19 And In America 2008: The Current Reality

Let me tell you my story of being a 19 year old in America for the past 6 months.      As we can all tell, the U.S. has hit another depression. I can tell because it has affected me and millions of other people here. As with most other people, when you become an adult you move out of your family's house to go to school and work. Personally, I don't have parents. I have been independent from the beginning. When I was 18 I was living in at my grandparent's house where my fiance' came and stayed with me. My family isn't normal. They have been living with my grandparents WAY longer than they should be (for example, my alcoholic father is almost 50 and he is still living with them). To make a long story short, situations at the house caused by my out of control cousins caused me to move out as soon as I could.      In January 2008, my fiance' and I moved into a little duplex a couple cities over. When we moved in, we had the pleasure of dealing with our "landlord" J. Gallardo. He knew, as we knew, how desperate we were to get a place. Big mistake. He managed to collect $6,000 from us for 6 months of rent. We noticed it wasn't quite normal but we didn't feel we had much choice and we handed it over in a cashier's check. Note that this duplex was a bit smaller than a studio apartment where the bedroom and living room are the same, and that it was $900 per month. That is the typical price of such a sadly small place all around the area we live. So how is a typical young adult pushing a regular job going to get out on their own even in the smallest space?? 

Well after moving in, we then noticed the off things about the place. The hardwood floor was not put together completely, there was a range of different molds between kitchen and bathroom tiles, the garbage disposal never worked, the windows were crooked, there was a huge heaping garbage pile outside on the side, the toilet failed to flush right, the place was freezing at night because the front door had a big gap underneath it, and the oven remained warm atop the burners even when it was turned off!!!! (among many other problems). Then as we spoke to neighbors renting from Mr.Gallardo on the same property, I began wondering if our duplex was legal. So we got in the car and went down to those who run the city. I had them check to see if Mr.Gallardo actually owned the property. Shockingly, he had owned the property, but his license for that place had expired a couple years prior, and the city knew of the house in front of the duplex but not of the duplex itself! So the place we were renting was being illegally rented to us! We then think it was an illegally converted garage (especially since it was behind the house that was being rented). Now if that didn't seem so bad, our neighbor did an internet search on our 'landlord' to see if anything came up. It sure did! Mr. Gallardo was convicted of raping and doing crude sexual, forceful acts to 3-5 girls that were my age! That was it! My fiance' and I spoke of how to get our money back so we could leave. To make that long story short, we had the help of an older friend who wound up having to scare him into believing we were going to take him to court. After a couple weeks we had gotten $5,075 back. We were very lucky. About a month later we realized the whole surrounding area was way too expensive for us too live. So we decided to move almost 80 miles north mostly because it was cheaper. There we could get a twice bigger sized living space for the same price as a studio where we had been living. Being too broke to pay for rental trucks, we stuffed our 2 little cars and did a few trips back and forth. After moving into our 2 bedroom apartment we were paying $825 (mainly from savings). The landlord let us move in without a job as long as we got one within one month. It had never been hard to find a job within one month for either of us so it wasn't a big deal...then.

Well I found a job, yet it turned out to be paying only commission and I needed hourly in order to pay bills. My fiance' found a job as well, turned out to be commission to. Then we both got jobs as telephone fundraisers, but I would only be making $600 per month and the main supervisor was offensive. I needed something better. That was in March of 2008. After leaving that job, it took me 5 months of job searching to wind up only with a position of doing a newspaper route. Right before I was hired, my car died out on me. It only costed $99 to get it diagnosed, and I already knew the problem which was simply just a messed up fuel sensor and wire. But I had no money so I couldn't get it fixed. So the paper route job had to be done in my fiancé's mitsubishi eclipse! The route was 50 miles long and went from 1:30 am to 5:30 am and it felt like a nightmare! The directions the woman at work gave me were horrid. One time it simply told us: "Go to address 4000". (Yeah...but 4000 what!!?). So for 9 days we did the paper route. Tired and hungry we went, just because we needed the money so badly. Then, our engine light came on. But we had no choice except to keep driving the car for work. Then one morning we go out to go to work and there is coolant and oil all over the ground underneath the car. I called work and told them, and then they laid me off and treated me as if I had poor work performance!

September came. With no job to pay bills or buy food we began starving. Actually starving. We lived off of water and top ramen which we felt squeezing nutrients out of us. Then, with both cars working no longer, we sold the mitsubishi eclipse for only $600 (because the engine problems were pricey), and used it for rent. Then my fiance' used his credit card for 2 bikes since we didn't have working cars anymore. That month we began riding our bikes MILES and miles a week going everywhere picking up and turning in job applications while having nothing in the fridge and no money in our wallets to buy anything to eat. It was very difficult to keep smiling to people as you turn in your millionth application. Not to mention, we still had no change to wash our clothes. The month before, I had to wash our clothes in the bathtub and dry them around the apartment.

October came. All the bike riding, and calling places for a job felt as if trying had no point. We were still riding our bikes everywhere, and we were still not eating. We knew the inevitable, we were going to be homeless very soon. So I sold my car for $500 and was originally going to use it for rent. However I found no way to come up with the last $325 so we put in our notice to leave with our landlord. We had no idea where we were going to go. My fiancé's only family is 500 miles away and we have no cars or money. So then we looked around the apartment (which became so depressing we would simply just stand outside at 4 in the morning because we didn't want to be in that apartment anymore) and began to throw out some of our belongings since the less you have, the easier it is to move. In order to get money, I posted around 30 of our items for sale on the internet. Luckily people came in fast. However, we had to sell our stuff for ridiculously cheap since no one has much money due to the economy. Then half of our belongings I donated to charity for the animals. At the very last second I contacted my sister and she was able to get us a room for rent at the house that she rents a room from. So with no choice, I borrowed my father's car and we loaded up our stuff, using the money we made from selling some of our belongings for gas and made the move 60 something miles away.

November came. In our new little bedroom, we pay $200 for rent. All month, we job searched. Thankfully we have a car to use! We were so exhausted from our bikes for the past couple months and the rain. Our money was slowly dwindling as we had to use it solely for gas money for job searching. At least a woman at the coffee shop really likes me and schedules an interview. Still not eating as much as we'd like, we have to use gas money to drive to my grandma's house to scavage for food. There is never any food there and when there is it is stuff like dollar store hot dogs, and fake cheese made of sodium and it makes us so sick. But that is all we have to live off of.

Now it is December 2008. I have to wait until next week to call the coffee shop back, I pray to God that I get that job. I am still in high school, even though I am 19. I am making up lost high school credits due to a migraine disorder I had growing up.  Once per week I drive 70 miles north to get there. But It is a very important thing to me, and I am one of the few 4.0 students there! At least education is easy for me. Anyways, we only have $5 left. I have been working for my aunt to pay rent this month, yet we still need money for food and necessities. We are trying hard to get employed but we are worried. I am so tired of this struggle. It has been going on for months. We are only 19 yet we are just as affected as the 45 year old people up the road who lost their house because they can't pay bills. It is now common to see people on the side of the road trying to sell blankets and little trees for money. I have been seeing auto sale places empty and abandoned because no one has money anymore to buy cars. With so little money, sales seem to be one of the greatest things for people. Take for example that incident a couple weeks ago at a wal-mart in the U.S., where the store employee that opened the door was trampled to death because everyone rushed in like angry bulls. It is so sadly ridiculous.     I will update as I go along.