Beautiful Boxes

Boxes, right? That's all they really are. A house is just a box to walk around inside of. A container that holds all the 'things' of your life. They can be big or small, new or historic, modern or ornate. They can be warm and inviting. They can hold favorite places where you love to go and hang out to do those things that you love to do.

When I was growing up, my parents were riding the bell curve of success like a roller coaster. At first we bought a house and then traded it in for the more luxurious model because that was  just the thing to do. Then, when things went wrong, we started trading in our houses  for rentals that depressed my mother. They were nice houses in good neighborhoods, if you will, but we only stayed in one long enough to really put down roots.

I am actually kind of like a 'house junkie'. I like them. I lust for them. I appreciate their architecture. I can name the style in which they were built, and list the appropriate appointments a home from that era should contain. I can inform you of the functionality of things that exist in homes that now seem inexplicable. Yes, the slot in the wall was the place where the milk man picked up the old bottle and left you a new one. The black wrought iron grate in the bedroom was the place where heat from the wood burning stove downstairs in the kitchen escaped to warm the upstairs.

My favorite style of house is Victorian. Yes, I will swoon for a wrap-around porch and a William Morris reproduction wallpaper set. I will drool over lincrusta, the embossed panels that decorate some Victorian interior walls. Show me an Eastlake fireplace, and I will show you a smile of appreciation.

I didn't buy a Victorian home. In the real estate craze of the first half of this decade, a two bedroom one bath Victorian Cottage in neighborhood that had long since fallen from grace averaged around $550,000. Instead, I ventured further into the bowels of Los Angeles, and bought a one and a half storey Craftsman. After looking for a suitable home for a year and a half, I knew this one was it the moment I got the door open. The box beam ceilings, the plantation panelling in it's original dark stain, the built-ins, tha hardwood floors, the rose garden in the back yard. There was space between this house and the next,an almost unheard of luxury in L.A., and the street was luxuriously wide.

I am going to lose my house. For me, houses don't stick. It was a series of unfortunate events that lined up and fell before me like so many giant dominoes in my path. It was my employer deciding to switch their payroll system and not paying their employees correctly for an ebtire year. It was the death of Alfred's father, and his inability to bounce back afterwards. It was the loan product itself. In 2006, we qualified to buy this house based on standards presented in a HUD subsidized homebuyer's workshop. Today, based on the same set of numbers, we are over our heads by about $226,000. In some markets, that's the price of an entire house.

I still have my dream. I want to own a Victorian house. However, after speaking with my estranged Alfred yesterday, as he came beating the door down and scaring the whole neighborhood back inside their respective homes, I don't know if I will live to see that dream  become reality. Regardless of the state of the economy, and the foreclosure trend, and the failing banks and the Wall Street mess, Alfred wants to blame me for the whole problem, and the dogs. He blames the dogs for falling property values. I guess they dug a money pit in the backyard, and buried the equity back there somewhere. He makes no sense. I am scared of him.

I think I need to edit my dream to "I hope I get out of this house safely, and find a nice, quiet, peaceful place to live." Oh, "With my dogs."




Note: I came back to add this. I don't mean to sound selfish in this blog. I know that I do not stand alone in this situation, and my heart goes out to all of the families who fell prey to the deceptive loan practices that were running rampant, who were mislead and convinced that they could afford to buy a home when they actually could not. I feel for every family that has had to abandon their dream of home ownership, or who has been displaced for any reason. In the past four years I have been displaced by fire, unscrupulous landlords and now this. My bottom line is that, as a society, we have to pray that the corporate world develops some integrity, because nothing but greed has brought us to this place, and this is not a place where we can feel comfortable and thrive.