What do I do?

What do I do?

A dear friend referred a neighbor to me who wants to sell her home. Oh happy day, right? Stop! Not always. In almost seventeen years of selling real estate I've learned to measure my enthusiasm to any given situation. So, we'll call her Sally, wants to sell her home and according to my friend, Sally doesn't really have both oars in the water. Truth be known, Sally doesn't even own her oars anymore, they are both out of the boat and floating down the river and Sally is just, well, kind of floating on her own.

Before I could get to Sally, she showed up at my office, unannounced and crabby, maybe not crabby, abrupt, although Sally admitted to me later, that she's not crabby, she's just been in a bad mood for twenty years. Sally was abrupt with my secretary/receptionist. Mind you now, my receptionist is one of the kindest most gentle people going, she is perfect, PERFECT for the job that she does; handling forty five real estate agents and their various personality limps and the plethora of general public curve balls that fly on a daily basis. So when I received a call that Sally was looking for me and that my receptionist felt that I needed warning, I thought ut oh.

When Sally arrived I was away from the office. I know, go figure and REALTOR who doesn't just sit behind a desk; one that goes out, visits folks, measures homes and shows homes. Sally was told that I wasn't in the office and so she left her telephone number.

I called that evening and the out going voice mail greeting was that of a man. Alrighty then. I left my message, trying to sound just as matter of fact as I could be.

I did not get a call back and so the next day, I left another message for Sally and this time I apologized if I had indeed been telephoning the wrong number.

On day three, Sally called me back. She was indeed interested in selling and would like me to meet with her at her home. We agreed that the next day at three thirty in the afternoon would work well for both of us.

At the appointed hour the next day I arrived at Sally's home. Sally's home is a long traditional North Carolina brick ranch. Typically these homes are three bedrooms, two baths, living room, dining room and family room and Sally's home was just that. The yard, overgrown. The front porch blocked off with yellow caution tape, the driveway covered in pine straw. No worries, all homes in a wet North Carolina January look a little tatty and worn. I parked my car half way up the drive and headed around back with my clip board in hand. Obviously the yellow tape was doing its job in warning me away from the front door. We'd have to deal with that if we're going to sell this place I thought to myself.

The carport of Sally's home is integrated with the house and is a rear entry carport. A very clever design element, the house isn't broken up at the front by a hole for cars. Sally's carport however was filled with stuff, piles of paper, trash, old tables, chairs, lamps and cardboard boxes; all of it just strewn about. The shrubs along the drive to the carport, covered in laundry and at least five, ninety gallon City of Durham trash and yard waste cans laying about. The back door into the house from the carport, propped open with a Dos Equies beer bottle. Immediately I am nervous.

I call out for Sally being proper and using her last name with an obligatory Ms. preceding the name. No answer. I yelp out again and finally get a response.

"Who is it?" comes from somewhere inside.

"Ms. (Last name), it's Michael Sullivan, we're supposed to meet at 3:30, I holler from the carport."

A long pause and I'm going no closer. I'm thinking "Silence of the Lambs," I'm thinking "Kiss the Girls," I'm thinking she might just be packing heat, these days I assume that everyone has a gun and on their own property or not will use it.

"Well what time is it, I thought you were supposed to come at 3:30, you're early." Mind you I still haven't seen the person with whom I'm speaking.

So with patience running a bit thin and nerves a bit jumpy, I answer,
"Ms.(Last name) it is 3:30 and I'm here to talk to you about selling your home."

Finally she appears in the propped open door. Sally is all of five feet tall and is dressed kind of like Pippi Longstocking. On her head is a huge, floppy straw hat with a bright sunflower tacked to the bowl, the sunflower is the size of my head. Sally is wearing about six shirts, I can see a green one, a purple one and a white one the rest is just bulk. On her lower portion, nylon sweats and on her feet, what were once white socks. I'm shocked, I try not to jump, but her appearance startles me.

I'm asked in and Sally informs me that she'll show me the worst part of the house first. The kitchen is a disaster area. It is worse than any crack house that I've ever been in, the cabinets are all wide open and appear as if they have vomited their contents out onto the floor. The wall oven is wide open and the door is being used as a shelf for cleaning supplies. Side note, the cleaning supplies haven't been touched in a long, long time. The floor, what I can see of it is filthy and the same color as the bottom of Sally's socks. The dishwasher is running but the front panel has fallen off and is propped on the counter. Sally is eating what appears to be bird seed out of an old Daisy Sour Cream container. Thankfully she offers me none.

The laundry room is behind me and Sally shows this to me next. This room is so full of stuff piled on the floor that we can't even get into it. There is an old wooden, accordion style drying rack against one wall and draped on it are some two hundred extension cords. The drying rack had the look and feel of the birds nest stadium used for the Beijing Olympics. I marveled that the drying rack really looked like a work of art. I was left wondering why Sally's clothes were drying on a bush in the yard and her extension cords were draped on the rack. I marveled at the amount of time it must have taken her to position all of the cords just so.

The rest of the house was filled with junk mail, garbage, old electronics, old furniture, bags of clothes, food storage containers and assorted stuff. Everything was moldy, everything was worn and there was no place to sit, thankfully. Through out Sally's home was evidence of vermin infestation. Much of the rubbish laying about had been chewed as rats and mice will chew and there were droppings here and there. I imagine that there were squirrels and chipmunks too given the fact that many of the windows were open and the house was ice box cold. I wondered where she slept. None of the beds had been slept in because the three that I saw were piled full of stuff that hadn't been moved in a long, long time.

As I walked through I didn't touch a thing, funny how a one hundred and ninety pound man can manage that feat in a house that's akin to what you'd see on the television show Hoarders. In the bedroom hall the pull down steps for the attic were pulled down and Sally asked if I wanted to go up.

My pat response, "I don't think that I need to see the attic or crawlspace right now."

Sally's bathtubs were both full of water which she used for her day to day water use. Plastic containers lined the edges of the tubs, the vanities and the floors in both bathrooms, Her reasoning was that the water smelled funny coming out of the tap and there were leaks under the house so she routinely had the water turned off and on. There was no heat, the sound of the heat pump bothered her and the air dried out her eyes. So she said.

With our tour done, Sally invited me to sit down, outside on a retaining wall to discuss her plans. I asked where she'd go, no idea. I asked about income, none, what we'd get out of the house would have to last the rest of her life. I guess she's in her late sixties. How did she come to own this home? It had been her parents. She did want to go back to work, she taught synchronized swimming. Truly a growth industry I thought.

Sally told me she wanted a small place in the country, perhaps Alamance County. Just a small simple place in a bamboo grove, where she could wriggle her toes in the dirt and plant some "ta' maters." Again, her words.

I told Sally that we couldn't sell her home until we figured out where she could go. In my mind this is a recipe for homelessness. Sally also told me that she'd had some strangers in to look at the house to purchase it. This scared me more, I asked her not to sign anything and NOT to let STRANGERS into her home. She did promise to follow my advice. Good grief, the terrible could happen.

Essentially here is a woman who has family and that family can't deal with her. Her words and theirs. Social services was contacted by my friend and per their evaluation, nothing needs to be done with Sally. So, what do we do? What do I do?

How does the wealthiest society in the world deal with someone who is on the margins both financially and in terms of mental health? It is unacceptable to me that we forget these people. I've searched the Internet for some sort of co-housing situation but Sally really can't blend with the types of communities that I've found. She doesn't have the tools to emotionally or psychologically fit it. Finally, I so do not agree with Social Services evaluation that Sally is fine and nothing needs to be done with her. Truth be told, they don't know what do do either.