Thursday, September 2, 2010
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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment