"Homeless" - A St. Louis Disaster Saga

Oh, hi! 

Now, before I launch into the tale that was our disastrous move to St. Louis, I'd like to preface this by saying that we are happy, healthy, and safe living in a cozy town called Columbia, Missouri. See the picture below for proof:

Have a picture for the algae-rhythm (Always makes me think of my good friend and tattoo artist extraordinaire HonestBird). Pictured above are two hams catching some tunes at a local Columbia event called 'ZipperFest'.

 

Moving is always a lot of work. Whether it's a few miles away or hundreds, the physical and mental toll of moving ones entire life to a new place is never easy. In the weeks leading up to our departure, our schedules were jam packed with love, laughter, tears, gatherings, packing, planning. Whirlwind is the only word that comes close. It seemed that July came and went in the blink of an eye and before we knew it, with our multitude of wheels and our entire lives crammed into the moving truck, we made way. 

The first sign of disaster struck nine hours in when we stopped at a hotel in Topeka, Kansas to rest for the night. At four AM, the night clerk checked me in and when I tell you this man had the longest cocaine nail I'd ever seen (please do not Google that if you don't know what I mean), I mean he had the longest cocaine nail I'd ever seen. The desk was piled high with papers, hastily hand-written notes for what looked like guest reservation information, and trash. Even in my sleepy stupor, I was a touch gobsmacked by the lack of professional decorum. First impressions matter, right? The desk clerk checked us in with little fanfare outside of what appeared to be months (if not years) of old overpriced snacks available for purchase behind the front desk - really, four dollars for a box of expired PopTarts? Are you kidding? - but what followed was nothing short of deplorable. 

The hotel room smelled of urine, cigarettes, and the undeniable stench of filth. The carpets, which at one time were probably nice but had since accumulated a layer of crusty grime (among other unseemly... bodily fluids), were so disgusting that neither of us could even stomach the notion of taking off our shoes. Not only was the room rank but it was unbearably hot. Muggy. Imagine walking into a steam room but the steam is made of piss. Tom immediately turned on the AC but it spit out the warmest cool air one could imagine, a measly puff of a breeze that might cool down the room in six or seven hours at best.

The bed and linens had also been neglected for goodness knows how long, if not the entirety of their existence. The sheets themselves had hair stuck in the scratchy fibers, evidence of being completely unwashed, the mattress was covered in what appeared to be urine stains on the side, and worst of all, there was actual BLOOD between the mattress and box spring. Actual fucking dried blood. 

By this time, the sun was due to rise in an hours' time and though we had called around to a couple of hotels in the area, which were of course booked, we had no choice but to suck it up and deal with it for one night. After all, it was just a bed to sleep in, right? 

That's when Tom saw it: a fucking cockroach. Crawling from underneath the door to the hallway, it skittered across the carpet as it had probably done dozens of times, used to the filth beneath its feet, and disappeared again in the corner. 

A goddamn cockroach. We were going to have to sleep in a room with a disgusting little cockroach that could potentially make its way into our things and multiply and then who knows what? Tom was incensed. I was exhausted. We were both appalled.

As one must in that kind of situation, we persevered because we had no option. There was no where else to stay that had availability and neither of us were fit to continue driving as St. Louis was still another five and half hours away. Even filled with the energy of ire, there was no way to muster the alertness for another big drive.

The next morning, with what little sleep we managed to get in a room that was stuffy, hot, and filled with bugs, Tom raged at the front desk, demanding (and rightfully so) a manager to make this right. At the very least, we should get our money back, right? No. No, that would have been too easy. Instead, he got a half-assed apology from the front desk clerk and with a receipt in hand, we hit the road again toward St. Louis with the intention of calling corporate. They would have to do something (we hoped). 

And then, disaster struck again. 

St. Louis was... not what we expected. Though we had seen the neighborhood on GoogleMaps, seeing it in person was a very different experience than seeing it virtually. The house across the street was boarded up with graffiti'd plywood covering the doors and windows; scattered across the area were the husks of cars, some of which sat on actual cinder blocks like in the movies; two houses in the neighborhood had what appeared to be permanent large dumpsters piled high with wood, trash, and mattresses. The unease that we felt was palpable. How was this place the same one we saw online? It was literal blocks from an elementary school. Where did we land ourselves?

When we pulled up to the house itself, the pictures again rang untrue. The front lawn was covered in piles of trash, the likes of which had formed a soppy, wet mound from being left out in the rain. On the side of the cracked and weed-covered (not the good kind) driveway, the bushes had become so overgrown and unattended that the lengthy branches brushed against the side of my car. We even poked around to the backyard only to find yet more piles of trash and a completely full garbage bin whose lid had also been left open for its contents to become soaked with water. The backdoor, which had seen better days and looked as though it had been forced open more than once, had a length of cable running along the trim in such a way that the door itself couldn't actually be closed. Tripping hazard was one word that came to mind, among others.

As we made our way back around to the front of the house to begin the task of unloading some bare essentials for the night (we were both still exhausted), we took notice of how worn the siding was, damaged in most places and missing in others; the gutter hung low and unattached over the front door, where we later learned water would pour from having no place to actually go. Most concerning was the front door itself. The property management company had given us a code to access the lockbox and despite our efforts, the code they provided must have been incorrect because neither of us could get it open. This, however, ended up not mattering because with a simple push of the door, it swung wide open. A door that could not lock was the barrier between us and the outside world.

Tom and I were silent as we meandered through the house, hot and stuffy as it was because it also seemed that the AC was not working - go figure! If the issues outside weren't bad enough, inside was worse. The flooring was bubbled and peeling, lifting in areas and chewed in others; along the entry wall in the living room we saw a huge and terribly done patch job where the paint was not even remotely close the color of the actual wall behind it. It was as though they didn't even try, just "corrected" whatever damage had been there before. Then, Tom saw the bullet hole. Just above the front door knob was a perfect round hole and tracking its trajectory, he found the place where it landed - at exactly head level where Tom would normally be sitting were our couch placed against that wall.

Though I consider myself a realist, there are times when it is appropriate to look for the bright side of things: when one's situation is absolute shit, making the best of it is the way to move forward. That was the idea, anyway. With this in mind, we begrudgingly began unpacking a few key items from the truck: mattress, personals, etc. We had made it into town later than we'd hoped and neither of us were mentally or physically prepared to begin truly unpacking so pulling out the bare necessities would have to do for the night. 

And, of course, that's when we discovered more problems: the fridge was broken, several kitchen cabinets were completely broken and falling apart, and worst of all there were MORE FUCKING COCKROACHES. As we began trying to initially discern where things might go and how we would eventually unpack, Tom discovered them: a pile of dead cockroaches in the kitchen storage closet, scattered among the sagging flooring where the evidence of long-neglected water damage had begun bowing the floor underneath the hot water heater.

So, to sum up: trash, bullet holes, a home that was wildly misrepresented, non-functional appliances, bugs.

On the precipice of losing our minds entirely, Tom and I managed to pull the portable AC from the truck and hook it up for the night in the bedroom so we could at least attempt to get something like rest. Though I am fortunate to have the keen ability to sleep in any condition or any circumstance, Tom does not share this proclivity. The next morning, wide-eyed and his eyes dreary from the utter lack of rest, he presented me with a list of reasons that it would be unsafe for us to remain. And he was right. 

As it turned out, the home that we had leased, which had an address in St. Louis proper, was actually located in Ferguson, Missouri. Yes, the very same Ferguson where the race riots occurred in 2014 and as evidenced by the research he'd done overnight while I was blissfully studying the inside of my eyelids, the scars on the community there had yet to heal. During our short time there, Tom had noted how on more than one occasion, people were stopping in front of the house to observe us. This was not merely the curiosity of busybodies wanting to figure out who the new neighbors were; no, this was different. We were being sized-up. Our area of town had some of the highest crime rates in the entire city and as we also later learned was right in the middle of the 'Rollin 60's' gang territory. Though Tom was not unused to being close to higher crime areas, being from Brooklyn and all, this was very, very new territory for both of us. As proof of such, my chemo meds, which had been shipped to the house prior to our arrival, had already been broken into (and thankfully left alone) but Tom nor I could shake the feeling that we were being actively watched. We were targets.

As we booked a hotel room for the night, acutely aware that staying in that house was not going to be safe or comfortable, we felt the desperation of being homeless. How did we land ourselves in this situation? What could we have done differently? What were we going to do?

So, with nowhere to turn and no plan, we did the only thing we thought to do: called upon family. 

It's been my experience that the people worth giving your time and attention to are those who show up in times of crisis and my family did just that. A few hours away, in a teeny tiny town named Marshall, Missouri, was where our butts got saved. My Aunt and Uncle live in this beautiful old Victorian home with plenty of extra space to house us while we figured out our next steps and take us in they did. As I sat on the hotel bed awash in tears at our situation, Dyann and Jay held no hesitations with opening their home not knowing how long we would be there or where we would ultimately land ourselves.

Over the next couple of days before heading to Marshall, we unloaded our belongings into storage in St. Louis and resigned ourselves to the task of moving again in the future, a task that neither of us anticipated nor welcomed. The walk up and down to the third floor of the building (thank GOODNESS for elevators) was laborious and hot and awful. It was just awful. By this point, we'd packed the truck in Colorado, unloaded essentials at the house in St. Louis, re-packed those essentials, unloaded the truck entirely in the storage unit with the full knowledge that at some point in the future, we would have to do it all over again. 

Our last night in St. Louis, after having fully transferring our entire lives belongings into storage, we collapsed in a fit of tears and uncertainty in the hotel room. Was this punishment for some measure of karmic retribution? Tom didn't think as much (having no belief in such things) but I did. Somewhere, lost amongst the continuous tears I'd shed over days, I couldn't shake the feeling that this entire situation was my fault. 

The following day, with what little belongings we kept with us like clothing, work equipment, and fragile electronics, we arrived at Jay and Dyann's to the welcoming arms of family. I'm pleased to say that the next several weeks were of little note, primarily consisting of Tom and I religiously searching for rentals, Tom driving back to the city (this was before accepting the suggestion to look outside of STL which I will tell you about in a hot second), and learning how to navigate ourselves as unexpected guests in someone else's home. 

Initially, the plan was to try to find a different last-minute rental because St. Louis was the basket we'd put all our eggs in and I was going to follow through, damn it! It was also true that all of our stuff was still in St. Louis, but, as we've learned, life had another plan. Tom ventured back to the city twice to check out houses but through all our searching, a few things became abundantly apparent: the areas of the city that were safe and had the life and culture we wanted were out of our budget, the neighborhoods that were within our budget were unsafe, and the culture that I'd heard and read so many wonderful things about seemed to be confined to very specific regions which were also surrounded by a decaying city that was wildly underfunded and covering up its problems with bandage policies rather than solving the fundamental problems themselves.

Frankly, St. Louis is a pit and I am mad at myself for taking our lives there in the first place. 

Eventually, through the realization that St. Louis was not going to pan out the way we'd hoped and the suggestions of family members whose sound advice had yet to steer us wrong, our eyes turned back West which is where we finally decided on Columbia. To its credit, Columbia thus far has been a pleasant little surprise.

For two and a half weeks, we were technically homeless though we didn't necessarily feel that way. Staying with my Aunt and Uncle mostly felt like an extended visit. Truthfully, I didn't really know this side of my family particularly well having not grown up with them (it was only about seven years ago that I got to attend Christmas with them for the first time ever) and the experience of sharing their home, learning their routines, and having meals together was kind of wonderful. It's a special experience getting to know someone in that deep way that only comes from sharing a home with them. 

On our last day, after Tom had managed to find a very cute little duplex in Columbia that was under budget and close to the things that we wanted (for Tom, that mostly meant White Castle), I packed up my office equipment and shared a few happy tears with Aunt Dyann. She's not a person who is prone to verbal expressions of love and affection but she does know how to show it in other ways. Uncle Jay, whose taciturn ways are equally quiet, gave me a big hug on my way out the door and away we went. 

I won't bore you with the details of the arduous task of moving again (as I've bored you already with this involved trauma dumping) because there's nothing to report. Moving is moving. It sucks but it's done! We spent way more money than we planned and drained our savings with all the unexpected extra costs but it's over with. Now, we're settled in our new place which is very cute and super duper close to all the things we like. Surprisingly, Columbia has impressed us so far. The cost of living here is a shock compared to Colorado and there's possibility on the horizon for meeting new people, trying new things, and experiencing life in an entirely new place. I've been talking to the local roller derby team and will be volunteering with them ahead of their next "beginner boot camp" in February. I've always liked the idea of playing derby both because I'm naturally assertive and because I think I'd be bomb at it. Though Tom has yet to decide, I'm trying to convince him to do some volunteering with the local democratic office because I think it would put his mind at ease over the coming election (which is 1000% the most important election of the decade thus far). Being in a very, very, very red state has been interesting... to say the least. 

And that's all of it! If you made it this far, give yourself some kisses from me because woof - that was a lot. 

Life really knows when to pile it on sometimes but that's okay. Every hurdle is a learning experience and every trauma an opportunity. Tom and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary last week (which, also, FIVE YEARS?! Where does the time go?) and as part of his present, he wrote me a note, the gist of which was "this experience has not phased us one bit" and he's totally right. I think if our relationship had any cracks in it whatsoever, the last tumultuous two months would have broken us but it didn't. Every tough decision, every mistake, every moment of uncertainty was weathered together and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

For the moment, I've foregone any notion of planning anything at all for the foreseeable future because if I've learned anything at all, it's that I need to stop trying to control everything all the time and let things happen the way they're meant to. We still want to buy a house and build a life somewhere but where that place might be is yet to be decided. Maybe we'll fall in love with Columbia and decide to stay here. Maybe we'll set our sights somewhere else entirely - who's to say? All I can tell you is that for the moment, I'm happy to just exist safely and with my person. 

Love to you, my friends! Come visit us in Columbia! It's quite pretty here.