The Search Continues

For the past couple of months, I've known that I was going to have to move.  There turned out to be nothing I could do to keep the house from going up for sale at the state tax auction, and therefore I started looking at alternatives prior to the auction taking place.

Unfortunately, the search is still ongoing, and time is running out in which I have to find a place, get packed, and get moved out of the old homestead.  The new owners are already whining at me on a far to regular basis about why I haven't gotten moved Already, and are bugging me on an every 4 day basis about whether I have successfully located a new abode.  I'm getting tired of hearing from them.  I've long since been tired of the search.

Granted I could probably be making "more of an effort" but let's face it, when you have to rely on your friends (and work around their schedules) to do anything, it kind of limits the number of opportunities you have in which to go looking.  I don't live in a city where mass transit is an option.  Public transportation in Oklahoma City is a joke at best.  Cabs are expensive.  And with the summer temperatures routinely well above 95F, walking more than a mile to go look at apartments is simply not a valid option unless I'm hoping that a hospital stay for heat stroke will buy me some time and sympathy from the vultures who bought my family home.  That last one isn't an option that I'm willing to make any favorable bets on, so let's just call walking "not an option" shall we?

The new owners are getting more insistent that I GTFO of this house, so they can get to work on fixing/flipping it.  They aren't even willing to consider the option of doing some of the necessary work (like replacing the water heater, fixing the kitchen plumbing issues, or re-roofing) while I'm here - or better yet, fixing the problems and signing a lease with me so that I continue to live here, but not as the erstwhile owner.  Oh no.  They would rather harass me about moving more quickly, and hold off on doing any of the needed work. 

While they originally agreed with me (verbally, not in writing) that I had until August 1st to find a place and get moved, the closer to the middle of July we get, the more insistent they become that I be out prior to that tentative August 1st deadline.

Finding a new place isn't easy under the best of circumstances.  When you're under the gun to do so in a limited amount of time, it becomes just that much more stressful, and that much more of a pain in the rump.  Every rental place, whether it be an apartment complex or rental house, wants a $25 to $35 "application fee" just to consider you.  Unless they're downright ghetto-tastic, they expect you to have a lengthy (and easily verifable) rental history that is less than 10 years old, and a perfect or near perfect credit score.  Or if you don't have a near perfect credit score, 5 years of employment (at the same place) and a co-signer who is willing to be held legally responsible for the lease should something happen and you be unable to stay the duration.

I hate to break it to the various slumlords out there, but anyone who has that good of a credit score isn't looking to rent - they're buying, and not from you.  

At 46, I have way less than perfect credit.  And so does everyone I know, in the current economy.  Co-signers?  That's a joke, right?  My parents are either dead or in a nursing home (which disqualifies daddy from co-signing anything, even if he still had sufficient brain to not be considered legally incompetent.)  My only living sibling is an alcoholic drug user who has tried to kill me.  My friends are having enough trouble just keeping a roof over their Own heads to worry about whether I'm going to find a roof to keep over My head or will be living on the street in short order.

My choices are rapidly being reduced to 2: move into a ghettofabulous apartment that's falling apart, with drug dealers and prostitutes for neighbors and no choice but to keep a hand gun within finger's reach for when they attempt to break in (assuming they don't simply wait for me to go to work to do so, of course) or leave everything I still own behind for the new owners to dispose of, and start living on the street. 

Moving in with the boyfriend is not an option.  He has room mates, the room mates are expecting a child, and they might all soon be having to move if the bank manages to finish foreclosure proceedings.  Finding a room mate has not been particularly successful either.  There were several room mate disasters prior to the house going up for auction, which is one of the reasons that it ended up sold that way to begin with.  None to certain that I want to risk the room mate route again, though at this point I don't see that I'll have a whole lot of choice in the matter - the economy simply isn't good enough for someone to keep the rent and bills paid on their own unless they happen to be a CEO.

I'm going later today to look at yet another apartment complex in this general area.  I was told about it a couple of days ago by one of the women I work with, as another possible alternative, as it is a complex she and her hubby have been looking at as a possibility.  It's an all bills paid place, which in some ways would make things a lot easier.  No utilities other than my cell to worry about, and possibly my cable/internet.  Hopefully they will be reasonable about what sort of rental history they expect out of someone who has lived in family owned properties for most of the past 12 or 15 years.  Wish me luck, because at this point, I need it.  And I'm getting more than a bit discouraged by the whole thing.