I didn’t wake up as early today as I would like, having listed in the bed much longer than I wanted, and settled into the pillow and on Duke just to ease my entrance into the day.
At the end of the summer, we watched someone’s entire life get emptied out onto the patio, the family one I had become fond of, the younger boy having taken to Duke and was one of his buddies in the complex. I was pretty protective over their pile, having never seen them again exactly after that point, me convinced this was a surprise to them as well. People did argue with me explicitly saying, they got evicted, like being animals and scavenging off something not IN the dumpster was normal, but I still could never do that to someone else.
Yesterday late morning we heard the clutter of an aggressive move, furniture and apartment emptied onto the parking lot, couches heaped in busted piles like they were tossed. All if it was piled into a single parking space, and there was a child’s bed perched atop the other mattress, sheetless, and a Christmas tree lay half crushed at the end, parts of the glass bulbs in glittered piles beneath it. A grill that is now gone, and all of their lives, some family above us, now heaped in a single space. Not nicely, mind you, with the aggression and anger of someone who did not give a fuck, someone who wanted to pound the humiliation in while tossing it out like garbage. Maybe they did leave, maybe they said, we can’t afford it, you deal with it, but wouldn’t that then be dumpster dropping as opposed to this shitshow? Who knows, common sense and showing respect are things that most should strive for, but few ever get completely.
I am utterly shocked with which the ease people are evicted in this city-and of course it brought me back to my own eviction and I have to I guess be grateful I got 30 days, though I am sure a written lease would have been hard to find, if it was even put in a single place. But their lives are totally shattered, all of these people, because legitimately, this is the CHEAPEST place to live in the surrounding complexes and with the space it offers, with any real easy option to commute just about anywhere. So these guys are homeless, they now have to replace EVERYTHING, sometimes children’s affects, clothing–man the thing that hurt me the most was seeing Duke’s friends bike just sitting out there to take and people did. These people now have an eviction on their record, something that takes YEARS to undo–and basically yes, people are now homeless.
I walked around the complex with Duke last night and saw these notices, the white paper fluttering on the door after the first week meaning only one thing. And I walked by two to confirm, yes, demand for immediate rent, an eviction notice, and seriously, there were like 6 or 7 I saw walking my dog among half the buildings in the complex.
I got back, saw Don, and could not help but cry, knowing a bunch of these families do have kids, and nobody is helping them right now and it seems that shit, a lot of people are hurting. It is about to be a war zone over here, and I just hope this has nothing to do with the shutdown, though I know a bunch of people sitting around waiting to go back, and they’re in higher brackets, so who knows what industry that might domino out to affect, maybe some of these people are affected.
All I know is I cried a bit more, knowing this and I watched some tv, passed out, wandered to bed, got inside and was up at 4, somewhat emotionally traumatized by the whole thing and I tried to go back to sleep but it was that heavy emotionally tolled sleep you sometimes get or do not get. And then it was over as it was time to get up and see Don, somewhat frazzled by the morons who go 10 under and hang out in the left lane on his drive home.
I told Don I was too sensitive to be alive right now as he saw me crying as I relayed the notes on the doors last night–man no wonder I won’t go outside largely–it’s people becoming homeless all around me and all I want to do is find a way to bank 6 months so life can go to hell and I don’t have to worry about homelessness ever.
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