I need my home to be safe again.

Hi. My name is Nick.

My entire adult life I have always been the guy who took friends and acquaintances into my home when they had no place to go. I didn’t charge rent and a lot of times I fed them.

I’ve always been the one who lends or gives money to people who need it for whatever reason. I’ve always been a giving person and especially giving when I had excess to give.

I’m now in a very uncomfortable position. I’m disabled in several ways. I live month to month on Social Security Disability. I was able to purchase a used mobile home with my settlement 5 years ago and get out of subsidized housing. I thought it was a step up.

It turns out, it’s not a step up. I had no idea so many things would go wrong, break down, stop working and fall apart. I fixed the most urgent problems with the rest of my settlement money but I was left with numerous problems that needed immediate attention or needed to be put on the front burner.

I have tried to get a work at home job but there simply are none in my area. The few that I thought were legit required me to train at a place 30 miles away for 2 months. I don’t drive, I use public transportation for the disabled within my county only. There is no way I can get out every day and travel to a place to train 8 hours a day for several weeks. I emotionally wouldn’t be able to do that and especially now with Covid19, there is no way I’d do it if I were able bodied and emotionally sound.

So I am left in the position of asking for help from complete strangers. I’ve been putting this off for several months and things have gotten far worse.

Here are my issues:

1. My hot water tank had been leaking in the closet (barricaded behind a wall of MDF) unbeknownst to me. I had to get my water main rewrapped with heat tape and the crew discovered a leak under the tank and the floor giving way. They came inside, took out the screws in the MDF wall and showed me the tiny leak. That was October 2019. My tank is is still leaking out onto the carpeting of the spare bedroom and onto the kitchen floor. I use my carpet cleaner 2 - 3 times a day to suck up the water until I can find someone to fix the floors and get the tank removed & a new one installed. Several square feet of the floor is dipped down or squishy, in one area there is no floor left - I can put my fingers to the edge of the carpet, push down, and see the ground. 

2. My garbage disposal is snagged with something. The sink drains very slowly.

3. My roof on the back 1/3 of my home leaks very badly. The kitchen ceiling has several leaks but the back bedroom and 1/2 bath are far worse. 

3.a. The cupboards in the kitchen need to be taken down, ceiling removed, all the above things repaired, new ceiling, new walls if they are moldy, then cupboards back up.

3.b. The back bedroom has mold on 2 sides of the ceiling and 2 walls. The closet that contains the water heater also has mold on the inside and outside.

3.c. The electrical box happens to be on the outside wall of the closet and this needs to be checked  for safety.

3.d. The 1/2 bath ceiling leaks and is moldy, as are the walls. The bathroom floor under the toilet seems to be somewhat unstable too.

4. The floor outside of the water heater closet (entrance to bedroom from kitchen) has been wet for several months. The floor under the refrigerator is on the opposite side of the closet of the water heater and the same floor and I’m not sure if it is compromised. But in front of the refrigerator it is squishy. 

5. The main bathroom floor where the toilet is has a lot of give and needs redone.

6. My shower/tub is odd and not disabled friendly. I need it ripped out and a walk-in shower, no steps, no tub, all level with the floor installed.

7. The outside porch is not disabled friendly. It has steps, no ramp. It also has several boards that are very near snapping due to age and rain/snow so I need a new porch with a ramp. Nothing fancy, my porch now is probably 10x6. The only extra I’d like is a roof. I don’t have a porch roof now.

So those are my issues that NEED attention and HAVE to be done to bring my home up to comfortable and livable standards. Most of the projects I had quotes from prior workers I had on other jobs and then the others I got from online job calculators. That is how I came up with my total of $20,000.00.  I recently (in May 2021) started pricing things again and people are price gouging. It’s sickening. 

This is the most humiliating thing I have ever had to do. I feel so ashamed to ask for help, but I just don’t know what else to do. 

Any assistance you can give will be greatly appreciated and if you cannot give anything, if you could just share my story and hopefully someone else in a position to help will see it and see me.

Thank you very much,

Nick