From Scams to Fires: We Need a Fresh Start

Hi Everyone, my wife and I are living the toughest year of our life with uncontrollable incidents and constant bad luck pushing us down. I've seen the Internet pull together and do amazing things; that's what I'm asking for now. The goal is $1500, just enough for a cheap car; anything more will go to a better car and housing for us. We can build ourselves back up, but without a car in my area, it's almost impossible.

I'm 33 and my wife is 41. We have been together for 10 years, and throughout that time, we have been through ups and downs but always made it work to get our lives back on track. This time, it's been so many things happening to us that we were never given time to recover.

This past year has been the hardest year I've been through, and I've been through some tough times, but so have we all. I'm here because I have nowhere else to turn. My family is all dead; I'm pretty much alone out here. I have my girlfriend/wife of 10 years, but she is alone also. Her mother is on drugs, and her father is racist, so it's just us.

Last September, we were scammed into a rent-to-own home that took out our little bit of savings. We thought we had a forever home.

On Christmas Eve, on our way home, our car had a brake failure. We pulled into a gas station and got a ride home. We returned two days later to find we didn't have a car as it had been towed. The gas station didn't know anything about it, and no camera footage; it was gone.

On January 3, the new owners of our lot came to our door, assumed we were squatters until we explained we had been paying rent and showed them our fake lease. That's when we learned we were scammed. They gave us a month to find somewhere else to go as our lot was to be demolished and made into a shopping center.

I had lost my job because, with no car, I couldn't make my commute, and my wife's job was within walking distance, but we had to leave.

I talked to an old friend and asked if he needed roommates, told him what was going on, so we have a place to go so we wouldn't be homeless. We moved in with him and struggled a bit, but we're okay. I got a refund from a ticket I paid and used that to get us a car. It was a beater, but that's okay. My wife got a job, and I started recycling scrap metals and doing handyman work. Things were looking up.

It's 3 am in March. My roommate burst into my room and woke me and my lady up, screaming, GET UP, GET UP. I sat up and smelled the smoke. He had left a candle burning, and it caught his blanket on fire.

I filled a pot full of water to try and help him put it out, but when I opened his door, the heat hit me; it was too hot to throw water. I quickly got my wife, our dogs, and important items and ran out the door. My roommate thought quickly and broke his window and used a water hose to put the fire out, or so we thought.

My wife went to work after the fire, and my roommate and I went back inside and decided to go back to sleep and start the cleanup when we got up. A few hours went by, and I was woken up by a neighbor saying, get up, the fire department is here. A small patch on the outside roof had started smoking, and someone called the fire department. They put it out with our hose, removed our power meter, and banned us from living there until an inspection was done. My roommate gave up, told us to find somewhere to go, that he was going to stay with his nephew and wasn't going to fix it.

We were living out of our car and hotels until last week. The head gasket blew in our car; there was no fixing it. I tried everything except doing the job myself. It was going to be over $3,000 to fix it.

This is where I'm at now. I don't have any options in front of me that allow me to gain a car. I live in a rural place where a car is a must for steady work. I do what I can to get by, but that's not advancing my life, only barely sustaining us. I don't know what to do and have no one to turn to. We have a roof, but it's not the best living conditions.

I'm asking for $1500, enough to get a cheap car. With a car, we can build ourselves back up. I'm so lost out here; I've never felt so helpless and such hopelessness.

Thanks for taking the time out to read my story. I hope this is the break we need to start our lives again. We all need help sometimes.

I'm so tired, guys. I've been fighting since I was 19 to keep my life together and build myself because I had no one to fall back on, but I don't see a way out this time.