Relocation Recovery
Donation protected
A friend offered to do a crowdfunding campaign for me. That was nice, but, I am used to speaking for myself. So, I am…and hopefully it is not a mistake!
The past 8 months have presented a series of events I could not have anticipated or planned for. In the decision to move from a place I had lived for 24 years I found a place to rent that was a smaller house with a landlady that I liked. I was about to turn 64, I work two jobs and wanted to give myself a place easier to care for and more suitable for a home and home office. I signed a lease in December 1st.
The first week I began packing in December, I hurt my left shoulder and it was 9 weeks before I could raise my arm without pain.
The second week in December, one week after the shoulder injury, a spider bit the middle finger of my right hand…and I could not close my fingers for 3 weeks. Made for some difficulty in packing and moving. There were times I had to laugh when not able to lift with my left arm or grasp with my right hand. Then, that got very tiring. I was able to use professional movers, but, it was up to me to go through 52 years of ‘things’. (My Mother and brother had lived there 26 years before I did. They are deceased.)
Instead of getting moved by January 1st, it was February 1st before everything was packed and moved. So this meant I was paying rent at both locations for January.
February 1st, me and my companion animals were our new home! I was so happy to be moved! Now the unpacking starts along with necessary getting rid of things I did not need. (With my shoulder and hand injured during the move, I ended up packing almost everything accumulated over 24 years [plus old family stuff] with the decision to go through it once moved.) This joy was short lived…
One week after getting everything moved, February 7th, the roof started leaking in 4 parts of the house and shortly after that the two car garage that was totally packed the boxes…started flooding. It flooded 14 feet into the garage soaking everything on the floor all across the double garage width.
So, 1 week after my move was complete the unpacking halted and the damage control began.
Over the next 4 months – the roof leaked more and the garage flooded again. Boxes were collapsing and the mildew and mold started. The landlady had tarps put on the roof for 4 months. When they failed and more damage occurred, she had the tarps fixed within 24 hours. She had been a landlady for a long time with multiple properties so she knows how to stay just within the law…See saw no cause to give me a break on the rent except for one month I paid half. The amount of damage and loss did not matter to her. Why should it? In my planning the move, I had thought I would look into renter’s insurance more after I had gotten mostly unpacked. Even if I had had it, it would not have covered the detached garage. My books, textbooks, family photographs, professional art, thousands of medium format negatives that I had inventoried so I could get in touch with clients and offer them for sale…ruined. So much that I haven’t even gotten to yet. It is heartbreaking.
Having a home office is good. Great even. But when you are having to tarp computer equipment every day and have 3 buckets in the bathroom, 1 in the bedroom, a rainforest in the side enclosed porch, that also had boxes to be unpacked, (these boxes had to stay tarped even though they were wet…because that tarp failed repeated.) There was so much damage I couldn’t physically unbox them yet. The same with all across the back covered deck where water had poured down into boxes I was beginning to unpack, as well as, the boxes I had staged to unpack…It is damage control not unpacking!
Four months with a tarped roof later, a new roof is installed. During that time I lost two full months of income spending every day going through what I could to salvage what I could…still not knowing if tarps would fail again and more damage would result. Stressed? Oh, wow…
Even now, the damage control continues with increased mold and mildew. I am working as much as is physically possible.
Then in June, I was sick for 2 weeks with a bacterial staph infection and 102 temp. That makes the lost income a total of 4 ½ months out of the 8 months since I signed the lease here. The initial 6 weeks that I planned on packing, moving, unpacking and getting settled. I could handle the 6 weeks with no income at the time. It was the additional 3 months that has me at the point of unable to pay my rent for July plus another month due...today. So I need funds quickly to recover and keep a roof over my head. (Which would be nice since now it is not leaking!)
Did I wait till the later minute to ask for help? Yes, I did. I kept hoping I could do it myself. Once the rent is caught up and if this funding campaign is enough, I can pay for some help to go through boxes (with respirators for mold and mildew)…then, I will be able to take to from there and go forward!
But I just have not been able to run fast enough/work hard enough to make up for the income I lost through what my landlady has called “an act of God”.
Right now, there is nothing I can offer in exchange for your monetary assistance. I wish I could because it is not easy to ask for help. But, after exhausting other possible assistance, this is what is left. This is my Hail Mary…
(The photographs below are after water had subsided the two times it flooded.)
Whatever you feel to and can donate, my gratitude is beyond what I can express.
The funds will go to pay last month, this month and hopefully something towards next month’s rent. If there is enough I will use it to hire someone to help me finish going through the damage control portion of mildew/molded boxes (cleaning every single thing that comes out of every box if it is salvageable…) and to move things that are heavier than I should or can in most cases be lifting. THEN, I can and will move forward.
When all this is done and I have actually gotten past the damage control and then the unpacking…there will be a housewarming party! You will be invited!
With deepest sincerity, thank you…
The past 8 months have presented a series of events I could not have anticipated or planned for. In the decision to move from a place I had lived for 24 years I found a place to rent that was a smaller house with a landlady that I liked. I was about to turn 64, I work two jobs and wanted to give myself a place easier to care for and more suitable for a home and home office. I signed a lease in December 1st.
The first week I began packing in December, I hurt my left shoulder and it was 9 weeks before I could raise my arm without pain.
The second week in December, one week after the shoulder injury, a spider bit the middle finger of my right hand…and I could not close my fingers for 3 weeks. Made for some difficulty in packing and moving. There were times I had to laugh when not able to lift with my left arm or grasp with my right hand. Then, that got very tiring. I was able to use professional movers, but, it was up to me to go through 52 years of ‘things’. (My Mother and brother had lived there 26 years before I did. They are deceased.)
Instead of getting moved by January 1st, it was February 1st before everything was packed and moved. So this meant I was paying rent at both locations for January.
February 1st, me and my companion animals were our new home! I was so happy to be moved! Now the unpacking starts along with necessary getting rid of things I did not need. (With my shoulder and hand injured during the move, I ended up packing almost everything accumulated over 24 years [plus old family stuff] with the decision to go through it once moved.) This joy was short lived…
One week after getting everything moved, February 7th, the roof started leaking in 4 parts of the house and shortly after that the two car garage that was totally packed the boxes…started flooding. It flooded 14 feet into the garage soaking everything on the floor all across the double garage width.
So, 1 week after my move was complete the unpacking halted and the damage control began.
Over the next 4 months – the roof leaked more and the garage flooded again. Boxes were collapsing and the mildew and mold started. The landlady had tarps put on the roof for 4 months. When they failed and more damage occurred, she had the tarps fixed within 24 hours. She had been a landlady for a long time with multiple properties so she knows how to stay just within the law…See saw no cause to give me a break on the rent except for one month I paid half. The amount of damage and loss did not matter to her. Why should it? In my planning the move, I had thought I would look into renter’s insurance more after I had gotten mostly unpacked. Even if I had had it, it would not have covered the detached garage. My books, textbooks, family photographs, professional art, thousands of medium format negatives that I had inventoried so I could get in touch with clients and offer them for sale…ruined. So much that I haven’t even gotten to yet. It is heartbreaking.
Having a home office is good. Great even. But when you are having to tarp computer equipment every day and have 3 buckets in the bathroom, 1 in the bedroom, a rainforest in the side enclosed porch, that also had boxes to be unpacked, (these boxes had to stay tarped even though they were wet…because that tarp failed repeated.) There was so much damage I couldn’t physically unbox them yet. The same with all across the back covered deck where water had poured down into boxes I was beginning to unpack, as well as, the boxes I had staged to unpack…It is damage control not unpacking!
Four months with a tarped roof later, a new roof is installed. During that time I lost two full months of income spending every day going through what I could to salvage what I could…still not knowing if tarps would fail again and more damage would result. Stressed? Oh, wow…
Even now, the damage control continues with increased mold and mildew. I am working as much as is physically possible.
Then in June, I was sick for 2 weeks with a bacterial staph infection and 102 temp. That makes the lost income a total of 4 ½ months out of the 8 months since I signed the lease here. The initial 6 weeks that I planned on packing, moving, unpacking and getting settled. I could handle the 6 weeks with no income at the time. It was the additional 3 months that has me at the point of unable to pay my rent for July plus another month due...today. So I need funds quickly to recover and keep a roof over my head. (Which would be nice since now it is not leaking!)
Did I wait till the later minute to ask for help? Yes, I did. I kept hoping I could do it myself. Once the rent is caught up and if this funding campaign is enough, I can pay for some help to go through boxes (with respirators for mold and mildew)…then, I will be able to take to from there and go forward!
But I just have not been able to run fast enough/work hard enough to make up for the income I lost through what my landlady has called “an act of God”.
Right now, there is nothing I can offer in exchange for your monetary assistance. I wish I could because it is not easy to ask for help. But, after exhausting other possible assistance, this is what is left. This is my Hail Mary…
(The photographs below are after water had subsided the two times it flooded.)
Whatever you feel to and can donate, my gratitude is beyond what I can express.
The funds will go to pay last month, this month and hopefully something towards next month’s rent. If there is enough I will use it to hire someone to help me finish going through the damage control portion of mildew/molded boxes (cleaning every single thing that comes out of every box if it is salvageable…) and to move things that are heavier than I should or can in most cases be lifting. THEN, I can and will move forward.
When all this is done and I have actually gotten past the damage control and then the unpacking…there will be a housewarming party! You will be invited!
With deepest sincerity, thank you…
Organizer
M.c. Rollo
Organizer
Shreveport, LA