pyewacketsworld

Part 4:

To understand this forth part you’ll have to back track to my earlier entries. This part takes me to what happened beginning March of 2006, which I call my “winner” year, you know the kind I mean. I think everyone has a time like this, when it’s one thing after another like a snowball effect, and usually in the negative sense. The kind of things that happens to a person and one wants to throw one’s hands in the air and ask, “Why me?”

By 2006, my mother’s mental and physical state had deteriorated all the more. In fact, I hardly knew my mother anymore, even though I had been living with her all my life. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight due to her cancer, was very weakened and hardly left home at all, and her mental state was just as bad. To be honest when March 2006 came round and when we were given an eviction notice for the second time round due to the overpopulation of cat issue I don’t even think she was one-hundred percent aware of what was going on. I was still dealing with my anxiety disorder, but if anything shot me out of my comfort zone, what was to happen certainly got me out of my own problems and thoughts and surge on forward to come up with solutions…and FAST.

First, was just trying to find a good lawyer to represent us. As anyone knows, lawyers are not cheap. And forget that adage many ads will say and claim, “We never charge a fee, unless we’re successful.” Balony. After the so-called initial free phone consultation, all lawyers if they are to represent you wish to have a minimum of $1,000 to get the ball rolling and started in their representation of you. I first looked into lawyers that not only specialized in landlord/tenant disputes, but more specifically, ones that also handled pet issues. There were a few “big-wigs” noted, and tried for them, but the one I tried wanted at least $500.00 off the bat and he estimated it would be another $3,500.00. Well, sorry, no could do. With my mother being on SS and pension benefits and me on my SSI there was no way in the world we could even dig up that first $500.00.

As far as Legal Aid. FORGET THEM…First, I kept calling them and all I got was one of those press 1 for this, press 2 for that…I never got a real person until the very last time I called them. They informed me that they couldn’t handle eviction issues until one got the actual 48-hour notice of eviction, not the Ten Day Notice To Terminate warning. The person told me to call back when I got the 48-hour notice of eviction then MAYBE I could be helped. Well, screw that! I wanted legal help NOW…it just didn’t sit with me well to wait around until getting that 48-hour notice of eviction.

Then someone suggested to me JASA-The Legal Services of The Elderly. I didn’t qualify as I wasn’t old enough, but my mother sure did, so gave it a shot. Once again, I had to concisely explain the whole issue that was happening…I had repeated this story countless number of times to at least a total of ten lawyers previously one the phone. At first we were “assigned” a lawyer, but things seemed to go painfully slow and the clock was ticking….supposedly we were to vacate the apartment April 19, 2006 yet our official court appearance was on May 8th. More time was slipping past and I was starting to get real nervous as it just didn’t seem we were being legally represented.

If all this worry wasn’t enough…I had to do a real jump start to find places that would take our extra cats. Ever since I got computer savvy about five years ago, I realized what a valuable tool the computer was. I was only aware of some of the major shelters, like the ASPCA, Bide-A-Wee, North Shore Animal League and Animal Care & Control. With doing a search on the Petfinder.com and Pet-Ark.com websites a whole long listing of shelters and rescuers opened up before my eyes…I even joined several Yahoo pet groups asking for help. No one did..not during all those years of reaching out. Finally, something started to happen. One well known pet shelter came through and took two cats, then another pet rescuer came through also taking two cats. Little by little the cat population was going down. But it was to take quite awhile to get the cat population down to only two which was all we were allowed to keep according to the stipulation agreement my mother had signed on June 1, 2001 during our first eviction issue.

By then however, we also got a new lawyer to represent us via JASA who couldn’t have been better…she really busted herself for us and if it hadn’t been for her no doubt my mother and I would have been evicted.

More on this in my next entry
©2009~Melanie Neer aka pyewacket

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