Upcoming expenses

[Barbisi]

Well, I've got that feeling beat -no repairs at all!!!!, LOL
It's such a relief to leave behind the extensive updates and remodel that was surely ahead of us with that investor house! Let that realtor flipper deal with the repairs because for once we got to walk away with some money instead of getting rooked yet again.

[sophieanne]

Carmella - I’m glad you found someone who sounds good and will work with you. I remember my first repair after BK..new hot water install..paid cash..the best feeling ever.

[Carmella]

I already had a few estimates and we decided we can get it done. The company does not take any down payment and when I hesitated, he asked if it was about money and told me he doesn't require any payment until 30 days. It's a local business that has been around. He does siding, roofs, and some other stuff. He has a crew that does only garage roofs and garage repairs. That was nice to hear instead of squeezing a small garage roof in when you could be doing a house that will pay 3x as much if not more.

We can swing it and decided just to do it as it is well overdue. We should be able to budget the garage roof and the property taxes and then get husband a car around September. And we are actually excited to finally do a home repair after many years of NOT being able to do that.

[Barbisi]

Wow, Carmella, I'm sorry that you have this major headache of a bully neighbor to deal with just when you could start to relax and enjoy your BK13 liberation!
I hope you can start the process to repair your garage roof soon and at a reasonable cost and still get your hubby his much needed car.
My late mother had a cat-hating neighbor who called the pound numerous times and had many of her pet cats trapped and euthanized. This hateful "Christian" woman even filled a milk jug with rocks and would aim it with deadly results at many unlucky semi-feral cats (who were fed by my mother) ,and who made the fateful decision to enter her yard and "endanger" her precious birdbath. Of course, she called the city to report Mama's unsightly backyard when an old red shed started falling down. She was one nasty piece of work, and she finally ended up going to a nursing home and dying there but only after my mother moved in with us in 2000 and later sold her house in 2001.
I hope your nice neighbor was able to transport the gentle kitty to his/her new home and the mean neighbor moves away soon and leaves you alone!

[Carmella]

Yeah I don't know what that was about having the date I received the mail the same date it was due which is why I called and left a message on his phone. It irked me that the city/mail was not delivered Monday due to the federal holiday so there wouldn't be any way to get it done and even if the letter came Monday how could we get all the yard work done by Tuesday. I called and asked for the extension since I was out of compliance with the deadline

The city has a list of streets that they inspect every year. I saw the list on Facebook and was glad my street was not on the list since I knew the garage was on borrowed time.

I don't think the city has drones. My nice neighbor whose yard was really bad starting to look like Sanford and Son since he would get stuff like equipment from his job, stuff no longer used or from a work site. Then again no one could see his yard except us because we are his only neighbor. We couldn't really see it unless we looked out the upstairs window. I had no idea how junked up it was until I looked out that window, it was my daughter's room so we were not up there often. Any way he was in the process of thinning it out when the city called him out on it. They said a drone saw his yard, but it wasn't a city drone. He was actually going to get a dumpster and he had told me that because I was thinking of asking if I could chip in and put stuff in it if he had room. But then he decided since the city was very unreasonable on the time frame and they said they didn't go in his yard, but they knew what was in the yard something you couldn't see unless you were in the yard...he decided just to load his treelawn every week so the city would have to pick it up and deal with hauling it away.

We have an old one car garage, or maybe 1 1/2 car garage, but it's really tight for one car and anything else so we use it for storage and park in the drive way.

Generally the city has been reasonable so hopefully that is still true. There's a new guy, the last one was a lady and only lasted about a year. Before that it was an old timer who worked in the city for a very long time.

I agree I will hold off on the garage as much as possible because we need to save up $. I might have one estimate tomorrow and I will document what I do. Last time I needed estimates to take the tree down only one person came out of 5 calls even some that said they would call back and never did. I think if a business can get a big job they rather do that than a garage. It will need the roof, probably some wood on the roof not just shingles and the wood where the roof and garage meet on one side at least needs to be replaced and the gutters.

My nice neighbor had the not so nice neighbor call the city to trap a "stray" cat that had been living in nice neighbor's yard. He had a plastic tote/bed for it and was trying to find a home. It was a really gentle cat even though stray it was not feral. Though we have two feral cats in the neighborhood. The city who announced "no cat trapping" was there to trap this cat and my neighbor had just found a home for it. He couldn't take it in the house because his wife and kid are allergic. But he had no choice to take it in because the animal warden was demanding the cat so he "threw it in the house" and said 'it's my cat!' It's ironic because several neighbors thought it was his cat.

Not so nice neighbor has connections in city hall.

[flashoflight]

The city has always been "understanding" and has a reputation for this as long as you start the process.

But the city wanted the weeds done days after the letter was put in the mail?

Is it possible the city has a drone? My city has lazy workers so it would have to be a snitch.

I'd do all of the cheap and easy remediation slowly with the main goal to put off the roof as long as possible. I'm assuming the roof isn't leaking yet of course. Just make barely enough progress so they give you another 1-3 months between the code enforcement mail.

[Carmella]

I wasn't sure where to put this topic. And while I am not happy I am glad this happened after discharge because if we had another 10 months to go with BK there is no way we could even think about affordinding these repairs.

Our BK 13 is discharged but waiting on the "official" discharge.

The city has come after us and yes, it is warranted because our garage roof is terrible and on the side of the garage paint is peeling and my husband never painted the back so it's peeling. We could not afford to get a new garage roof while making BK payments.

Now we have to prioritize the garage, but I am ticked because I think a neighbor instigated this because our street is not on the inspection list for this year and you can't see the problem from the street. The problem is only noticeable to this neighbor because we have no one behind us and my other neighbor is cool and has helped us with some minor repairs through our hard financial times.

The city has always been "understanding" and has a reputation for this as long as you start the process.

We just CANNOT put off getting my husband a car. I left a message to the city last night saying I would get estimates and need to come up with a plan to pay for the repairs. I was also ticked because they also complained our backyard for having weeds and grass greater than 6 inches. And there's some wood piles from the tree that was cut down. Two of my other neighbors were supposed to take the wood for fires, but never did.

It is also a PITA because they also complained about high grass, weeds and debris in the backyard. This is ridiculous and they wanted it completed by 6/21/22 and I got the letter after work on 6/21/22 so I called and left a message just to be a PITA to them saying I needed an extension because we could not get the weeds/lawn/debris taken care because we received the information at 6 pm on the day it's due.

The grass is about 6 inches tall because of the rain and we have a large lot and my husband only mowed the front and about 2/3 of the backyard which is larger than most lots in the area. He has mowed this way for 25 years and no one has ever complained. No one can see this grass since we have no neighbor behind and a 6 foot fence solid wood between us and the instigator's house. The back is open because it runs up against the park. The park that is full of weeds and why we get the tall thistle and taproot type weeds that never go away. I did not pluck them all out at the end of property by the trees. The debris is an old swing that is rusted and doesn't have a cushion is it sound and I had planned to paint it since it's still in good shape, but it wasn't a priority. And there's those wood piles...nothing I would consider "debris"

Like I said I am glad this happened after discharge because otherwise we would have some serious issues with the city because the best we could do it possibly paint the garage ourselves and mow the lawn.