It’s a hot day today. I turned on fans in the house to circulate the air. Luckily, it’s a sunny day and the solar collectors are nice and charged to run the AC. The temp in the rooms drops.
This used to be all of my house, lucky for me…I saw what was coming. I used my handyman skills and turned my 3800 sq ft house into 3 different apartments. My neighbors complained. But soon they realized I was right.
As the housing prices dropped, they were forclosed and driven out. Now all the people who used to complain about my project are living in RVs or shelters. Their homes are now empty, their lawns filled with tall weeds.
I have 2 renters living in what used to be bedrooms and my former study. Two families who are used to better digs. Now they fight every night, fueled by alcohol and exhaustion. The soundproofing I put in deadens the noise, but I can still hear sobbing and breaking glass.
They are hardly ever home. They have to work 3 or more jobs just to afford to pay me rent.
As for me, I’m going out on the porch and drink a beer, boot up the laptop, and taunt some people on some message boards. The wifi from the local tower is strong today.
My ebay business is going well. I just sold another Ipod for 10 bucks. I bought them by the crate when the local electronics store shut down. A week later, some thugs burned it down and looted the shopping center and a nearby mall. It burned for three days.
I wonder what the people who work for a living are doing today? I’m putting my feet up and enjoy the breeze. I smell something burning.
A plume of smoke rises of near where another country club neighborhood used to be. Now it’s gang turf. Gunfire pops in the distance. What used to be an exclusive HOA controled subdivision, where people named their kids Connor and Katlin, now resembles Baghdad.
Gangs, trained in the miltary and battle hardened after years of war, take to the streets in ethanol powered battle SUVs with steel plates and spikes. Real Mad Max sort of stuff.
If you dare drive close to that neighborhood, you’ll catch a glimpse of the burned out country club restaurant.
On the old golf course, now weedy and overgrown, birds circle over the latest corpse, dumped where executives used to cut deals and drive golf carts.
I wonder what’s for lunch today. Of course…it’s the MREs I have stashed in the garage. After finishing my beer, I’ll venture down there get one and a bottle of water.
I checked my bank accounts. I have 4 of them. Two here in the states and two overseas. I was stupid and put a ton of money in investments. Lost most of it in the crash of 2009.
I’m only worth about 40k. A puny amount in 2008 dollars, but a fortune in today’s world.
The house used to be worth over a mil, but I picked it up for 200k in forclosure. The previous owner had trashed the place on his way out. Most of the damage was from a sledgehammer and a paint sprayer. It looked horrible, but was nothing I couldn’t fix.
It was worth every penny.
My neighbors at the time were executives and other business people. They snickered at the guy in the beat up Honda who was moving in. But I kept my beat up car in the garage, had 3 roomates, and paid my bills. I even kept my lawn cut. There were several HOA meeting about me and how I was the “wrong element” to be living amongst them and their SUVs and Tuscan Kitchens.
My roomates were mostly self-employed web geeks and people who ran small online businesses. We shared computer parts and internet access over a high speed connection. The house was pre-wired for Wifi, so we kept out of each others way and did our work.
But I didn’t do drugs. I Paid my fees. Most of all, I kept quiet and I kept to myself….the key to surviving amongst the HOA people.
When I started draging drywall into the house to build the apartments, there was an uproar. They tried to have me booted.
Then the “big one” hit in 2009. The stock market tanked. Many of them were laid off. Gas went up to 10 bucks a gallon. Then came the “sandstorm” in the Middle East…and that was all she wrote.
I remember the night afterward, when the power went out for the first time. I went out and sat on my dark porch and drank a bottle of water. Some of my neighbors wandered out on their lawns and looked around at the starry sky….like they were waiting for aliens to attack. They seems dazed, weary, and to terrified to sleep. They seemed to know what was coming.
My roomates moved out, looking to help their struggling families. It was my house, so I stayed.
My neighbors who were trying to have me evicted were all gone within three months. Some just packed up and fled. Other were evicted…some quietly…some not.
One guy started sitting out on his front lawn with his son’s baseball bat, daring the repo man to take his luxry sedan. They sent two repo men who looked like twin brothers of Dog the Bounty hunter. One hooked the guy’s car up to a tow truck, while the other one got down on his knees with my now sobbing neighbor, asking for Jesus to guide. They both hugged him and drove off.
The next day his family was gone.
I wasn’t evicted.
Over the next week I fixed up the apartments in my house. They weren’t pretty, but they were liveable.
I put an ad on a rental web site and waited.
My cell phone practically leaped off my desk and my email account filled up with takers.
I picked three familes. The moved in within hours, looking worn and tired, like they had been fleeing martian tripods.
- Anonymous