On the verge of losing my house

Hello family, friends, and colleagues. I need help, lots of it.

These past three years have been hard on all of us and all too often, tragic. Unfortunately, these three years have been a perfect storm of health, career, and financial setbacks that have left me drowning and overwhelmed.

As an adjunct instructor at a community college, my position has always been dependent on enrollment but up until three years ago, I have taught at least three classes each semester. Over the last few years the administration at the college has been cutting adjuncts and overloading full timers. I was lucky to keep my classes through spring of 2020 and then everything changed. I found my courses cut down to one or two a semester. We are paid per course so this was a huge cut to my income. I have also worked in retail along with teaching because my adjunct income is very low. The total I earned from both jobs put me under the poverty line to begin with so this was a bad hit. And then my retail job ended during the shutdown. When we were allowed to go back to work the owner cut our hours in half and by January of 2021 she sold one of the two stores in which I worked and I ended up with one or two days a month of employment there. Not good.

Add into the mix that since March of 2000, I have been diagnosed with two debilitating autoimmune diseases, one of which is extremely rare; diabetes type 2 (which I have controlled through diet); hypothyroidism; and most recently extreme heartburn/GERD; and the newest diagnosis is heart disease which makes the likelihood of suffering a heart event moderate (the three levels are mild, moderate, and severe).

The rare autoimmune disease that was diagnosed a year ago is Secondary Isolated ACTH Deficiency. Basically, my pituitary is no longer signaling my adrenals to produce cortisol, the hormone that helps our bodies deal with stress. These glands also regulate our heartbeat; with SIAD (a subset of secondary adrenal insufficiency where there is no mass on the pituitary) I am kept alive with steroids (that have their own horrible side effects). I am continually dehydrated, shaky, dizzy, in pain, and fatigued to the point that sleeping doesn’t help. Brain fog is bad. I have to wear a medic alert tag and carry a medical kit in case I go into an adrenal crisis (which requires an immediate shot of hydrocortisone and transport to an ER or I could die).

The second autoimmune disease with which I have just recently been diagnosed is Rheumatoid Arthritis. This was finally deemed the cause of multiple issues after the inflammation in my left hand was so bad that my extensor tendons below my middle finger separated from the bone; this was extremely painful and required surgery. The surgery was in September last year and I am still in physical therapy.

All of these issues are on top of asthma, sleep apnea, sciatica, spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease, herniated discs, and bone spurs all diagnosed many years ago. All of these health issues have made it very difficult to function and sometimes I can’t muster the energy to do anything other than teaching and going to my retail job (at which I cannot work more than 4 hours at a time). Sometimes I can’t even do that and I will only get worse. When I get home I eat and usually fall asleep on the couch for several hours. I wake up shaking and weak. Others don’t see what’s going on as most of these afflictions are invisible. It’s not a good existence.

The final straw was when my former tenants stopped paying rent during the shutdown and when they finally left last February they left the house so damaged that over a year later it still isn’t inhabitable. They never cleaned; left empty cat food cans all over the wall-to-wall carpet; didn’t clean the bathroom that is now full of mold; burst the copper pipes from using Draino after I told them not to; pulled multiple doors off their hinges (!); and the worst of it was that they never cleaned their four cats’ litter boxes so the cats peed and pooped all over the house. After pulling up all of the carpet (thank you to my cousin and her partner for doing that) the hardwood floors reek and have rotted out in two places. It is shocking and disgusting.

I have already spent about $3500 on repairs and need another $16-17,000 to complete them and I need another $3,000 to pay my property taxes. I don’t have it and every month that passes means that I am not getting the income from rent. If my classes run (that’s a big if) I could take home around $26,000 this year putting me well under the poverty line. If I can make the house inhabitable and rent it out I will be okay.

How two people could cause so much damage I can’t imagine.

If you can help with any amount I would be grateful.