12/21/2024
Integrity is a quality of being honest and living by a set of values and principles. There is a saying that Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
The past almost 8 months, Mike and I have experienced a pain that is as bad as - if not worse- than the year 2023. We had a double edged sword shoved into our soul and the people kept twisting it and twisting it.
Shortly after the fire, the boys said they are NOT going to live at 1414 Degeest again. This was 2nd person who came off the street into our yard ….. the street was getting busier and busier. After we did a major clean up of the property in March, there were a number of large items that survived the fire due to their location from the house. The majority of it was my Outdoor Classroom for my child care program. We took it off the lot and moved it onto the 8 acre field behind our house that we co-owned separate from the house. This 8 acre field has its own tax id number - and I have written the tax check every year since 2012.
We put the lot our house was on up for sale in April. 3 days later we had a full price offer from a realtor and the owner of a construction company. Mike and I were going to refuse to sell to them because of the history we had with the realtor. At the end, we decided this may be the only offer since others may be afraid of cars going through the house. So we signed the papers. Then later after the closing, Mike and I were sitting in the living room just reflecting on life - when our son came upstairs……he looked beyond devastated…we asked what was wrong. He proceeds to show us a Snapchat he received from the Realtor’s son. The Snapchat said “we bought your house, now you have no place to live. 🤣” this is our son who lost his entire world, including all his hobbies, his dogs, his truck….. I said- joke is on him, there is no house…..WHO does that??? I found out later, I could have turned it into the school for bullying, but we didn’t.
2 weeks later, in the mailbox, was a postcard from the realtor stating a QUALITY home coming soon with a photo of our burned out foundation with the police caution tape. Not sure she is aware - but quality wasn’t the reason our house burned down - not many houses can withstand a car going 90 mph flying through the house shearing off the gas line….. this postcard hurt us beyond words….another painful reminder of what happened, then the realtor’s response to people reaching out to her was another kick in the gut. I talked to the owner of the brokerage whose name was on the postcard - he basically said they established different protocol to prevent postcards like that going out again. That was the extent of our apology. I lost soooo much trust in people.
In the meantime, we were dealing with building a house- wait not one but 2 houses, multiple insurance companies, rebuilding our lives, etc. I knew the stuff was still in the field - the boys went and checked it out frequently. We were waiting until our backyard in our current house was done to bring it over.
On May 8, 2024, a friend texted me that people were in the field behind our old shed. I couldn’t go over there because I was involved in a project - plus it was raining and cold. On May 10, a co-owner of the field called us and told us everything was gone. I immediately called the cops. The only thing left was the fire pit, logs around the fire pit and the woodshed……
On Monday morning at 7:35, I called code enforcement. There was no complaints on the tax id for the field and nothing was removed by the city.
So, I called the dump. I knew the stuff was removed after 1:25 on May 8…..she asked for a description of the vehicle. I was so upset I said a white pickup with trailer. Later, I was sitting at an intersection when a construction vehicle crossed the intersection- one of the owner of the construction company’s trucks. I immediately called the dump and described the truck. An hour later, I received a call to look at my email. Opened the email and started bawling—there was my mud kitchen in the trailer. I called the police detective and he obtained a subpoena and got all the evidence of the construction company with our stuff at the dump. So they trespassed onto our property, stole our stuff and destroyed it at the dump. Since the police couldn’t prove without a doubt criminal intent - they couldn’t charge them with grand theft. The cop said the owner of the construction company wanted to “make it right with us”. When I talked to him, he said it was abandoned property, they didn’t know who owned the property (I said realtor did), he said it was trash (but admitted he never looked at it), said it was an eyesore and the house wasn’t selling, said it’s his employees fault, then said realtor was nagging him to clean up all the trash - so he had his guys do it. Then he never returned another phone call to me. In the police report he asked if he really had to pay us. Detective said if we take them to civil court and judge rules in our favor - he would be responsible.
We went to court the first time in Oct where we listened to the owner of the construction business and the realtor state they didn’t know who owned the property. The contractor said he assumed it was city property and someone abandoned the “trash”. My boys have had apps on their phone since they were 16 - stating who property owners are….they use it for hunting, fishing and 4-wheeling, but it shows us as owners of the field. My boys can figure this out, but the owner of a construction company and realtor can not. After it was established it was our property, the judge made us come back November 19.
On November 19, we listened to the contractor and the realtor say for 2 1/2 hours how our stuff was garbage, trash, unsalvageable, and worth nothing. The owner of the construction company never took off his baseball hat - how disrespectful. The construction owner stated at one point he would have never taken his kids to my daycare because it was obviously unsafe and the kids could get hurt. He also said the trailer with our stuff in it wasn’t his company’s. I asked if the cops were lying - he said they must be. At one point, He started arguing with me and I looked at him and said I am not arguing with you. He says I’m not arguing - you are. The realtor asked if we just remodeled our house - how could we afford to have all new, nice things. Mike said do not answer. I said Your Honor, we bought our house for $112k in 2001. Mike has been at his job over 30 years, I was at my job for 19 years. We paid off our house years prior and were good with our money. We were at the point where we enjoyed nice things and we took care of our stuff. The contractor also said how do they know we didn’t receive insurance money already for the stuff. Ummmm….. we had possession of the items, so claiming them is insurance fraud. I picked up my phone and asked the contractor if we should call my insurance agent. At the end, the judge asked each of them if they went and looked at any of our stuff before it went to the dump and they both said no……
There is absolutely no visible evidence that they located the property pins. Even in court, they couldn’t describe where the property pins were—we knew. Heck, we had a privacy fence built on Degeest and the amazing fence guy we hired - wouldn’t dig a single fence hole until we gave him the property survey and he located the property pins.
The court cases with the owner of the construction company and the realtor were beyond brutal because of the stuff they kept saying over and over.
Let’s add we were in court Nov 6 with a fence guy who took our money on April 1 and as of August 9, we didn’t have an enclosed fence. He told mike that I told him the rest of the money to finish the project was his bonus…..took the judge 29 minutes to rule in our favor. We still haven’t seen a penny. We watched our neighbors get a fence in a week before our fence guy even started and we had paid our guy - in full - 7 weeks prior…. What he did build was built wrong.
Struggling with who to trust. If we ever go to sell this house - I can’t trust some realtors after this realtor’s actions. Will she bring people into the house and say - that’s dusty-must be abandoned and trash, you can take it. I did watch a realtor when we lived on Degeest, show the house for sale across the street. First time to ever see this realtor. Later, he came back, backed into the driveway, went opened the garage door, backed his vehicle in and started loading up his vehicle with my neighbors stuff. They didn’t know the realtor and I never saw him again. Obviously - he had the same ethics as the realtor who told the contractor to get rid of the trash.
The saddest thing through all these trials— no one ever took responsibility for their actions - the owner of the construction company and the realtor blamed everyone and everything else - then justified their actions. The fence guy had excuse after excuse after excuse.
You know, losing our home, Aspen and Tuff, our cars, all our earthly possessions, my business—-that was something I can not describe. But finding out an owner of a construction company and a realtor couldn’t figure out property lines and had all the remainder of our stuff taken to the dump…..oh I forgot, the owner told his employees they could take whatever they wanted. Supposedly - it was all garbage and the didn’t want anything - but he isn’t trustworthy. Who will their next victim be?? Who else will they steal from??? They got away with stealing our stuff….who is next???
I will end our hell of November - with Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
As Fire victims, we had everything that survived the fire stolen and destroyed by the owner of a construction company and a realtor….what a kick in the gut. The “trash and garbage” they took included my mud kitchen and all the stuff to go with it, metal tables, chairs, concrete bird bath, lawnmower, stuff that survived the fire—a bible, metal signs, the wood beam brackets, daycare toys, flower pots, a ladder ….. according to them it was all trash—trash they never even looked at with their own eyes.
