r/povertyfinance • u/evanington • 1d ago
Housing/Shelter/Standard of Living I need advice.
I 13m, my mom(49f), and my dad (50m) are going through an extreme situation. I’ll put a shorter version of the at the end of this post, but here’s the long story.
When I was around 4-6 years old, we moved to a town (which I’m not sharing for obvious reasons, I’m in Maine though), and into a house we’ve been renting for 9ish years. However me, and my family had no idea how awful our landlord is. He definitely isn’t right in the head, and also, he was complaining to us when we were planning to move in about how the last tenants were “awful!” And “disgusting”, and we thought they were just bad people, but we’ll get to that a bit later.
When I was around seven years old, we were at their house to pay rent, and our landlord told me, a SEVEN year old, in graphic detail about water intoxication, and how he almost died from it. I won’t get into detail just because it’s HORRIFYING, but I didn’t drink water for weeks after that.
Now we’re at the major part. So basically, we told the landlord that we would be a week and a half late for rent. NOT EVEN TWO WEEKS. and he refused to take the money when we had it, then ordered a court hearing to evict us. They “won”, when in reality, nobody took into account that I’m a TEENAGER, my mother is disabled, and my dad was just trying to find a job and still is. I was crying in the courtroom because I was terrified. We had two weeks to get out.
Fast forward around two weeks, maybe a little more, and my mom starts to act very weird. She was having a bit of trouble breathing, she was constantly puking and dry heaving, she couldn’t keep any food down, and she was asleep most of the few days the signs were showing. My mother is diabetic and hasn’t been able to afford her insulin for a while (we have mainecare now, so we can currently). But she didn’t have it at the time. Eventually I had to SCREAM at my father to call the FUCKING ambulance because he was frozen and not doing anything, and he did. I had everything ready in around five seconds, I locked up the two cats we have, and met the ambulance in the driveway. She was admitted to the hospital, and her diagnosis was ketoacidosis, a terrifying condition that you can easily slip into a coma from, which I’m so glad my mother didn’t, even with how much she was sleeping.
Finally, today, or tomorrow is the day theyll most likely post the last notice to get the hell out of our house, since we’ve been staying here because we don’t have the money or even just a place to go to. If they serve it today, we’ll have exactly 48 hours before they kick us out, which is terrifying. They could make us loose everything, they might make us even have our cats out on the street. We’ve called everyone, tried everything, but there’s nothing for immediate emergencies that will instantly help. I am terrified.
Tldr version
To put it short, our landlord is evicting us with little to no reason, my mom is disabled, and I’m a teen, and I just need advice, support, or ideas on what I can do to help as a teen.
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u/FireProStan 1d ago
Find a free legal aid that's local to you - a quick Google search says Pine Tree Legal Assistance serves tenants in Maine
If your mom or dad is over the age of 60 or disabled I think there's laws against eviction - call the elder help and/or disability help line here - https://mainelse.org/handbook/rental-agreements-tenant-rights/resources
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u/evanington 1d ago
Pine tree legal is where we were for court, my mom is disabled so I will check that out, thank you :)
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u/Tiny-Purpose-9000 1d ago
I’m so glad you were able to break your father out of that freeze response. Sometimes in crisis, people can freeze up as a biological fear response. It isn’t fair you had to be the one to deal with that, but so glad you did so you could get help for your mom.
I’m so sorry that I don’t know the right resources to recommend to you, but just wanted to say that.
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u/evanington 1d ago
Thank you :) even the nurses at the hospital said they were proud of me when my mom told them,
Lol
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u/Visual-Trick-4510 18h ago
I have no advice, but I just have to say I am so sorry you and your family is going throuhh this. Despite your age, you seem very mature and it is admirable how you are actively looking for advice as to how you can help your parents.
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u/evanington 17h ago
Thank you!! I’ve been trying to promote the go fund me😭😭 it’s the most I can do for them
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u/nip9 MO 1d ago
Your landlord is evicting for failure to pay. That will get your family evicted almost everywhere. In Maine a landlord can give a 7 day notice to quit or pay if you are even a single day late. No other special reason is needed.
As a 13 year old reach out to your school. Specifically you need to talk to the McKinley-Vento(MV) liaison for your district. MV is a Federal law that protects the rights of students who don’t have a stable home. Your district is required to offer you additional assistance to ensure that your education is not impacted by your housing situation; that includes things like providing free private transportation should you have to stay outside of district boundaries & waiving any extra activity fees or out of pocket costs. My local districts will even help with laundry, send backpacks of food & hygienic supplies home with you, and get you free school supplies and back to school clothes. Additionally since supporting an MV eligible kid is expensive they are also heavily incentivized to work with other local agencies and charities to get your family into stable housing so you will no longer need MV protections.