homeless

Now I have managed to find myself without a home. I guess that makes me homeless. I have never been in this situation before, well not on this scale; it can be quite traumatic.

One Friday morning I received a phone call from my real estate agent asking me if I had moved out yet. Well, actually, I hadn't. I had no where to go and no money to get anywhere. I wasso tired. I don't think that I hadslept properly for abut four or five days. The bailiff was on his way. I was on my way to the Residential Tribunal Office and to the District Court . . . I had better have a shave. Oh dear.

I lodged an appeal with the District Court and spent the afternoon waiting for a time or date to be set for my appeal to be heard. 

Finally I was heard at 4.30 and by five o'clock it was all over. I lost; I was locked out of my house with all of my possessions and I literallyhad nowhere to go. All I had was the clothes I was wearing. My phone battery was flat. What on earth was I going to do?

I climbed in the window and began to pack up my computers. The agent was going to allow me access from nine in the morning til five that afternoon - and again on Sunday. Then I had to be gone. 

just throw it onto the street

My son, Tim, organised to stay with some friends down at Port Adelaide. Tim organised a truck, but first he had to get it emptied which took most of the day. Eric would bring it around on Sunday morning.

Early in the morning I got up and was waiting on the front doorstep for the agent to arrive to open up and allow me access to get my possessions out. She was accompanied by the police. I'm not sure why.

"Just throw it all out into the street as quickly as I can" - seemed to be the advice coming from the police officer. I certainly was not going to do that. Although just about everything I had put out there in the past few days had disappeared.

I moved the lounge suite onto the street. That could go; it badly needed recovering. In due course I put half of my kitchen out onto the street. Plates, cups, glasses, crockery, dishware, all of my saucepans. Food; everything from the freezer. I couldn't believe this. I had to throw food away.

Keep packing. We could do with some boxes. Just keep putting as much as possible out the back ready to go into the truck. I could use a hand. I wonder who could help me. Now it's raining; that's all I need. 

And that was Saturday . . .

By five o'clock it really doesn't look like we've made a lot of progress. I had to leave at five to do a gig. The agent came with the police to lock up. The gig was at the Hyatt and we got a good meal; but considering it was a very early start - it was a very long night. I grabbed little bits of sleep in the band room on the floor.

I spent the night at Julian's place on the floor, in his bandroom. It was nice and quiet and I managed to get straight to sleep. Good job I had a car for the weekend. I left all the sound system at Julian's for the gigs next week and headed back to Northfield.

Eric arrived with the truck. Rob Scott came to help, with a dolly to move the piano. I started on a room at a time and tried to empty as many as I could. Tim worked on his room and Rob started packing books out the back. 

Now there where a few people that I really wanted to ask to help me, but I couldn't ask them. For various reasons. One dear friend had already helped me to move house once before; and I couldn't ask her to do it again.

When I had asked someone else to help the last time I need a hand, their response had been: "just throw it all away," so I wouldn't ask them.

I was pleased to see Tim's mother help him out. If I had to help Tim out all day I wouldn't get much done. I needed him to help me.

There were other friends I had left email and text messages with. But I seemed to be running out of friends.

Empty the lounge room

. . . empty Madeline's room. Get as much as I can in the truck. Put as much as I can out onto the street. I could really use a hand. Who could I call? Better call my sister, Kay; she would put me up for a few days and maybe take some of Maddy's stuff.

How are you doing? Asked the agent around four o'clock. Nearly there but not quite. I said. She gave me another hour and a half and said - if got everything out of the house I could take a day or two to get the rest of the stuff out from the back.And I still had to empty out the garage yet. Nice big garage full of junk.

We managed it. Managed to get everything out of the house. The kitchen was a struggle. I had no boxes and we had sort of run out of room in the truck. There was room, but we couldn't really reach it. Lots of kitchen stuff had to get thrown out. Lots of stuff that I didn't really want to throw out. Lots of food. And now it was raining. Raining all over the stuff  on the back veranday that I couldn't get into the truck.

This time the agent arrived with the police with all their lights flashing. I wasn't aware that you could make appointments to have the police turn up for situations like this. Domestic situations like this.

So that was it. Get the truck moved back  to Tim's work on Monday morning and spend a few more days getting the garage emptied. Thank you very much Rob Scott for your help becuase I absolutely would not have been able to have done that without you. Rob you were magnificent!

So now what?

Perhaps I'd better make a list of what I needed to do:

• find somewhere to unload the turck
• find somewhere to put all the stuff in the garage
• find out what Tim was going to do with the five aquariums we now had out in the back yard
• find somewhere to live
• find a car
• get a job

Now it's Monday

I spent most of Monday sorting out the back verandah and the stuff from the kitchen. There was really no point in keeping all of the itchen stuff. I'm sure I had enought t o stock two or three or even four kitchens . . . well  . . . almost. 

New tennants were moving in the front while we were moving out the back. Got the truck away. Tim got the van loaded with as much usuable sound equipment as we could manage. There was still a lot left . . . almost a whole sound system, subs, mids, six foldback wedges. Where was it all going to go?

Keep moving stuff out onto the street . . . computers, monitors, hard drives, keyboards, speaker boxes, old lights, chairs, tables, fans, air conditioners. Everything was going. A scrap dealer called in and asked what was happening. I got him lined up to come back the next morning. Ross had lined up another dealer who was going to come and have a look.

Kevin, Ross's friend, also a good friend of Rob Scott, came over and said he would take the whole lot and give me half of what he got for it. It could all go. I had no room to put any of it. He took a load and later that evening his son came and took a load too. The next day I realised that stuff like Tim's train set pieces, and other valuable stuff had gone. Even the yard broom so I couldn't sweep up.

You are now trespassing

Just before lunchtime on Monday I received a text message that I was now trespassing. I managed to get a reprieve til five o'clock on Tuesday and that would be it. Pity I wouldn't be able to get all of the stuff out onto the street for the council's hard rubbish collection on Friday. 

Kev was doing really well, he had taken a fair bit of stuff. I had organised Paul Stephenson to give me a hand on Tuesday, and he came with Tim Marshall's trailer.