I've mentioned the neighbors before. I have security cameras up because the neighbor kid doesn't get his medicine sometimes and tears up their disability checks. he came into my yard and cut my christmas lights with scissors, he came into my house, stole my daughter's boots and threw them on his roof. At one point there were seven of them (five adults, two children) in 1100sqft with one bathroom. One of them is in a wheelchair. Two of them are on disability. Pretty sure the patriarch overdosed on fentanyl or oxycontin.

They bought the house in '86. Paid their last payment in 2016. And in order to get around the "seven people in 1100sqft" problem they took out a $240k HELOC, $30k in personal loans and built a 1200sqft addition.

Well, first they hired an unlicensed, unbonded contractor to do the job. He took their $10k deposit, got busted for drunk driving and is currently in jail on a bench warrant or some shit, despite the fact that this was 18 months ago. So they went with a second guy who took $20k and did such a bad job of the design part that he couldn't get a permit. They didn't get that money back, either. Third guy? Third guy was flat rate! Agreed to do it all for a price! Got a permit and everything! So. $30k in the hole already, they somehow manage to find an AirBnB for $5k a month that... oh wait, that one has stairs in front which they didn't look into before putting down a one-month deposit on a place their wheelchair-bound daughter has to live for three months (and get in a cabulance for therapy four times a week). So I helped walk them through the process of getting your money back from AirBnB. But then they found another place for $6k a month...

So they were supposed to break ground around Halloween, and the family was supposed to be out of the house from a week before Thanksgiving until New Year's. But then the contractor discovered the decommissioned septic tank by accident and also excavated their sewer pipe all in the space of six hours. So they're out of the house from Halloween to Valentine's Day. So that's another what? $12k?

They're back in the house on Valentine's Day. But the cabinets are in the garage, the drywall isn't entirely up and worst of all, 3/4ths of the exterior is Tyvek. And the contractor is out of money. And he needs more money to keep going. And there's no money to be had.

They told me last week that the estimates for finishing the siding range between $35k and $45k. They're HELOC'd to the hilt, their personal credit is all used up and their 120 day Tyvek is at nine months and counting. Rainy season starts next month. They had a blue tarp keeping the rain out on one side already and they redid the siding badly about ten years ago on the other side. I have no idea what horrorshow these contractors are seeing but I know that there's still a porta-potty out front which leads me to believe the contractor who did the addition is Tango Uniform. I think he lowballed himself out of existence and this family of five, occasionally seven, occasionally eight, isn't watertight in the pacific northwest.

Got a neighbor. He's remodeled maybe five, maybe six houses in the neighborhood. Born here, grew up here, mother lives here, friends live here. He doesn't flip so much as he rehabs because he's still pissed at the couple who bought his first remodel in 2004 for not finishing the driveway like they promised after he gave them a credit. He offered this family a deal to just buy the place and go somewhere else but they dropped $270k on an incomplete remodel. Meanwhile the permit that remodel was done under has expired. To get another, to get the place inspected to meet civil, insurance and fiduciary obligations, another contractor has to sign on to this thing.

Was talking to a property manager/flipper buddy of mine last night. He pointed out that nobody will work on this thing because it's nothing but a giant liability downside. Will my neighbor take it on? I doubt it; he was remodeling another place for his mother that, last I checked, was undergoing a new roof and had been taken down to the studs out front. I think he found a leak a decade or two after it started.

So I think I get to watch this family melt out of their house and become homeless. I think this ends in a red tag. And I think the bank will seize it as soon as they get around to it because they're owed $240k on a structure that probably won't improve prior to demolition.

My buddy suggested that the offer price should probably be $370k; it was worth $430 before being expanded to 2200sqft but probably needs $70k worth of violence to get it back to livable (the back yard is a construction site, for example). If they took it, they will have taken a house that was worth $430k free and clear, thrown $300k at it and walked away with $100k. Assuming someone offered. Assuming they were smart enough to throw in the towel.

It's like watching your neighbors give their futures cancer and knowing you can't do anything to help.

Meanwhile I've managed to beg more money out of the government for my wife's business than the network pays me to work in a year. It's deeply troubling to me how much easier life is when you have a little money. I'm a long way from rich but sweet holy jesus just the benjamins they're waving at me are appalling.