Mom and Kids Face Dire Eviction Struggle, Only Hours Left

Edit/update:

Despite our best efforts we have run out of time. I did not make the deadline and the judge ruled against me I still have 24 hours left to make the requested deposit, and that would give me a few weeks time to collect my belongings and find someplace to go. Otherwise I will be locked out immediately and not even be able to get my stuff out. So I am pushing this and asking for one last round to maybe not lose everything.

I'm really sorry. I genuinely thought I had a chance, but even my best efforts are too little too late, as they say. I don't think I will recover from this, but I owe it to my kids to at least get them their stuff. So maybe one more round of sharing and donations? I'm sorry for letting everyone down. I am really not okay, I have nothing to fall back on and no one to turn to. Nothing. I'm so sorry.

Hello,

I am in my early 40's, a mother of 5, with my youngest two children still living at home with me. I have found myself in a terribly difficult predicament, it's been increasingly rough the last few months but in the last 24 hours has become dire. My landlord is trying to have me evicted, and I have a lawyer and have been trying to fight it with everything in me. The landlord is abusive and vindictive and in a series of escalating events has had the city step in for code violation since my water has been shut off. I was given less than 24 hours to come up with enough to pay an $800 water bill that a former roomate left me stuck with and responsible for and get the water turned back on, or the entire building is going to be condemned. I am down to just 3 hours before city inspectors arrive at my house, and I have contacted every emergency aid and assistance agency I can find, but no one can help me. I only have a few friends, but I have asked every single one of them if I could borrow money. No one I know, not friends or family, is willing or able to help me. I am facing becoming homeless and losing my children in a matter of hours, and I am so alone and so scared and so hopeless.

Some back story:

I have overcome so much over the last few years, and put in so much work and effort to even have a place to live. The events that got me to where I am now have been unpredictable and chaotic and unfortunate, but I fought my way through them. I have overcome being in and escaping from a terrible and dangerous relationship. I have fought my way through the struggle to find housing, near homelessness, and poverty so deep I still suffer the physical effects of malnutrition from several years of not having enough to eat. Because I fed my kids instead of myself most of the time, because there simply wasn't enough. I have legitimate brain damage from some vitamin deficiencies and I no longer absorb nutrients from the food I eat properly. But I fought my way through that battle, and for the last two years have been doing much better with it. I fought my way through not having an income, and had managed to keep a stable financial situation by doing personal assistant work for an old friend of mine. I kept this going for nearly 3 years, until my friend and benefactor passed away unexpectedly in their sleep about a year ago. I fought my way through a terrible situation once I finally did find housing, where a close friend had invited me to rent a few rooms from him and his roommate, but then had a complete psychiatric breakdown and put everyone who lived here through a living hell as he descended into the depths of extremely paranoid schizophrenia, for months. This culminated with him trying to kill us all, even my children and our pets. He was unsuccessful and no one was hurt, but it could have been a disaster had the fire not been immediately contained. he was arrested and diagnosed with the schizophrenia, which explained why he had been acting the way he had. It was traumatic for all involved. I then found myself in a situation where a meddling neighbor tried to have my family kicked out, but I made a desperate and heartfelt plea to the landlord to stay here that ended up with the lease being given to me and one remaining roommate. For once things were looking up for me.

But then I lost my income and fell behind on my utilities and my rent. And though I tried I was unable to secure employment or another income for many months. We were late on rent a few times, though never by even a whole month, and my water and other utilities fell into disconnect. I've managed to get everything but the water taken care of. I've since decided to go back to school, applied to and been accepted by the university of my choice for the program I want to do. Life-long dream, I was finally doing it, and between financial aid, student loans, and scholarship programs I will be able to cover my living expenses while I do so. I was poised to begin classes when I got the first eviction notice. I can't start classes if I have nowhere to live so I have held off while I try to fight this eviction, but it is ready to go ahead as soon as I am stable enough.

The landlord is being legitimately ugly, nasty, unforgiving and downright abusive about this eviction. He ignores my calls and texts and then says that I never reached out to fix the situation. He provided paperwork to obtain non-legal mitigation in the first notice he gave me, which I filled out and mailed in and was following through on, and then tells me he would never include that or want that. (I have the paperwork though, as part of the eviction notice, and he himself even included it in his documentation for these court proceedings when he included a copy of the notice as evidence, "exhibit b" in our proceedings so...) I have been trying to reach him and come to payment arrangements since November to no avail, but he says I am a liar and have not and that I am stealing from him by being here. Truth is I really have absolutely nowhere to go or means to move my belongings. I have nothing and no one to fall back on, no backup plan. I never thought I'd actually be forced to leave as I followed all the steps i was instructed to to make it right. But now he's saying I did not, and it's essentially my word against his. I have gotten a lawyer. I am trying to get on top of my financial situation and catch up on everything I fell behind on, and I am so close but I have run out of time. I am down to hours left, and I am scared and desperate. So I am asking for help, no pride or entitlement involved, just humbly asking for help, to come up with the $800 for the water bill by the end of the day and the rest of the back rent I owe by the end of the week. My resources are exhausted. I've got no one on my side and surely that's not right. I'm not a bad person, I'm honest and I put 100% effort and dedication into everything I do. I'm not an addict or a thief or trying to con or swindle anyone, I'm just a terrified mother trying to survive. I am going to leave two key things here to plead my case. The first is the long and heartfelt text message that I sent to my landlord, which was the last communication directly between us. He never answered and served me an eviction notice 3 days later. The second is a video of the landlord and his crew in my house yesterday, yelling at me, threatening me, swearing at me, calling me a liar, all sorts of unpleasantness. It was just myself and two small children in the house at the time.

Text message to landlord on Dec 1st:

Well, it's midnight on what I think might be the end of the time we were given on the eviction notice. I'm not really sure how it's counted, does the 3 days include the holiday? Banks and such were closed. Weekends? Is it like, business days or just 3 days no matter the factors? I've never had to deal with legal matters like this before, I'm sorry. Fact is I don't have your money yet anyway, so I am not sure what kind of actions I'm supposed to take next. I won't have the money until realistically Wednesday or Thursday if I'm being transparent about it.

I know that you explicitly stated that you do not exchange work on the house in place of rent money, and I want to be very clear that that is not what I am offering. But I really love this house, and we have put a ton of work and time and effort into it. I know you never did a walk-through with us, but I have a folder of approximately 600 pictures of improvements and repairs we have done, before/during/after pictures of everything from painting to repairing woodwork to installing new light and electrical fixtures to cleaning up some really gross messes that were here when we first signed the lease with you. I didn't keep receipts because you stated clearly these things have no monetary value toward rent or reimbursement, and I never intended them to. But I took a lot of pictures so that I have a record of it all. It has to be worth something? Could it be worth giving me a few more days time to get you the money owed? I've never actually liked a house before, it's new to me. I've moved around a lot my whole adult life for various reasons, this is the first time I've ever felt safe and comfortable and wanted to stay anywhere. Would you be willing to give me just a few more days to pay the full amount I owe plus additional late fees for the additional days?

If not, I understand. But I've never been evicted before and I am not sure at all how it works. Do I have to get out immediately? Do I have like 30 days or something to figure out a place to go? Will I be locked out and lose all my and my family's belongings tomorrow? I don't have anywhere else to go or a place to move my stuff to. What legal options would I even have? Forgive my ignorance, this isn't something I've gone through before, I'm trying to figure it out.

As stated, I will have the full amount owed on Thursday give or take a day. It really just depends on how fast my mail gets here this week. (Ha, ha, check's in the mail . yes I understand how dumb that sounds, but it's true in this case.)

I'm sorry that xxxx's health has taken a down turn and that living expenses have become difficult for us. If it helps at all I would like you to know that I recently enrolled in school again, classes start January 6th. It's a four year program and I will definitely be receiving enough in financial assistance to cover my living expenses. So my ability to pay you the rent every month has been greatly increased as well as been secured for at the the next 4 years. I genuinely apologize for it currently being almost enough but not quite. And I thank you for giving me a chance at least, even if I did fall short. I know I'm late with the rent too often but I do always pay it eventually. I've never not paid at all, it's just late sometimes and I sincerely apologize for that.

Please let me know what you think. I'm not trying to be difficult, things are just difficult for me right now. I love this house and this neighborhood and this little town and I would really like to not have to leave. Thank you for your time.

-dara xxxx, tenant at xxxx.

And here is a link to the video. The way he behaves toward me is entirely unprofessional and out of nowhere:

He came with 3 extra goons to try to intimidate me

I am trying to raise $800 immediately for my urgent water bill and the rest for back rent. I actually had a large portion of the back rent gathered but a few weeks ago, when the landlord started being aggressive toward me, I made the judgement call to spend that money to put my 18 year old daughter on a plane and remove her from this situation by having her stay with friends for awhile as I try to resolve things. She has already been absolutely traumatized by things over the last few years and struggles with some intense mental health and PTSD issues, it would be devastating for her to be around an adult male verbally attacking us and threatening us. It would definitely negate any progress she has painstakingly made and she just does not deserve it. I felt we were unsafe and that she was particularly vulnerable to the situation and so as a parent the best thing I felt I could do was protect her from this. But in doing so I set myself back to square one.

Please, please help me. Someone, anyone. I've never been evicted before, never been in a situation that requires me to seek out a lawyer, nothing at all like this. I am in way over my head and feel very helpless and afraid. Please help if you can. Thank you.