting us know how far behind things were, and now there’s about $2200 looming over our head.(The office’s inability to get their sh*t together is another story entirely.) There’s a slim chance she may be able to pay it before the deadline, but her track record on payments doesn’t give us much hope.
Yes, we were stupid about it. A lot of things happened to keep us from paying any more per month, and we didn’t know that we could have released her from the lease until like, November 30th - three days after we got this final notice. It sucks, but it happened, and we’re not going to make that mistake again. Live and learn.
On top of that, the IRS randomly decided to audit my taxes from 2015 (coming to the conclusion that I owe them like $400 due to a SNAFU with my student loans), and our insurances decided they weren’t going to cover certain procedures even though they should have. (so like another $100+ that will be hitting us.)
Finally, as internet is included at our current complex, it’s been shut off due to the roommate’s nonexistent rent payments. This means that we only have access to the net while at work so that’s cutting down on our ability to make extra funds through commissions, as well as making it even harder to find a place (or a second job) because everything is done online these days.
Where We Are Now:
Anyway, now the complex doesn’t want to renew our lease due to her non-payment, and also isn’t letting us move from a two bedroom into a cheaper one bedroom because it will ‘cost them too much money’ to get our old apartment and the new one ready. (I know, right?). The full cost of the two bedroom apartment is out of our reach- at least $910, which is almost $350 more than what we’re currently paying, not including electric. We’ve tried looking for another roommate but haven’t had any luck, and we’re also concerned that we’ll end up in exactly the same position as before. ‘Once bitten” and all that. The notice we received states that we need to move out by December 31st, so we are quickly running out of time.
Since we were just getting caught up on all of our bills that had gotten behind, we have no savings whatsoever. We will both be getting a small paycheck on December 7th due to losing hours over the Thanksgiving Break and due to me being sick the week after, and Dani’s last check before winter break will be on the 22nd. I will also be getting paid on that date, but even with both checks it won’t be enough to pay for someplace new.
What We Need:
To get a new place we’re looking at at least $1200 for security, pet deposit, and first month’s rent. If the roommate doesn’t pay her back rent, we will also be on the hook for the $2200 that she owes, bringing the incredibly scary total up to $3400. The total we might have by the 22nd is like $800, and that doesn’t give us much time to find someplace before the 31st. Our credit is not the best due to trying to cover rent before paying other bills, so a loan is not really on the table.
We’re really stuck, and could use whatever help anyone could give. Like I said, we know it’s the worst time of year for this sort of thing - we just don’t know what else to do.
What We Have to Offer:
You will have our eternal gratitude, and any warm fuzzies that helping out may give you.
We are also going through our stuff trying to find things to sell, and we both do commissions (Danielle does art, and I do crochet) - I'll post a link here as soon as we have more information about that.
What the Money Will Be Used For
Anything we raise will go towards getting set up in a new place and paying that back rent. If we happen to get anything extra, it will be used for future rent and medical bills.
tl;dr - We need to move by December 31st, 2018, and we need at least $1200 to put down for a new place, plus up to $2200 to cover anything our roommate doesn't pay of her back rent.
Who We Are:
Hi! We're Danielle and Toby - two queers in our early 30’s and their two cats. We’ve had some major setbacks over the past two years: Health problems including uncontrolled asthma and the resulting missed weeks of work, anxiety/ depression, emergency dental procedures due to infection, a bad injury to my dominant hand, my mother’s sudden unexpected death, a tree crushing our car, and two emergency trips to the vet. We had managed to tread water during all of this, getting some help here and there, and were starting to do ok - getting our feet back under us and getting caught up on bills with the intention of *gasp* maybe being able to get ahead for once! Then life decided to throw us another curve ball.
What Happened:
Here’s the honest situation. We screwed up. We trusted someone that turned out to have terrible money management skills, for longer than we should have due to a combination of trying to be understanding, and also not knowing all our options about getting out of our lease. We trusted our roommate to be a responsible adult and to pay her portion of the rent like she promised she would. This didn’t happen. She had a job, lost a job, got a seasonal job, and seemed to be pulling mad hours. Somehow though, extremely little of that money made it to her rent. We reminded, we gave offers to help get her to her bank or wherever to get checks and whatnot to pay, we begged. The office was also not super good about letting us know how far behind things were, and now there’s about $2200 looming over our head.(The office’s inability to get their sh*t together is another story entirely.) There’s a slim chance she may be able to pay it before the deadline, but her track record on payments doesn’t give us much hope.
Yes, we were stupid about it. A lot of things happened to keep us from paying any more per month, and we didn’t know that we could have released her from the lease until like, November 30th - three days after we got this final notice. It sucks, but it happened, and we’re not going to make that mistake again. Live and learn.
On top of that, the IRS randomly decided to audit my taxes from 2015 (coming to the conclusion that I owe them like $400 due to a SNAFU with my student loans), and our insurances decided they weren’t going to cover certain procedures even though they should have. (so like another $100+ that will be hitting us.)
Finally, as internet is included at our current complex, it’s been shut off due to the roommate’s nonexistent rent payments. This means that we only have access to the net while at work so that’s cutting down on our ability to make extra funds through commissions, as well as making it even harder to find a place (or a second job) because everything is done online these days.
Where We Are Now:
Anyway, now the complex doesn’t want to renew our lease due to her non-payment, and also isn’t letting us move from a two bedroom into a cheaper one bedroom because it will ‘cost them too much money’ to get our old apartment and the new one ready. (I know, right?). The full cost of the two bedroom apartment is out of our reach- at least $910, which is almost $350 more than what we’re currently paying, not including electric. We’ve tried looking for another roommate but haven’t had any luck, and we’re also concerned that we’ll end up in exactly the same position as before. ‘Once bitten” and all that. The notice we received states that we need to move out by December 31st, so we are quickly running out of time.
Since we were just getting caught up on all of our bills that had gotten behind, we have no savings whatsoever. We will both be getting a small paycheck on December 7th due to losing hours over the Thanksgiving Break and due to me being sick the week after, and Dani’s last check before winter break will be on the 22nd. I will also be getting paid on that date, but even with both checks it won’t be enough to pay for someplace new.
What We Need:
To get a new place we’re looking at at least $1200 for security, pet deposit, and first month’s rent. If the roommate doesn’t pay her back rent, we will also be on the hook for the $2200 that she owes, bringing the incredibly scary total up to $3400. The total we might have by the 22nd is like $800, and that doesn’t give us much time to find someplace before the 31st. Our credit is not the best due to trying to cover rent before paying other bills, so a loan is not really on the table.
We’re really stuck, and could use whatever help anyone could give. Like I said, we know it’s the worst time of year for this sort of thing - we just don’t know what else to do.
What We Have to Offer:
You will have our eternal gratitude, and any warm fuzzies that helping out may give you.
We are also going through our stuff trying to find things to sell, and we both do commissions (Danielle does art, and I do crochet) - I'll post a link here as soon as we have more information about that.
What the Money Will Be Used For
Anything we raise will go towards getting set up in a new place and paying that back rent. If we happen to get anything extra, it will be used for future rent and medical bills.
Organizer
Toby Comstock
Organizer
Brockport, NY
