Dear Brothers and Sisters,
My husband and I are caught in a terrible trap and can't figure out what on earth we're supposed to learn from this.
We've been leaders in our church for years and have faced many obstacles in life as we raised a blended family of 5 children but this is the toughest.
3+ years ago we decided to downsize from our family home to a "condo" taking our last child with us who is a 5th year college student. We purchased a lower level garden unit and paid over $170,000 (more than what our house orignially cost) to set ourselves up for the latter part of our lives. We wanted to spend more time serving the Lord and less on house work and maintaince. We didn't have enough $ to buy a regular ranch condo and due to my illness we needed one floor. This move was not my favorite choice but my husband refused to move twice. I wanted to take more time and move into an apt for a while till I knew for sure what to do.
The builder's representative was dishonest with us about noise and since we had lived in homes the past 30 years or so we believed the stories of how far they'd come in minimizing noise.
The first year was unusual and each time someone would come to visit the upstairs unit, we were amazed at the noise we could hear but were reassured each time we mentioned it that once someone moved in, carpet was down and furniture was in we'd hear nearly nothing.
After the first year the complex started to offer lease with the option to buy (not available for us). An older couple moved in and we had weekly church groups in our home and she would bang on the floor each time we sang a worship song. We apologized and tried to keep it down. She started dancing on the floor, mocking us. We again went to our builder and asked if they could buy us back and sell us a townhome and he just laughed. That would have been a difficult thing for us as I have a serious chronic illness that sometimes keeps me bedridden but we didn't know what else to do. Of course after he laughed at us, he then changed the parking rules so our guest had to park way at the end of the building. Terrible during icy times... When the first couple left after there lease was up, he brought in a couple where the husband weighs no less than 600 lbs. We have 18" between our floors and he has destryed the 1/2" concrete gypcrete and when he walks the boards clap loudly and our ceiling fan chains move. It's awful and he's home all day. He's usually up on the computer at night and keeps us up all hours going back and forth to the bathroom. We still owe the bank over 160,000 so last year we went on the market for 6 mos and couldn't even begin to compete. In the meantime, my mother passed away and we had to take care of my father. Then he recently passed away and we are now trying to clean up the house from 50 years of near hoarding. We've dealt with so many differnet obstacles and their house is falling apart before we can get it cleaned up. We used the cash left to us and paid off all credit card debt as we believe the Lord would want us to do. It hasn't left us much to save. We've put our condo back on the market almost $20,000 lower which will eat up all our savings as we would go to closing with a check. We've only had 2 showings and 1 open house.
My husband and I are starved for sleep and peace and almost ready to give up. This noise issue creates more and more pain for me. My mom and dad's house is not fit to stay in and will be a while before it can be livable.
We have begged God to move the upstairs couple to another place where they won't disturb their neighbors and bring us just the right buyer that noise won't bother but to no avail. This, along with the stress of losing mom and dad is creating thoughts in our minds that we've never had. We're so tired of fighting we just don't want to go on. Please pray for an answer for us. We'd like to go back to a modest house where we can continue serving the Lord and enjoying our large family and grandkids.
Please tell me, where is our Lord and why has he deserted us?
Blessings,
Looking4Jesus
PS I've been a Christian my whole life and never felt this defeated...:-(
