Pissed off isn't the phrase, but it's close

I want to make it clear to all those reading today; I am about to bitch, whine, and otherwise not be my positive self. You have been warned. Take note.

I don't want to rent anymore. I am tired of answering to someone else when it comes to being in my home. I am not ungrateful, because the fine folks I am renting from are the best people one could ask for. I am just tired of working at doing things the right way and getting nowhere.

The journey my wife and I are making to buy our first house, starts in September 2007. We moved into our condo, and we were going to lease it. The objective was to buy this condo in the first year, and it was going to take some time, because my income was there, but my credit was horrendus. The only thing that was building my credit was a car loan. I paid it on time; religiously. But my student loans, old loans from a lifetime ago, still were killing any progress, and to get a loan, you cannot have a single thing besides medical bills in collection status. So Jenn and I went to talk to a mortgage guy. He said, pay this stuff off. Don't care how you do it, but go pay them off.

While trying to plan a wedding all at the same time we didn't know where to start. I called another person who knew the ways of finances well, and they said the same thing. Pay that stuff off, but again, no one offered us a way to do that. They just expected us to write a check for the proper amounts with money we didn't have, and it would all go away. That is not the case. When you are spending money to pay your bills, spending money for a wedding, there isn't much let to pay off old debt you couldn't pay to begin with.

After our wedding May 17, 2008, Jenn and I met with our landlord. She was getting fed up with the run around game we had, and we pulled my credit and we sat down. We budgeted out everything. We had a plan to get everything paid off. After tax time in 2008, that paid off my student loans and left enough to pay off another large account. We were making headway. That June 2008, was the first time someone took the time to tell us how we could get this paid off. So in July into early August, we paid off the last account in collections and my credit score was up enough to get an FHA loan. We had the appraisal done on our condo, and it appraised for what it needed to be. We had a closing date of September 23, 2008. Well, that date came and passed and into October we went. Finally after more than a year of turmoil, we got our final approval and our mortgage was approved to close in late October. Chase bank had recently undergone some huge losses in the market and the media was feeding the flames of economic turmoil. As I was getting into my car to drive to the bank to get a check for our down payment which we worked pretty hard to come up with, my mortgage guy called to tell me to hold on for a minute, Chase bank is running slow today. 3 hours later, as I was about to pull into the title company to close this loan, Chase Bank pulled off every single mortgage on the table to reassess the loans it was giving, because they just got a bail out. Our loan was sent for reappraisal, and so on.

Later into November, Chase bank declined our loan, after we got 3 final approvals. Why, they never told us. We let the new year come and go, and as we ran my credit again to start all over, an old cell phone bill from 5 or 6 years ago shows up. $395 in collection status. Apparently the old cell phone I had with another company forgot to auto deduct my final payment from my account and I never knew about it. It took my credit score from a 595 [barely the minimum requirement for an FHA loan] to a 523 [no where near the minimum requirement]. I paid off the account immediately, but we couldn't clear the credit without a letter of satisfaction. To this day, I still don't have one, so every month this debt sits on my credit the worse my score gets. So I have zero debt on my record with the exception of my car, a small limit credit card with no balance, and some small medical stuff.

Now I have to start picking off each one of these medical bills that should have been taken care of by my insurance years ago, but now that I am not insured by that company or what not, when they resubmit my claims, they are rejected.

So I have been in this vicious circle for over a year. I make headway, there is a setback, I make headway again, then another setback. Jenn and I have contemplated moving and going in a different direction. Maybe move into a new house. We explored that option, but that fell through too. We have talked about moving out of state, but we decided against it.

This whole situation is even further complicated by a call I got last night. It was one of my landlords. She wanted to know if I was going to be home. Yes I was. She said her husband was going to stop over. Great. What for? The tone in her voice leads me to beleive that it isn't a good thing considering the news I got earlier in the day regarding the financing for the condo was not good. So she says that he is going to stop by to "talk". That is never a good thing. When they want to "talk". So he came over and got the paperwork he requested, and then asked me about how Jenn was doing. You know, trying to be cool. He then asked how it was going with the neighbors. Ok, I guess, I have one old lady that complains about everything and has once hit the mutual wall we share and knocked down a photo off the wall. The neighbors on the other side stomp up and down the stairs all day. I then have someone who complained that my dog crapped in their yard, and they said that my dog crapped all over the place, but they failed to mention that it was literally 7 seconds after the snow melted and I had not gotten out there to clean it all up, but I quickly did so. I also clean up his poop every day now too, so there won't be that build up. Well low and behold this morning, there was a crap in my yard that was not from my dog. Of course when the landlord came over he saw that, and said, this is all from him today? No, my dogs lead only goes this far, and as you can see, its all clean up tp this point. He was satisifed with my explaination and told him I will clean this other dog's crap and take note if it all shows up again, and call him if it call comes back. He then said that they are complaining about the contant knocking at "all hours" of the day.

What the hell does that mean? Knocking at all hours? Ok, here is my day. I wake up at 7am everyday. I am out the door before 10:15am everyday at the latest. Jenn wakes up around 9am, eats breakfast and goes to school. After Jenn goes to school and the house is empty with the exceptoin of the cats and dog that is caged from 1 to around 7 or so when I get home. Then I eat, Jenn gets home, then we are in bed between 10 and 11. What does knocking mean? Because if just by living in my condo I am creating noise that is not to your liking, shut the hell up. Seriously. Shut up.

I have never once complained about the constant running up and down the stairs from my neighbors, or how they have someone knocking on their door for an hour one morning at 6:30am until 7:30am. Or how the old lady has not picked up after her dog in not only the front yards, but also the back yard. I just mind my own business and try not to make too many waves.

But now that my landlord said they are sending him the "file" the association has on the list of complaints on me and my family, it is making me curious as to what it could be. What is it that makes people want to complain? Is it that my wife and I are young and are not home? Is it that I look like an easy target? Is it that I have a 7 year old that doesn't know how to exactly walk up and down the stairs with grace? Is it that I had 5 girls over the other weekend for a sleep over? Is it that you don't like my dog and you are looking for a reason to complain, because you now cannot control your dog? What is it? Tell me?

I called Jenn who is away and let her know about the visit with the landlords. She was pissed. We never so much as complain about anything. After a while we both came to the conclusion that this is final straw that is going to break my very weak back. We can't get financed for this place. Around every corner something isn't right and it holds up the process. I have been putting off getting a new car for fear that it might mess with my credit too much. I have a sinking feeling about everytime my landlord calls for anything. Sometimes she just wants to chat, which I am cool with, but a part of me feels like people think I am just a punk kid who tells you what you want to hear to shut you up.

So do I move? Maybe. Do I start to complain back? Maybe. Do I just shut up and keep doing what I am doing? Maybe.

There is no clear path and that is what is driving me more nuts than anything else.

This is not a whoa is me story. There are other people out there who have it worse than I, but this is just a catharsis. A way to get it out and vent quietly rather than acting irrational and writing seething letters to each one of my neighbors and then sending one to the condo association. A flaming bag of dog shit could come in handy right now.