Help This Mom Overcome Housing Hardship

$500 people $5 each and I can reach my goal!! Long story, please read! My name is Melissa McPherson. I am a hardworking mother of 3 beautiful kids: Hailey, my daughter, and Caleb and Gage, my 2 sons. I’m strong, I’m dedicated, and I never miss a day of work if I can help it. I will do anything I can for my kids. I never thought that I would be starting a GoFundMe page, but life has left me no choice.

I wanna take it back to last year. The last rental property we were renting had a lot of ongoing issues: faulty ductwork that was laying on the ground, outlets that had blown and caught fire, inoperable windows, so we wouldn’t be able to escape if we had a fire. The power bill was running $600 a month, and we were dealing with a rat infestation. They were literally chewing through our food items. We ended up having to get Tupperware and a cabinet from Lowe’s to store all our food in. Mold infestation from excessive water leaks. I have pictures of all of this.

Around December of last year, I reached out to the landlord to tell her about all the ongoing issues, in which she stated she was so sorry that we were dealing with this. However, she didn’t have the funds to repair the house and said it was best if we just terminate our lease and move without any negotiation. Thankfully, it was around tax time, so I started to apply for places. I got denied three times due to credit history or not making three times the rent and spending over $300 in application fees. I had no choice but to ask my mom for help, who already had a place of her own. I knew that her income and mine together would have no problem being approved. So, I applied for a house in Graham, and after a long, exhausting, stressful couple of weeks, we finally got the approval.

It cost around $5000 to get into this house after a $300 deposit to Piedmont Natural Gas, a $400 deposit to Duke Energy, an $80 deposit to the water company, and the moving truck and first month's rent and deposit, but I didn’t care. We started packing, and the move began. I was so happy: six bedrooms, three full baths. It was the perfect house for now.

After being in there for about a week or two, we noticed the neighbor liked to park his truck on the side of the street, which was totally fine. However, we did ask him to move it so that the trash truck could get to our cans on trash day. We got attitude feedback, so I left it alone. A few days go by, and my son comes to me and says, "Mommy, there’s a bright light shining in my room." So, I walked back there, and it was the neighbor's three-way light shining directly into my son’s bedroom. The next day, I kindly walked over there and asked them to please have the light turned off after nine as it was shining into my son’s room. We got shooed away and cursed out in another language, so I just left, mumbling a few words. About an hour later, the cops arrived at my house, saying that the neighbors complained about us harassing them about their light and their truck being on the side of the street. I told them my side of the story, they understood, and they left.

Let’s talk about the 20-year-old autistic man that lives across from us. We all introduced ourselves to him. He was pretty cool, didn’t bother anybody, but we like to keep to ourselves, so we don’t communicate often. I guess he felt like we didn’t like him. If we were outside talking or pointing fingers, he assumed we were talking junk about him, so he would constantly call the cops, which Graham Police stated he did often, and to just ignore him. So, we did. With all this being said, this did get reported to the realtor. I had emailed them ahead of time to let them know, and she thanked me for giving her the warning.

Now, with all this being said, I have my son’s grandmother there for the summer to help watch the kids while they’re out of school. She has a small pet of her own that she brought along with her. Anytime maintenance came out, they would be there, and they were great. Anytime I had an issue, they came out right away to fix the problem. They even hired an electrician to redo the electrical system, which left us without power for 24 hours because Duke Energy said they would be back by 5 PM to turn it back on. That story is on Facebook. I ended up having to get a room. I paid $200 for that room to get my sons a nice cool shower, fed, and in bed since it was 10 o’clock and Duke Energy had still not come out to turn the power on. All this over a dryer outlet that wouldn’t work. After all the hard work the electrician did, he did a great job, but the dryer outlet still doesn’t work. I threw my hands up. I said forget it at this point. I will continue to hang out my clothes. It’s still summertime. We will worry about it later.

Let’s fast-forward to two days ago when a young man stopped by the house and handed my kids’ dad a disturbing letter. I was at work because I had to work the night shift. The disturbing letter, which I have, stated we violated the lease and that we needed to move by the end of July because of people or persons and pets that were not listed on the lease and that they were also going to charge me a $1200 fine. My heart stopped. I couldn’t even function. My mind was racing. What will I do? Where will I go in 30 days? I have spent all my money to move into this house, so I decided to send them an email giving them my side of the story with the grandmother helping with my kids and her pet coming along with her, but they stated that this was not negotiable and that we needed to move.

With all this being said, how in the world will I move my kids again? How will I come up with first month’s rent and deposit again? I’m devastated to know, and I’m a good person. I will give my last dollar to someone else who needs it more. All my friends and family can vouch for me. I do not come from a wealthy family. We all help each other in the best way we can. I know people usually start GoFundMe for death or sick children or funerals, and I’m so grateful and blessed that this is not the situation. Mine is strictly financial only, so I’m reaching out to the community. I do not have a big Facebook fan page. I don’t have a lot of friends. I keep it simple. But if any and everyone could please share this as far as it can possibly go so I can reach my goal. Thank you.