2012 conventions 2012 election 2013 session 2013 special election arts arts and culture author ballot measures bomb books budget bullying business charlie hales children clackamas climate change coal courts crime culture culture club democrats drugs economy education environment family film fluoride food gay rights guns handguns health health care health insurance high school history housing immigration international internet kitzhaber law legislature lgbt literary arts living marijuana medicine mental health military minor parties mohamed mohamud movies music native americans news newspaper obama olympics oregon our town parenting pers photography police politcs politics port portland portland business journal portland mayor president prevention public safety religion republicans rnc romney rural salem sam adams sandy hook schools science shooting sports suicide supreme court taxes television terrorism theater third parties timber payments transportation union university of oregon violence washington water wildfire women

 am a broker and assistant to Brenda Hereth of Coldwell Banker, BSSP, one of the top foreclosure realtors in all of the NW and the #2 agent of Coldwell Banker on the west coast.  We have about 55-60 bank owned properties listed right now.  Brenda is actually my fiance's mother, my fiance is also a realtor, we work with his aunt and father also, so it is basically a family business of selling bank owned homes. 
 
In this business we have seen and done it all.  When we are assigned a property to list, often it is still occupied with the former owners, and it is on us to "facilitate their removal."  These are families, elderly, the infirmed, spanish speaking young moms, tenants of all walks of life.  We are authorized to offer them around $500 to $2500 to move, usually within 3 weeks.  This is very traumatic for the occupants, and we try to make it as painless as possible, though we can not know what they are really going through.  Then, when the property is vacant, is is our task to have the properties "trashed out," or have all of the previous items in the house removed, and the home given a full cleaning.  Sometimes my fiance and I have to do the "trashing out" ourselves, and we have found some really heartbreaking things in the process.  At one very nice home on Bull Mountain, we found a sweet little photo album of their second child's birth, along with receipts for large expensive items, and the phone number of Countrywide, their mortgage company, scrawled along the top of the receipt.  We see mail piled to the very top of the mail slot, from just disappearing from the home and not leaving a forwarding address.  At one home when we arrived it looked like the former occupant went out for coffee and never came back, he left every-every-everything, from beds to clothes to wall hangings to the coffee maker to his toiletries and cleaning supplies to his suitcases and cherished items.  It seemed that he just gave up and left.  We were assigned another home that someone had just committed suicide in, supposedly because of the debt he was facing.  He was in the middle of remodeling his home, and half of the home was left completely unfinished, very eerie.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
view in context

Last night my husband was just sobbing, thinking of how sad this is for the city of Portland. All humans have sex, in all kinds of ways, but not everyone can be the great Mayor of Portland that Sam Adams has the potential of being. He has pursued this office with all of his heart, he is an activist, bicycle rider, energy innovator, and he is THE person to lead us into the future. Sam Adams should not have lied, he said that explicitly, he knows that the lying was wrong, and maybe with this tragic exposure we can all learn something about being radically honest with each other. I want to thank Sam Adams for his passionate service, and encourage him to stay in office, and help us all learn something together through this experience.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
view in context