Reply #62: I am the wife; I have twin almost two year olds, and returned to work

[IdaBriggs]

full time right before Christmas because of the bills -- a good portion of which were theirs. I had asked if she was interested in babysitting for me to earn money, and she turned the job down. It would have paid the rent, with some extra.

So, to review: she hasn't paid rent in eleven weeks, didn't want to help watch my toddlers so I could work to cover HER expenses, which I was going to PAY HER FOR, and now has a nice new car, while owing us over five thousand dollars, which she has made clear we aren't going to be seeing from her, possibly ever.

The rental property is the house I grew up in, and we took it over from my mother. The twists and turns of that transaction are such that we put ourselves in a negative cash flow situation in an effort to make sure my (widowed) mother was financially taken care of, but now that our situation has taken a turn for the worse, we are screwing HER over as well.

In a normal market, it wouldn't be 'put out more money than you take in' but the Michigan economy has literally turned housing values upside down, and right now, the money owed to the bank darn near makes the place 'top heavy' meaning the bank is owed more than the house is worth. We were advised by our tax accountant last year that if it wasn't a situation where we were taking care of family, he would be telling us to hand the property back to the bank, and walk away. That might be best for my husband and I, but it would literally financially destroy my mother, and make everyone else on the property homeless; hence our 'working for free' while we wait out the economy/wait for the world to get better. If it just pays for itself, we consider it a godsend, but my tenant has just made that dream completely impossible.

Got a few grand you want to chip in to cover her expenses? Sigh. Me either. But she has a nice new car -- woo hoo for her!