I’m a Realtor in Plainfield, Illinois. I specialize in short sales and foreclosures, so I’m no stranger to the aftermath that can be found within the confines of a former “home”. I’ve seen some really destroyed places; sledge hammers to the walls, feces on the floors of every room, rotting food on the floors and counter tops, obscenities on the walls, roaches, abandoned pets, burst pipes, and the worst thing I’ve ever seen done by a homeowner who lost their home to foreclosure… they completely booby trapped the entire house.
It was a disgruntled homeowner in my neighborhood who pulled all of the live electric wires to the fuse box to the house, and then flooded the basement. If it weren’t for the warning they were “kind” enough to leave on the basement door leading to the basement, someone could have really gotten hurt, or worse, killed. No matter how angry you are, how could you purposely and willingly set out to hurt another human being to that degree? It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
As I mentioned around Christmas time, the first home Tony and I ever owned (and used sweat equity to build) went into foreclosure. We sold it about a year and a half before the market peaked. The homeowners who bought it treated it like an ATM instead of a home. 6 months into owning it, they took out a $50,000 line of credit. When they ended up in the middle of a divorce late last year there wasn’t any equity left for them to sell. (They must not have known about doing a short sale…)
We only moved about 1/2 a mile away from our previous home when we moved into our current home. We built this house because we knew we needed more space, but we didn’t want to move Mark around in school after switching him the year prior from a private school. Now, I’m not so convinced it matters anymore, but at the time it was one of my main concerns. It was just a lucky coincidence that a local area builder was completing an adjoining subdivision in our vicinity.
It was exactly like the house I just listed at 2503 Joe Adler Dr. that I posted pictures of earlier this week… a beautiful 4 bedroom 2 bath raised ranch that we put all of our blood, sweat, and tears into. We moved so far from where we were raised when we bought it, but we were SO proud of our first home. With the cards stacked against us, we crawled our way to the top. We earned every penny of the equity we had in that house when we sold it, by working hard and making good choices.
I loved that house… and I knew better than to go back and peek inside the windows today, but I had a dream about that house this week, and it finally got the best of me. My friend Laura lives across the street from our old house on Peyla Ln. so I knocked on her door today to make sure they weren’t living there anymore. When I told her I was going to run across the street to peek in the windows, she told me to hold on… she was going to get her shoes!
There wasn’t much to see from the front, other than the lack of attention to the yard and landscaping. The back of the house… on the other hand, told a completely different story.
It broke my heart to see what lay inside.
The kitchen cabinets had been removed. The garbage… OH, the garbage! The carpet had been removed, along with the wooden spindles on the wall that opened to the foyer. The appliances had all been stripped, and the reminder of their presence was echoed by the outlines of paint that now hold their place. The paint on the walls of the family room was still the same from when it once belonged to us, and I remember they day we painted it… and how pretty it looked that night when we put that room back together.
The playroom we made for the kids was now littered with dozens and dozens of Modelo beer cans and yes, more garbage. The cabinetry we added for toys were ripped from the walls. The cheery little room we made for kids to play happily in… was now a dumpster of angry intentions.
I honestly have to say that if I had any indication that the happy little house we once called home would have been victim to this foreclosure mess… I’m not sure I would have left. Don’t get me wrong, I love our home now, but there’s just something about your first home.
I’m guilty of personifying inanimate objects, places, and things. I think that’s what causes me to be somewhat of a pack rat at times. I’ve gotten better… and no, I’m not a hoarder, (’only cause I tell myself that’s what crazy cat ladies do!) BUT, I feel like I let that pretty & happy little house of ours down…
I let someone have it that didn’t love it as much as we did.
Someone that didn’t care about the hallway that Nathalie and Eric took their first steps in.
Someone that will never know that Mark got his first two quarters from the tooth fairy one night in June, in the bedroom in the front of the house.
Someone that didn’t care that my dad, sick as he was with cancer at the time… helped us paint and prime all of the drywall before we moved in.
Someone that will never know how much my heart broke the night I cried into a pillow in my room the night my father died… and for the weeks and months that followed.
Someone that didn’t care about the upgrades that Tony’s parents surprised us with, that they paid the builder directly for, before we closed.
Someone that had no idea how hard we worked to put in a new ceramic floor in the kitchen, or to build a two car garage by putting money into a savings account for 2 years.
Someone that never saw how hard we struggled to keep our house when Tony lost his job and health insurance one Spring, when I was 7 months pregnant with Eric. Nothing on this Earth would have kept me from finding a way to keep that roof over our heads… nothing.
Someone that didn’t care that we took a leap of faith and started over somewhere new with a shoestring budget and caviar dreams, and made it home.
I know it’s not our home anymore, but it still hurt to see what someone else has done to it. It’s going to be sad to go back inside when it comes back on the market. I will torture myself one more time. I have to.
Of course I’m a real estate agent. Of course I am! I know that “home” is more than drywall and plaster. It’s where you hang your heart, and where your heart’s been hung. My memories don’t belong to 6613 Peyla Ln… but that address belongs to my memory and my heart.
This home we live in now, will be our home until we grow old, God willing. I’m a girl with roots, and jumping around is not my thing. I hope that my kids will always remember their roots and have the same attachment to home and family that I have. Home can be anywhere that we’re all at together, and no matter what the future brings, we are in it 100%.
I’d rather have a shell of a home, than a shell of a family. Sure, we’ll never be perfect… but we’ll always be together. Tony is one Hell of a guy, I tell ya. He is my rock and my best friend.
We are fierce together… just like fire and ice.
Home will always be wherever we are together… but that doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t leave an eentsy-weentsy bit of ourselves behind when we go; or take a little piece of it with us when we leave.
What does home mean to you? What’s your story?
6613 Peyla Ln living in plainfield IL Mayfair Moving To Plainfield IL Plainfield IL foreclosures Plainfield IL homes for sale plainfield IL realtors REOs
