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Where'yat
Back in '95 a well known area renovator/activist/realtor--while showing Mandy and I around this area--known as Treme--and her area, across Broad towards the Bayou--known as Fabourg St. John--told us she loved this house too and would look into the procurement of it for us but later reneged because this block was uncharted territory for young white renovators and as she so caringly put--"I don't want ya'll to get killed."
I love life pretty much, sometimes a lot, other times just a little, but it seems to me an inescapable part of life is that eventually it does kill you, so the concerns of Jeanne Tidy did not weigh all that heavily in the decision making process which eventually (after six months of looking, rather quickly actually) led to the owner financed purchase of this 1600 sq. ft. 103 year old double bayed Victorian cottage, with wood floors, twelve foot ceilings, two (of four original) fireplaces, a claw foot tub, 7.5 foot doorways above which are workable transom windows, and a front porch that was at the time, and now five years later continues to be, somewhat of a community property for neighborhood children, current and former grown-up neighbors, and area gangsters (the modern day inner-city variety who sell crack and powdered cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and occasionally kill each other for wrongs real or imagined).
The purchase price was $22,000. The house was, and to large degree still is, a wreck. At the time we survived on my 9 dollar an hour job and our good credit ratings. We made the $5000 down payment with a cash advance from a credit card, and then shuffled that balance from one low rate introductory offer to another for the couple of years that passed before Mandy became employed and we were able to erase our high interest debts. Originally, $3000 (mostly saved cash from our days in North Carolina) was spent to get the front three rooms, kitchen, and one (of two) bathroom(s) livable/usable, although not really "finished" by a long shot. We did the work ourselves. The back two rooms consist of a 14X18 bayed bedroom w/ small bath, and a door leading out to 10X25 raised deck. The last room which connects by doorway to the bedroom is 12X25 and has a (somewhat leaning) fireplace freestanding in the middle. And the floor in this last room is half wood, half tile. These back rooms are completely unfinished and as wrecked, cracked, and unusable as they were five years ago.
The owner-financed mortgage on this house is 250 dollars a month for a term of ten years, of which five remain.
As chief executive officer in charge of finances during this period, the idea was to live as comfortably as possible in the unfinished primitive state until such time that we were able to pay the accumulated credit card debts (which we did) and then continue to live primitively (well, we have hot and cold running water, a flushing toilet, and new stove and fridge, and a new washing machine, and used dryer) until we saved an amount in cash ( 8--10K) that would finish the renovation and make this house, although not richly appointed, a pretty kick ass little $35,000 soon-to-be-paid-for crib.
And we did that. The saving part anyway. However, after thirteen years of all being said and done, Mandy and I did not desire to live together anymore. So we split the cash and put the division of property decision on hold while I started looking for another ghetto property to renovate. I found one half as big, in worse shape, for exactly the same price as this one cost five years ago. Had to have it. A good friend who also knows how to save money is doing the financing on this new blighted property so to erase for me what can at times be an almost insurmountable difficulty in dealing with power structures, i.e., banks, and bureaucracies, and whatnot.
So that's where I'm at: the beginning stages of another dance with Shiva. Am I going to take you along with me through the destruction, and scraping, and cutting, and hammering? I don't know, but its an idea.