A few years ago when COVID-19 had started, it was spreading like wildfire everywhere. It was awful that so many things were closed due to COVID. It was even worse staying in one small apartment in the Bronx, New York. So the only solution that my family had was to go visit some relatives and we did. We went to Indiana. It was really nice over there. It was really spacious and quiet. It was better than what we were used to – loud music, the environment, poverty. But you see that everywhere… So eventually three weeks while staying there, my uncle gave us the idea to move. And we did. Which took most of the rest of the school year, but it wasn’t too bad. It was nice and we had a pool. Later, a few months in while living there, my stepdad got convicted of a felony. But we got back on our feet. My mom is a hard worker, so she was always the income of the family since my stepdad wasn’t coming back anytime soon.
A few years into living in the new home, the landlord decided to kick us out since, according to him, the owner of the house wasn’t present and living in it. But my siblings and I, who were his kids, were related by blood. We weren’t some strangers. Eventually we started getting post cards saying we were eventually getting evicted in late November. My mom ignored it because stuff like that always gets mailed and, during this time, she was talking to people about what was happening and, according to them, we weren’t supposed to get kicked out. But unfortunately on October 31st 2023, we got evicted.
I had come back from school with my two other siblings around 3:40 or 4pm. We heard a banging at our door. We tried to look and we saw a police car outside. We got worried because we really didn’t know what to do, and opening the door wasn’t an option since my mom wasn’t home. They started getting more aggressive by the second. So we went to my sister’s room. They drilled the door knob out and opened the door and came inside. By this time, we were calling my mom and telling her what happened and she rushed trying to get home ASAP. When the landlord got the door open, there was a police officer and two other guys walking around searching and taking pictures. So the police told us to put our hands up when they found us in the room. We just were told to pack our things – whatever we could – because we could not stay there anymore.
My mom later got there and she was confused about why they were doing this. The landlord said that he contacted my mom, but she wasn’t good at answering on time, and that he gave her more time to pack up. But either way he didn’t and wasn’t going to let us pack up anymore. While we were packing quickly, we took our dogs, some documents, and other things. We were told to pay so that we could go inside and pack up by Friday 2pm. It was Tuesday at the time.
Fast forward, the day came where my mom talked to some lawyers and anyone that could help. They made her sign an appeal or something of that sort, I can’t remember. Friday came and the landlord got mad she did that with lawyers, so now he wasn’t going to let us in and get our stuff. We eventually gave up, but we were still trying to get all of our belongings. We got a call from our neighbor who said that there were people throwing all our things in a dumpster truck. We were surprised because we were getting contacted by a moving company telling us to pay $700 to get our things, which really confused us because our stuff was getting thrown away.
By this time we are slowly getting back up on our feet. Thankfully we weren’t affected that much, but we were slightly. We are sort of grateful we didn’t lose everything, but still the whole situation was confusing and stressful. It’s something nobody should go through and face alone, especially when you have children and you’re a single mother.