Stop in for a cup of coffee
Nice background Karl, you should get something soon.
yeah, but they don't want to talk to me because I've been off for almost 10 years helping take care of my sick mom & dad, and raising my two boys by myself.
Mom was in such bad shape that she couldn't walk without a walker. I had to take her shopping and to the Dr. appts and she used to push my limits.... She sometimes didn't realize that there is a line between getting help and imposing. She liked the attention and wanted to be "doded upon"... Her and my brother weren't talking at the time, so all of it fell on me. Even though my brother lives 10-15 minutes from her and I was 45 minutes away.
My oldest son transferred here in his Jr. year of HS and graduated a semester early with 3.9 GPA for the last two semesters and above 3.5 for the first one... In a new school and having to break into the "cliques" that were already formed....
then I got the second one here for 7th grade and above. Once he got "adjusted" to the new schools, he was above 3.5, and even did 4.0 for his whole senior year.
I made sure that I went to all parent/teacher meetings, and dropped them off and picked them up from school until they were seniors and allowed to drive themselves (senior privilege if they put in 30 hours of community service locally).
Then slowly moving my stuff from my house in Detroit to my house here on weekends when I could make a trip to Detroit. The house there got broken into twice and they stripped it to the basic frame. Took my a/c, gutted the new 2 stage furnace with lifetime warranty, and took all my new copper water pipes that cost $13k to have installed.
The first break in, they left a door open in December and the water pipes froze and burst in the upstairs bathroom and flooded the whole house, ruining all of the hardwood floors on the first floor, and soaking the whole basement. I had to hire special guys to dry out the house with huge fans and spray to kill any mold that may have started.
then Allstate tried to accuse me of fraud when I turned in the second claim and wouldn't cover it because I didn't file the police report right away. When I first discovered it and called the police they wouldn't make out a theft report. I finally got them to make one 4 months later.... (and they wonder why Detroit has such a bad reputation....)
Then trying to list and sell the stripped house for a fixer-upper. I ended up selling it to a neighbor that I met when my son was just starting to walk. He lived on the opposite corner of our block and had a son the same age, and our kids grew up together. Then they went to the same high school. His son was always polite and nice. He split with his wife and was looking to get back in the "hood" so we worked out a deal and he took over the house and fixed it back up... He even parked in the drive way on Devil's Night during the deal to make sure nobody burned it down (Halloween Eve tradition in Detroit to burn empty housed the day before Halloween. We used to watch the fires around the city from the 7th floor dorm when I was at college...)
Now he got my youngest son into minibikes. He also has a younger son the same age as my younger one. His youngest son is very tall and thin now, much different than the "little brother" he used to be when he was younger... Both the younger brothers out grew their older brothers... Kinda funny... I outgrew my older brother also... :D
Even though you shouldn't do business with friends as that usually will end a friendship, we pulled it off and still are friends. I was glad to sell it to him so he could stay in the neighborhood, than sell it to a flipper who wanted me to finance it for him to make profit off of... WTF??? The guy had over 7 other houses and couldn't come up with the cash to buy mine?? Sorry pal, I'll sell it to my friend who will fix it up and live there, not flip it for a profit at my financing... :finga:
So now my friend owns the house with no mortgage and just has to pay the property taxes. It helped him recover from the financial hit of the divorce. Going into debt and having to give the ex wife the old house is a hard burden, (been there done that), now he's caught up to where he should be at this age as far as finances and house ownership goes. Not to mention putting the kids through college...
I feel better letting him take advantage of my bad luck with the house, than letting a stranger run with it... I was honest and told and showed him what was wrong with the house, and he accepted the responsibility, and fixed up to his liking. Win-win... He's also a car guy, but not Mopars, so we had that common car-guy bond all the years as our sons hung out, not to mention we both went through divorces. :cheers:
So all of that kept me very busy....