We've spent the past almost 3 years in a terrible situation that has progressively continued to get worse. We have 2 children, a 9 year old son and a 1 year old daughter and are currently residing in California. The father of my children was employed at a hotel and as a result we were given a housing arrangement as part of his pay. It became clear very quickly that this business was being run by careless individuals who continuously broke the laws, underpaid him and left us living in extremely unsanitary conditions while also illegally over charging us rent. Our "apartment" is no where near up to code, we have no windows and only a single door. There's holes in the ceilings and their idea of giving us ventilation was cutting holes into the walls that lead into my neighbors unit who smokes inside so we later had to have those patched because my children were breathing in cigarette smoke. So much more has occurred aside from that but it would be a lot to put it all here. Just wanted to give a general idea of what kind of people we've been dealing with. My fiancé often worked 7 day work weeks and anywhere from 70-100 hours a week yet wasn't being paid properly for his time or a livable wage by any means. He made 250$ a week killing himself only to be completely destroyed and harassed by this company.
Despite many attempts at trying to address serious issues they refused to do the right thing and ultimately wrongfully terminated him and tried to throw us out immediately afterwards. He spent 2+ years as assistant manager here and he worked very hard, they terminated him because they'd rather break the law then to fix legitimate concerns. The unit we were given to live in has multiple infestation issues, we've spent the past 18 months battling bed bugs because the next door neighbor refuses to treat and the property owner doesn't care and won't do anything to take care of it. On top of that this unit and the other four buildings in this complex are completely over run with German roaches and there's documentation that they've been here for at least 9 years. Just last week we threw away sticky traps that between all of them likely had a good 5000 roaches, if not more and that's not even an exaggeration I have pictures. Living here truly is like living in hell and I want my kids out of here now. 😣
During this I was also employed but was physically assaulted at my job when I was 7 months pregnant with my daughter and it left me with a lot of issues afterwards(PTSD and severe social anxiety) and from the stress of that incident I delivered my daughter 2 months prematurely. I ultimately was unable to return to work at a job I worked for 18 years and still struggle going out and being around people. A week into bringing her home is when we discovered that the neighbor had bed bugs and that they were now making their way into our unit. I was a wreck, never having had bed bugs before with a brand new baby and also my older child who is special needs. Despite bringing it to the property owners attention many times he refused to hire someone to get rid of the problem and so the issue has continued for 18 months with me trying my hardest to prevent infestation and keep my babies from being bitten and it's caused a lot of distress.
Things got so bad we had to file a lawsuit against them, having roughly 6 terabytes of video evidence and a mountain of other documentation but this is a process that has and will take considerable time and they have now filed a countersuit against us in an attempt to cause further harm even though the claims in the countersuit are completely untrue and they admit they don't have evidence of most of it.
A little over a week ago we were served eviction papers, we are in a position where we don't have anything financially or a support system where we currently live to prevent us from being homeless. This situation is unfortunately very complex and being that the housing was included in an employment there is no fighting this eviction and we have been advised that we should do everything we can to vacate before the eviction hearing. We have two small children, no matter what happens they cannot be without a roof over their heads. We are on very limited time to raise enough money to travel from California to Wisconsin where the only reliable and stable family I have lives. It's a wonderful opportunity for my family if we can make it there but we've unfortunately lost both our incomes and have nothing currently. There is a job waiting and a stable home. We will be leaving pretty much everything we care about behind here, as sad as that makes me at this point I just care about getting out of here and having the funding to get us somewhere safe. If there were ever a time that we needed help and prayers this is it. After everything that has happened in these past several years I want nothing more than peace and stability for my children. If you've made it this far reading this thank you, even if you can't donate please share ❤️
