Storm Troopers

Doors were being kicked in last Friday afternoon.

One of the tenants of one of our last foreclosures had yet to move and the new mortgage company owner was not happy with the situation.

We all had an idea that the eviction process was grinding its way through the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

From the stories that I heard, she had been receiving phone calls from the mortgage company or it’s legal representative since early January.

Unfortunately she is in the Section 8/CHAC program which has procedures for receiving a voucher to move to another apartment.

Did I mention that moving or finding a decent place to live without a Section 8/CHAC voucher is difficult enough? I can only imagine how difficult it would be with a voucher.

An open secret in these parts is that if a potential renter has a Section 8/CHAC voucher and mentions it to a potential landlord; the renter’s subsequent calls and queries will go unanswered. If they choose to, the potential landlord will never be heard from again.

Fair housing law my ass.

Nonetheless, from what I understood, the renter in our association was making provisions to move and was days away from receiving her moving papers.

Despite all of the mortgage company’s blustering, everyone was fairly confident that the Sheriff’s eviction crew would not be able to enter the premises.

Our primary entrances are controlled by a buzzer system. There are three ways to get in---you have the key, are buzzed in or know the code.

Since most people work during the day we thought---no problem.

Boy, were we wrong.

One of my neighbors said she was tricked and let the Sheriffs in. She stated that they claimed to be checking the status of the unit one floor above the targeted unit.

Why she fell for this I’ll never know.

That unit had been vacated before the end of 2005 and had been on the market.

Nonetheless, she buzzed the goon squad in and they proceeded to kick in the doors of the third and second floor units of the address in question. Moreover, the eviction crew doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what they damage. As a result we have doors with sizeable dents and damage from the padlocks that were placed on the door.

Oh no---it’s not enough to kick in the door but these motherfuckers have to do it on the cheap and add padlocks instead of changing out the locks.

Unbelievable.

Naturally, I received a frantic phone call from my neighbor who let the eviction crew on our property. Obviously there was little to be done since they had already gained entry.

A full Sheriff’s crew was ready to take all of the renter’s belongings and place them on the street but a twist of fate intervened.

The name on the eviction order and the name on the mailbox didn’t match.

The eviction had to be aborted due to a misspelled name on a mailbox. Frankly, the renter caught such a big break I don’t think she understood the full implication.

The crew did on the other hand, padlock the unit and put a lockbox on the doorknob.

A few phone calls later (by yours truly of course), the code was discovered and contact was made with the property managers of the new mortgage company owners.

I’m so sick of this foreclosure shit, I could just scream.