Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

As summer began, things began to slow down in Diane's little saga. Some things didn't change however as, whenever I asked her where the $185k went, the only response I got was, "I don't know."

In early June, Diane was hospitalized once again with pneumonia. As before, what she said would be a five day hospital stay turned into 10. When she returned home this time, it was obvious this round had taken a lot out of her and she was on oxygen day and night. Her weakened condition was obvious when I went by to pick up some documents and found her sitting on the front porch, looking like hell (which in her case...well, never mind) with an oxygen tube up her nose and a stupid, mindless grin on her face.

In this time, I was still working with Countrywide to try to figure a way out of foreclosure and with the FBI to do whatever I could do to nail the con man. However, in July, things changed. Though I had previously taken as gospel Diane's fuzzy tale of being taken by a con man, some elements become clearer after I had a chat with the FBI agent working the case. Though she was taken and her credit used to purchase other houses, according to the G-man, she apparently did go out and legitimately get a loan against the house before ever contacting the con man. Thus, she pissed all that money away and wound up at the con man to try and refinance her first loan! Needless to say, I lost much of the sympathy I had for Diane after this conversation.

This was all the more frustrating when one considers that Diane came to me needing $300 and offering me a post-dated check payable on the 25th in return. Said she had some extra bills she couldn't pay related to the oxygen equipment she's had to pay for since her second round of pneumonia. This was driven home when she couldn't stand on the front porch for more than 30 seconds without having to sit down to catch her breath.

This was all well and good, except for the fact that, according to the FBI agent on the case, she also went to the credit union that holds the note on her car wanting to squeeze $300 more out of that loan because "a sister had passed away out of town"! (she doesn't have any sisters) When they turned her down and suggested she go to family in town, she told them she didn't have any family here!!!!! Also of note here, Diane had the balls (or stupidity) to go to the same credit union where she had fraudulently cashed the insurance check. When that was mentioned to her, she told the lady at the credit union the FBI would take care of that! I mention that because, when recounting to me the story he'd gotten from the lady at the credit union, the FBI agent quoted Diane almost verbatim using the same pitch she'd used when she called me.

Now it was obvious Diane had a little bit of con man in her as well and, though I was tempted to wash my hands of the whole thing, I still felt sorry for her and felt like I needed to see it through till the end. Turns out, the end was coming faster than I knew.

In late July, my phone rings. I pick it up and without a hello or anything else, Diane immediately says, "They're gonna sell my house." The sheriff's sale date was three weeks away and she would likely need to vacate two to three weeks after that. Though I had told her all along this was very possible, she seemed surprised by all of this. I advised her to start thinking about what possessions she wanted to sell or store and what she wanted to take with her when she moved.

I tried to remind Diane that there were still options, however. I knew she could file bankruptcy and, if nothing else, buy some time and get out from under the rest of her other debt. And, though it hadn't been promising, I was still trying to figure something out with Countrywide.

My first call was to Diane's bankruptcy attorney. He was out of town and wouldn't be back around till the following Monday. From there, I called Countrywide. Once we all got on the same page, they pretty much realized very quickly that she didn't have any options, save for rolling the delinquent payments back into the note, giving her an even bigger monthly payment. Hearing that, it was time to find Diane someplace to live.

It was plainly obvious Diane needed to be in some form of a senior center. I priced an apartment or two but most of them were somewhat pricey and offered little security for an old lady. I then spent a fair bit of my free time trying to find out what it would take to get Diane into a senior type place she could afford. For the Catholic ones, she either had too much income to qualify for the low income center or just barely enough income to afford a nice independent living center. Problem there was, they didn't have any studios available. I then looked at city funded senior housing. She could certainly afford it, but there were no openings at any of the centers she would want to live and the application and wait process was going to take too long.

Finally I settled on some nice high-rise apartments downtown that offered reasonable rates,all bills paid, six month or one year leases and private garage and secure entry while still leaving her about $1500 a month to live on. Now all we had to do was get bankruptcy filed....