[Hamtramck House] buy and bail

[1953]

I have a two family flat in Hamtramck, north of Caniff and east of Campau, that I rent, allowing me to live in a single family home in Grosse Pointe. I still love Hamtramck and I spend much time there, though we moved to be closer to family.

The mayor of Hamtramck is very attentive and I could put you in touch with her if you haven't talked to her already. Maybe she can help you out. I would echo that bad neighbors often move on. Hopefully you can find a solution that doesn't do so much harm to the neighborhood as you will do if you abandon the house.

1953

[DetroitPole]

7 years ago I bought a house that I loved. I still love and want my house. If I could fill enough balloons with helium and lift my house away I would.

The condition of my street has dramatically changed in those 7 years. Beginning with the actual street itself-it's literally crumbling. Every few weeks I have to vacuum out about a pound of pebbles that gets tracked into my car. The street was dead-ended to build the Henry Ford Rehab clinic years ago. Part of the deal was to build a turnaround at the dead end. To this day it is a mud pit thanks to Henry Ford's misaligned sprinkler system and parking lot runoff.

The garbage. OMG the garbage! shoes shoes shoes. Where do they come from? snack packaging, ice cream wrappers, big chug bottles, leaflets, shopping carts, children's toys, couches and on and on. [[At least twice a year I do a full pick of the street as slack jawwed children crowd around me asking me why I'm cleaning the street, usually with the conversation ending with "all christians should be killed.") I think I'll be giving the holiday lights a rest this season.

The renters. I would guess that 3/4's of the homes on my street are rentals. 3 abandoned homes-one right next door to me with an on again off again squatter and one burnt out shell of a house on this forgotten one block stretch. In the 7 years, 4 old polish lady hold outs passed away. Their out of state children sold the homes for dirt, to dirt bag scumlords just to be done with it. Thanks, love ya lots.

No neighborhood cohesion. Whomever said our differences make us stronger was gravely mistaken. There are at least 6 different ethnicities on my street so communication, which is key to stable neighborhoods, is not easy if even possible.

Thug-assed bass at 2 am. In Hamtramck a police officer's peace cannot be disturbed so it is on the resident to file the complaint and then go to court.

Unmaintained outdated single sewers that have backed up 4 times in the 7 years. Each time at least a foot of run off and human waste in my basement. With the city council's response of "that's just life in Hamtramck." Oh and my insurance adjusted to reflect the claim I made 3 years ago from the flooding, but hey, that's just life in Hamtramck. And oh, I bought a new vehicle a few months ago and that insurance bill jumped through the roof.

oh, oh and to add insult to injury I have the added joy of paying a 1% income tax for the privilege of living in such a utopia.

When I first bought the house I hosted a holiday party. More than 150 people came through. [[I did let the neighbors know, hell I invited them to stop by.) Today I am embarrassed to have people come by as well as fearful for their safety and the security of their vehicles.

I'm not rolling out this litany as a woe-is-me tale. I'm trying to describe the changes that happened to a fully occupied quiet and peaceful street over the past few years. And yes, I can financially afford my house, but spiritually I cannot. The atmosphere is changing me.

To those considering Hamtramck as a place to live- yes it is a fun place, but choose wisely. Look inside the core. North of Holbrook, south of Carpenter [[like way south), east of Lumpkin and west of Conant. and keep an eye of owner to renter ratio- not that you'd be able to tell. If you looked at the books most of the houses are homesteaded but the owners are not living in them.

My neighborhood isn't doing that badly, but has varying degrees of what you describe.

My issue with all this is that you don't have to be rich to clean up your garbage or show respect for others. I've seen this kind of behavior creeping into my neighborhood. Lord knows those old Polish ladies weren't rich, but had decent values. It takes virtually no money to show respect for others.

Why not pick up the garbage when all you're doing is fucking sitting on your porch and mean-muggin' people all day, anyway? Flower beds and lawns full of weeds? Flower seeds can be had for pennies. Office furniture and barbeque grills do not belong on the front porch, period - you have a backyard. Nobody wants to hear your moronic loud music - maybe I should blast some Chopin for everyone. We have regular garbage days so do not leave your trash to decay wherever you feel like it and attract rodents. The sidewalk is not a place for you to sit, it is for people to walk. I don't get it, even a fucking dog doesn't shit in its own crate.

[RickBeall]

Hi Hamtown Mike,
Obviously you have a lot of emotion invested in your Hamtramck house, as evidenced by your name. I want to say a couple things just to be helpful, not critical, You said your house is unrentable, yet you live on a street where 3/4's of the houses are rented. So, obviously your house is rentable. Here is a thought, suppose you buy one of these great cheap deals on a house in Hamtramck N. of Holbrook, and you rented your current house S. of Holbrook? This has 2 good features, you live close to your rental so you can keep an eye on it and fix problems with a minimum of travel, and you can buy a 2nd house you can afford.

Of course, maybe you have completely burnt out on city living. That happens. We live in Hamtramck, but my wife would have extreme anxiety if she lived on your street with the problems you describe. Sometimes the only thing that can energize a person is a total chance of scenery, so I can respect that.

Going to a council meeting and talking to Mayor Mayeski would be a good idea. She may not have a direct solution, but you want to cast about for fresh ideas, because you are at your wits end.

We ride our bikes all over Hamtramck, we can stop by and say "Hi" sometime. It would have to be a sort of unnannounced knock at the door. At any rate, feel free to private message me if you want to chat or vent.

[Novine]

"I guess your word means nothing anymore....the decline of morals in society today amazes me."

People who make comments like this must not have much interaction with the real world. In the commercial sector, investors and business owners walk away from bad deals all the time. Banks walk away from bad investments every day. But if you own a home, people expect you to live by some moral code that they don't hold banks or corporations to the same standard. There's reasons to keep on paying but it has nothing to do with "morals".

[SWMAP]

Reading that saga I would move. Its not worth the rest of your life. No one should have to live like that.

And, by the way, i know what its like to be embarrassed about all the filth and easy-living when people want to visit. Piled up mattresses on the street for weeks and junk from rental evictions that the city forbids but allows is awful and demoralizing.

But you have to say that you intend to rent your Hamtramck house or you won't get that loan.

[canuck]

I guess I'll just have to stop complaining about my nosey next door neighbors...

I feel for you man. I used to have knucklehead ruffians in Ho-Ma neighborhood of Montreal 25 years ago. One of my dad's tenants who was a stripper, once told us at the end of a workday when we were having a beer, that her cousin was a great guy; he had brought his german shepherd for an hour and given her a c-note for the trouble. She then revealed he had gone out on a hold-up.
And my dad was once threatened by a coked-up jailbird neighbor because he was repairing a staircase for a landlord across the street and had asked him to use the back stairway. I stepped in and shut him up. It could have turned pretty bad. A lot of stories to tell of dumb things ignorant folks will say and though it can be funny at times, it is also depressing.

[DetroitPole]

Also, if you're leaving, just get the hell out of the state. Pack your bags and just drive. Things aren't getting better here.

The suburbs are no longer the safe places to flee too anymore. Look at Hamtramck [[albeit not a suburb) 20 years ago was a clean, safe, model community. It is hard to believe places like Warren, Eastpointe, Oak Park, and Harper Woods about 15 years ago were ideal places to live. Would anyone want to live there now, if given the choice? What will they look like in ten years? Even the places with some character - like Saint Clair Shores [[I mean, at least there's the lake), are full of foreclosures. Ramshackle empty house after house.

The downriver communities were never aesthetically pleasing for the most part, but now many of them are downright unlivable.

Meanwhile giant fields of McMansions as far north as 26 mile [[I just drove by there the other day and God certainly must be displeased with us for building those god-forsaken things out in the pristine wilderness for no fucking reason) sit empty and unsold.

The same goes for the tony Detroit neighborhoods that are now just ghettohoods like the rest of the city. My family used to live in Warrendale 20 years ago. That meant something totally different than it means today.

Don't take my word for it. The housing prices continue to fall. The schools continue to fail. There is a reason you can buy a house for next to nothing anywhere in the region. No one in their right mind, if they can avoid it, wants to live here.

No place is off limits. No place is safe. If you plan on living for 20 more years more, or, God help you, have children, there is nothing to indicate that "Metro Detroit" is not going to be just one big "Detroit" in the absolute worst sense of the world.

[jiminnm]

You might check these out.

http://www.loansafe.org/forum/
http://www.youwalkaway.com/

[RickBeall]

Hey DetroitPole, don't me such an optimist! Ha ha.

Hey HamtramckMike, if you street starts with the letter "W", my wife and I drove my your house on our bicycles today. As far as I can tell, it is the only street that actually dead ends on the Ford Healthcare Center.

[hamtown mike]

I'll give you one guess which house was mine...

[princealbert]

All they want is the tiny bit of interest that people pay. Maybe he's not stealing from them but he'd be screwing them over.

You're joking, right? The "tiny bit" is more than 1.5 times the price of the house.

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/...alculator.aspx

[rjk]

Just a few months ago we went for a bike ride and hit the street just south of the strip mall at Holbrook and JC. I don't think I've ever seen a street with as much littler as this one. Garbage piled up everywhere. Three of the houses had adults sitting on the porch with numerous kids playing in the street. I'd go absolutely nuts if I lived on that street because I'd be picking up litter and confronting people who are doing the littering which would probably just lead to problems. I could see where someone just gives up and says the hell with it. No matter how much effort you putting into you're home you can just get to the point where you feel outnumbered.

[Dave70]

Those third world immigrants that live in that area... I wonder if they don't mind the litter because it was so much worse off in their homeland??

I too lived in Hamtown for about 10 years and saw the direct increase in litter with the change of ethnic population.

[Jason]

You're joking, right? The "tiny bit" is more than 1.5 times the price of the house.

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/...alculator.aspx

That's because the value of the house went down. The bank still payed X amount of money to buy the house. In return, over a period of time the home "owner" pays back the X plus some interest. The interest is their profit. The current value of the house doesn't change how much it was originally bought for or how much money the bank is out of.

[canuck]

Hamtown mike,

If, as Rick Beall said, you live on W street leaning on H Ford Hospital, where is the gravel road of which you speak? I am looking at a streetview of this dead end street and it looks quite good. A few untouched lawns, and the houses all look pretty good. Your windows are totally shot you say, but you also mention your house is the best one on the street. I dont see any burnt down hulks or abandoned houses, when do you figure google shot this scene?
I am confused.

[rondinjp]

That's because the value of the house went down. The bank still payed X amount of money to buy the house. In return, over a period of time the home "owner" pays back the X plus some interest. The interest is their profit. The current value of the house doesn't change how much it was originally bought for or how much money the bank is out of.

That was why the bank got a lien on the property. It was so if the owner walked they got the property. The banks created the current mess just as much as the homeowners. If they were being prudent like in the past they would have realized how inflated prices were, how bad the investment in the loan was, and would have never agreed to the financing. Plus just like how they dumped a lot of their bad investments on Fannie and Freddie Mac they are getting stuck with these houses. It's a game of musical chairs in which the banks thought they were smarter and they lost.

[hamtown mike]

Hamtown mike,

If, as Rick Beall said, you live on W street leaning on H Ford Hospital, where is the gravel road of which you speak? I am looking at a streetview of this dead end street and it looks quite good. A few untouched lawns, and the houses all look pretty good. Your windows are totally shot you say, but you also mention your house is the best one on the street. I dont see any burnt down hulks or abandoned houses, when do you figure google shot this scene?
I am confused.

The google street view pic is, at the very least, 2 years old. Yes, it is a paved road, if you consider an amalgam of tar and pebble patches a street. My apologies if I hinted otherwise. These patches and the asphalt are crumbling thanks to neglect and the heavy machinery used to build the "lawsuit settlement houses." this is the gravel I was speaking of. And though I hold my home in high regard I don't believe I've ever said it was "The Best House"

[princealbert]

That's because the value of the house went down. The bank still payed X amount of money to buy the house. In return, over a period of time the home "owner" pays back the X plus some interest. The interest is their profit. The current value of the house doesn't change how much it was originally bought for or how much money the bank is out of.

If you just pay your regular monthly payment on a 30 year loan, the mortgage company will get back the original value of your home PLUS at least 1.5 times the original value [[depending on the interest rate). That does not constitute a "little bit" of interest in my book. The banks cover their risks by selling this scheme to borrowers. If the value of the property drops by 50% or more, and you continue to pay regular monthly payment on the mortgage, the bank will get back the original value + at least THREE TIMES the real value of your home. If you are not comfortable or happy in your home, or with this financial arrangement, it is not worth your risk to stay, get the 4377 out. If you are happy in your home the best thing to do is pay a little extra each month on your mortgage, if you can afford it, since each extra dollar you spend eliminates about $1.50 to $2 interest. Remember, the bank already got a bunch of your money and they have insurance to cover their loses.

[RickBeall]

A particular google street map will not show the street after say renters have been evicted from their house with all their abandoned matresses on the curb and their stuff blowing up and down the street.

I like to think that when you move into a neighborhood, you are not just buying the house, you are "buying" the nieghbors too. This ain't the suburbs where you can hide behind your green moat. Dis is the city. So if someone is not on the same wavelength as the neighbors its a real problem.

[canuck]

The google street view pic is, at the very least, 2 years old. Yes, it is a paved road, if you consider an amalgam of tar and pebble patches a street. My apologies if I hinted otherwise. These patches and the asphalt are crumbling thanks to neglect and the heavy machinery used to build the "lawsuit settlement houses." this is the gravel I was speaking of. And though I hold my home in high regard I don't believe I've ever said it was "The Best House"

Yes, I was just wondering about the general condition of the block. It's hard to figure from where I am because after seeing some really desolate streets in streetview like Robinwood or Chene, your street looked pretty good. I also thought the asphalt looked better than a lot in Montreal. A lot of our major streets are garbage even, compared to that. Did three houses burn down in the past little while? I am not grilling you, I am just trying to understand what has happened. Also, you mentioned conversations with the kids on the street which ended with all christians must die or something to that effect. My older son at school had real problems with arab kids who had a similar sort of attitude last year. His school is very cosmopolitan with maybe 1/5th of the teachers who are also arabic. There is a definite cultural cleavage there which he did not feel with the other nationalities at school. He would get really mad at suppertime telling us of the snide comments the kids [[arab) made about Canada and Quebec.

Are some of the lawsuit settlement houses on your block?

[karenka]

All this is very distressing to read, and I can imagine how hard it is to live with, day in and day out, with no signs that it will get better. It weighs on the spirit. I wouldn't presume to try to convince you to stay and help us rebuild this place, but I hope you will, whether in the house you're in or in a different one in a neighborhood that's more stable. But while you're here, when things are wrong--if you see violations, illegal behavior, whatever, you can let me know and I'll personally address it with the people who have the lawful authority to take action. Email me at kmajewski@hamtramckcity.com. I can't replace the sewer system [[we've heard one idea for a fix, but it's at the preliminary planning stage and won't be cheap, at any rate), but we do depend on reports from residents to address issues at the property and block level. To be honest, the squeaky wheel does get the grease, so PLEASE complain to me so I can get on other peoples' butts about it. I work full time in Ann Arbor and am not out driving the Hamtramck streets every day, but I do try to get things taken care of when I find out about them. You do have a block club in your neighborhood--have you attended any of their meetings? There is an interfaith city cleanup scheduled for Sept. 10--let me also see if we can get some attention paid to your street. One of the organizers, Arif, lives on Danforth. Feel free to call him at 999-5483. Now, about your neighbors, you've said what I can't...

Mayor Karen Majewski

[canuck]

Hey, Hamtown Mike, give us the lowdown here, it would be nice to see if mrs Majewski's kind overture will help you solve your neighborhood issues. It seems like mrs Majewski really does care.

And I will give you a little taste of polish Hamtramck Montreal style in the borough of Verdun; Felix Mish, I just bought sausages from them tonight coincidentally, and they are great.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=sa...e&ved=0CAQQ_BI

[Pam]

Bumping for the Mayor's post.

[rjk]

Speaking of Hamtramck, if you're looking for something to do this weekend...

http://www.hamtownfest.com/

[DetroitPole]

And that is why Mayor Majewski was re-elected. Such attention is rather unheard of for us in Detroit. I look forward to partying in Hamtramck today...maybe tomorrow and Monday too...do zobaczenia