The eviction

My name is Brian soderstrum...In June of 1999 my wife Hope and I purchased a home in Lamplighter mobile home park, 425 Shorewood ln. We moved in on July 1st with our son cory who was born with downs and is not able to live independantly along with Ms belle (cat) and stevie the "dog" neither of which can live independantly either!. In the following 11 years we have become friendly and or friends with most all of our neighbors, I do neighborhood watch and we've  never once been late on our lot rent, which over the years I've paid around $100,000 in for a 60'X 100' lot . The nightmare starts in Aug. 2010...on 8/2 Hope deposited 3 checks into our Wells fargo account for a total of 1,492.66 and a total balance of 1571.82  the deposit was made via electronic teller and was accepted and credited to our account. On the 3rd I wrote the check for the park  (rent is due by the 6th) and paid the 1036.23 we also paid some bills etc. leaving us (what I believed) to be 255.32....on thurs. evening 8/17 I found an envelope taped to our back door containing a notice that our check had been returned their was also a 3-60 notice included, since this could'nt be right I pulled up our WF acct. online and this is where things really start to get wierd...I see our deposit for 1.492.66 recorded 8/2, but I see that on the 3rd they did a "adjustment to EF ATM deposit" in the amount of 229.34 this amount was for my state of calif. payroll check..so first call to bank gets no satisfactory answer as to why...the second call got me this answer, the check was pulled for nsf and I needed to contact the issuer??? contacting a person in payroll at IHSS scco is to say the least an odyssy, I was able to get ahold of someone on 8/22 who told me in no uncertain terms that my check was fine and I needed to talk to my bank!!. Now in the meantime Hope had called Mikki Reibholz the park magr.Fri. the 18th  and told her what happened and that we were working on it..Mikki basically told her don't worry about it...they chatted a few min.and Hope told her we'd take care of it as fast as we could. Hope next called her tues 8/22 to update her and that we were concerned about the 3day Mikki again assured her it wasn't a problem and she would drop off an "eviction dismissal" form in our mailbox which she did and Hope returned it the following day, so we were shocked to find a notice 9/1 that our request was rejected and eviction action against us would continue....Hope called Mikki and told her we had the funds for Aug. which now totaled with fees $1.154.06  plus the 35.55 WF charged.us!..Mikki (not being so nice now) told her they would not accept our payment and that is that...now back to the bank...when I called them the 3rd time their story was that it had not been endosed properly?? so where's the check?? well....we would have sent it back to you...well I never got it...hmmm don't know what else to tell you sir...it took hours on hold and 6 wks. for the check to be replaced. So now it's the first wk of Sept. and we have not (no surprise) recieved our sept. bill and it's really starting to sink in that they're serious..we had attempted to communicate with MCM co. after the denial but we did not recieve any replies via voice or email. At this point I realised we needed legal help...but were broke so I thought I'd try and learn a little about civil matters and  recourse we might have, well fuggetabout do it yourself civil cases like ours, because as I figured and was right, that I wouldn't even be able to present my case to a judge without an attorney, we recieved a little help with paperwork from the legal aid folks, but theirs not much they can do in cases like this...we recieved referrals but nothing that could help us...we were told all we could do was wait for them to serve us with papers at which time they could help (LA) us file an unlawful detainer to buy us more time,  So now were in "limbo", and I won't even try and convey the stress this puts on one, but for me.. it's worn me out mentally and physically, and we already had enough health problems as it is..to add to all this Cory was diagnosed in Aug. with severe spinal stenosis and needed major surgery which was sched. for sept.10, Hope had told Mikki that we were also dealing with his situation when she told her not to worry about it..I think Mikki knew about this then.. which makes her a pretty "cold" person to put it nicely. By Nov.20th the 60 days had passed without further word....I like to call it 3 mos. in purgatory, but on Dec. 6th we were officially served, I guess they were saving it for Christmas. So back to legal aid for more paperwork..to the couthouse to file papers...then recieving a court date Jan.6 to do battle unrepresented against Todd B. Rothbard & assoc.  attorneys at law  RE: Beaumont investments Ltd. vs B. Soderstrum, or as I like to think of it bringing a squirt gun to a machine gun fight and as expected we got rolled over..since we had no attorney they send you out into the hall to mediate with their attorney and their only agreement was you have till the 18th of Jan. with the option to buy up to an additional 40 days at around $31 a day....to stay in my own house...and to get this done we had to go back to the superior court on the 18th go to the clerks...do more paperwork then go to a different court and wait 3 hours in a courtroom for a judge to approve and sign an order and then go to the bank to get 1100 cash and back to the court clerk to pay them so they wouldn't send the sherrifs out. I have to say this whole process is insane, and all that accomplished is to give us till Feb.10th. to move.... which I don't see as financially or logistically even possible, hell we don't even have a car anymore after ours blew a head gasket...so much for a roof over your head!... and that's where were at  and I'm kinda getting to the end of my rope here. My plan is to put out copies of this to Lamplighter residents as a warning  to how easily they can do this to you and it's all within the law now...the law deems it reasonable that 60 days is enough time to sell or move your home which as all here know is not possible on either account since the owners have priced the park out of what little market their is for buying here, why would you buy a home and pay 1100-1200$ a month rent on top of a house pmt. for no equity!!...yes I know I did ..but things were different in '99 and we bought ours for cash, and it seemed like a good idea at the time ...hindsight being what it is...which begs the question ..why?? are they so dead set on getting rid of us, we pay 928$ a mo. space rent it makes no good biz sense since they have over a half dozen empty lots and at least 20-30 with for sale signs so it's not like they need the space and if it's for monetary reasons I don't see it, even if they steal my home I guarantee they won't be selling it...and I doubt that someone will bring in a new one, buy into their rip off lease and pay 3 grand a month to live in a mobile home park, but that is the only way they could profit and it's crazy to think they would destroy me and my family inc. a 14 yr. old cat and a 12 yr old "dog" for what... to lose money? it makes no sense, If we were a nuisance or problem causers I could understand..if paying our rent had been a problem with a history and warnings I could see it, but those just aren't the facts..the facts are I'm 54 and I'm into scale modeling as some of you know or google me, Hope is 62 and has been trying to run a home biz in travel which unfortunately has not been successful, we vote, abide the law and although I can be a litttle grumpy lol..I think we're pretty well liked and as for Cory ..well this is really unfair to him since it directly affects him and he can't defend himself either. So what would motivate what I now call the Tatum & kaplan gang to pursue us like this...well that's an unanswered question, but judging from their past sins with the lease scams and forced evictions this just seems to be the way they do business ...for a good run down on the Tatum&Kaplan/Beaumont Inv. ltd./ MCM co,/ etc...criminal enterprise go to http://badlease.blogspot.com/2009/10/tatum-kaplan-gangexposed.html  this is the same group that lost their appeal in  the 6th dist. court in '03 for running whats called a straw man scheme from '87-2000 for a total of 14,124 violations in Lamplighter&Casa de Lago ...and sorry but I gotta say these "people" Jeffrey Kaplan, thomas tatum, chelu travieso, teddy Dy, David Starnes natalie Costaglio, todd B. Rothbard law office, Mikki Rebholz and I'm sure others are IMO some very evil folks. So thanks for listening, as of today 1/19 I don't have a clue what were going to do since we have no place to go and no way to get there suggestions welcome!..I also want to say that in listening to Obama speak about the events in Tucson that we need to try and prevent these tragedys from occurring...well I think by taking a case like mine and escalating it out of control you are creating a perfect scenario for it, it won't be me, but who's to say the next Brian wont be armed and a few degrees crazier than they've made me and welll,,geee how could that have been prevented??. and when you feel you have nothing left to lose you start having some pretty crazy thoughts...anyway as much as I've dwelled on this I can't see that we did anything wrong and it honestly baffles me and yea I'm also pretty pissed off..and yes they are operating within the laws they worked very hard in Sac. to get enacted that basically gives them complete power over us and presently you will get zero help from the uncivil justice system unless you can afford an attorney that specializes in the legal black hole of these mobile home parks in Ca. and especially ones owned by this pack of thieves...Ya know this is just plain wrong, immoral and just plain mean, but like everything it's got to be about greed...and it's legal!. So one last thing..I grew up with the message that you fight for family,home and country, well I can't even convey how hollow that concept looks to me right now. Thanks Brian Soderstrum......brihop@mail.com

wits end

So let me began with I am by no means a writer! and I'm a lousy typist but I'm going to try and lay out our story in the hope of some reasonable suggestions. Oh and Iv'e never blogged or tweeted for that matter! so I don't know what to expect here although I'm very active on various scale model forums and I do have a facebook page lol..First let me introduce myself, my name is Brian Soderstrum (54) and I live with my wife Hope (60) and her adopted son Cory who has downs and cannot live independently. We live in Lamplighter mobile home park in San Jose Ca. where we've been in our home 11 yrs.  Like any story involving us humans their is lots to the story but I'm gonna focus on the current dilemma for now, and let me preface by saying Hope and I love each other and are a team, we want cory with us where he's loved...our issues were not created due to drugs alcohol, gambling or etc. etc.....we simply ran out of the ability to earn enough money to exist...in fact I think Ca. is going to make that a felony...anyway the real nightmare started in July when we noticed that Cory seemed to have trouble walking like his legs were stiff..communicating with Cory is a little difficult  but he said he fell at the Hope workshop so we thought he might have bruised his tailbone. After a wk. of seeming to get worse Hope took him to the clinic..let me inject that medi-cal is a disgrace..most medicos don't want to take it and thanks to Sacramento and way to many illegals I see why buttt....after 2 ERs and 2 clinic visits with absolutely nothing being done whatsoever  she went back to El Camino hosp...WELL..the triage nurse asked her what the problem was...she told him...he said..what do you want us to do about it? and she went a little ballistic as in what do you THINK I want you to do!!...find out whats wrong with him!!!! needless to say she attracted the head of the ER who was very understanding and started the ball rolling. I had stated all along that he needed an MRI and maybe a scan ...EC took X-rays and set up the other tests the next day at Valley med. where they discover..he has severe spinal stenosis and it's particularly bad in his neck area..they put him in neck brace and admitted him with a plan of doing surgery in a few days, but when they studied the films more they realized that the surgery was going to be more complex than they thought and would require a OR for a whole day est.10-12 hrs. and 2 surgical teams and approval, so we brought him home with a 24-7 neck brace and confined to a wheelchair...the good news is he is sched. for Sept. 10 ...now the reason he has to keep the brace on is that if he moves his neck the wrong way it could kill or paralyse him!...would have been nice to know when they were saying "it's probably a deep tissue bruise"  but I'm not surprised, one of the docs...female asian with heavy accent  really came across as why do you bother with this person he's defective anyway..an attitude Hope ran across several times  at least that was our feeling..but then the hits just keep on coming...I work for IHSS (in home supp. services) on 8/2 my wife deposited 3 checks in our Hells Fargo acct. to cover our space rent/ utilities with a few hundred to left for other bills, this was done via the ATM and it recorded the total deposit and next day I dropped a check for 1036+chg. at the office..then on 8/14 I get a notice from the park that our rent check bounced!..we check our statement online and see that 229.36 has been deducted from our deposit which happened to be the amt of my state check? now dealing with these wells people is always a real pleasure NOT!..the first guy said maybe the check amt was wrong and the state cancelled it ??..the day after we made the deposit??..idiot..the next call we were told the check was declined and to check with the issuer, now getting ahold of a live person in payroll is a 2-3 day project in itself but I finally got ahold of them and was told that was bullshit the check was out there uncashed and all they could do was cancel it and reissue in 2-4 wks. called back the bank and were told that it was pulled because of no or improper endorsement and we would have sent it back to you.....   we never got it and they don't know where it is??..and what the hell is that crap..it's a state check made out to me into my account..Iv'e been deposting these same checks for 7 yrs. even if it wasn't endorsed I wasn't cashing it, and if it was a direct deposit I wouldn't endorse it?? ..not right..and it gets more insidious ...after they backed out the 229 they were able to bounce our rent check then it took 10 days for it to get back to the park??? if your not familiar with the wells way of robbing folks here's how it worked...they call it "engineered accounting" they take your debits and rearrange the order and dates it takes out your money totally messing with you if your not an accountant, it's called cascading and is probably run by a very elaborate computer program  hence "engineered acctng". which can scan accounts at very high speed allowing them to maximize overdraft fees multiple times...the most affected by this are folks like us ...right on the edge without a lot of extra money and frankly in my opinion they probably don't really want our business anyway...which by the way  I didn't choose them either, my bank, Bay area bank was taken over by a group of banks which was then swallowed by the evil Hells Fargo...8yrs. with B.A.B and not one single issue ...wells... unbelievable for example in the past ninety days our deposits exceeded withdrawls by 624.63 yet we were hit by 17 overdrafts at 35.00 apiece plus 7 5.00 becuz we can fees ...honestly I've never been great with finances but I'm not an idiot and yes we'd check avail. balance and they'd still get us...now heres something interesting about this and the timing, WF is being sued for this and in SF recently a judgement was made against them  and they were ordered to quit the  practice starting in Aug. Now their defense was that it was a service, that they would put the largest transaction first in case it was like a rent or mortg. pmt. so you could pay 37.50 for a cup of coffee ..kinda ironic that   they figure out how to bounce ....ta da  our rent  and get another 35.00 .nice scam which by the way netted WF over 2 BILLION $$$$ year before last second only to their investment portfolio and how ironic that their unexplainable (to me) actions now have us facing eviction from our home which brings us to the second part of this fiasco...."the park" lamplighter itself is a great place to live it's a pretty park and I know a lot of folks here, I'm good friends with several of my neighbors and we all look out for each other the other half of the block doesn't speak english but their all good folks  ...now the park management and owners that's a different story, can you say assholes!..we have a park mgr. who answers to mobile comm. mgmnt. co. which runs parks owned by Jeff Kaplan and Thomas Tatum a coupla lawyers turned real estate investors/robber barons with political connections. their are articles on the net covering some of the misery they've caused in the parks they own.They have run an ongoing lease scheme forever even after being convicted on a few (coupla thousand I think) counts of duping tenants illegally to avoid rent control by forcing leases on people instead of the option of month to month which is covered by San Joses rent control. These practices have cost numerous people their homes and they had to pay a fine!! and they still do it...they are nothing but greedy thieves...but connected greedy thieves kinda like my favorite bank..a couple facts: people think "trailer park"  well it's not and it ain't cheap here,  space and utilities avg. around 1200 mo. plus any mortg. or loan payments .....in the 11 yrs. we have lived here we have never been late or bounced a check once and I've paid them around 100.000 in rent  yet they have given us sixty days,even though we have had the money to pay them ...and they do this because it forces people out of their homes so they can sell them after they basically steal them and they could care less about any of the "small" people and what it does to them It's... all about the money  and if your under any illusion that you live in the land of the free with justice for all wake the fuck up!..so in a nutshell the bank did what it did...the park is doing what it's doing and were in hell with no way out and honestly I'm really angry I feel were being crushed by "them" from all sides with no room to breath while  trying  to care for someone who can't do it for himself...and the thing is they make money off us but won't cooperate,,we have communicated with the pk. mgr. about what happened and she told my wife to fill out an eviction dismissal form and today we were notified that it was denied..so speaking of cascades this one may cascade into a real tragedy since this is my home and I feel I have the right to protect it...yea I'll lose but so what at that point. Before I finish I do want to say that obviously this is my side of this story but all facts are true and as I like to say I'm not paranoid,  they are out to get me and I have the paperwork to prove it!..the story is actually a little more complicated but  maybe another time....All we want is to survive,  be the good citizens and neighbors I believe we are..we've been doing whatever we can think of to generate more income but it looks like they'd rather throw us onto the street no matter what..anyway I have some photos on facebook and if I figure out how to link my photobucket I think it shows what were about,  feel free to google me, hell I don't even know if anyone will read this ..but I'm just looking for help..advice  solutions I don't freakin know anymore...my heads getting pretty messed up with all this at once...whoever said money can't buy you happiness was either full a shit or rich...because every issue we have centers on one thing MONEY  actually that would be lack of...My wife does work from home , she does travel and she tried working independently with an old client from when she was with classic  custom vacations before expedia bought them and went internet. But this cost more than she made so she went to work for Americas vac. cntr. which she also does from home..she has a congenital hip defect and walking much is getting harder for her so this is the best she can do and it's making 0 money. I've been in kind of a box.... I am authorized for 40 hrs. a month by IHSS for Cory which earns about 400 a month ...yea not much!..but I have incredible health insurance through the union and I have several medical issues so I need it..no copay for medical or my meds. so even if I could find another job ....well that probably wouldn't happen around here anyway  don't have a degree and I'm white ...not to mention unemployment around here is probably around %25 and I'm 54 with a bad back. I know I'm far from the only one going through   this sort of shit but sometimes you just feel alone and kinda helpless although our wonderful family and friends have helped us when they could but it's tight for them to, no rich relatives! of course this just adds to my feeling like shit but I appreciate it..allright enough rambling, but I have to say I am deeply saddened by the level at which this country has sunk to and it's all there in black and white you just need to read between the lines some and keep an open mind then mix the missing ingredient that seems to be lacking these days...common sense