RE is Dying v2.0

[RE]

...it usually is.

I located a cute little 2 BR house for rent on Craig's list at the fabulously low price of $1000/mo INCLUDING utilities right around the block from a Carr'  Normal price would be close todouble that.s food superstore, close to a major bus route in a nice neighborhood.  Single story with no steps and a garage for my scooter.  Big yard to BBQ.

As usual the rentier wanted a $50 application fee, before I could even get inside to check out if the plumbing works and the bathroom was big enough for me to maneuver my electric wheelchair. With only $200/mo in spending money, if I have to pay an app fee for every place I want to check out, I will quickly spend down the money I have reserved for 1st mo rent, security, moving expenses and some new used furniture.

First thing besides the amazing price that makes me suspicious is rentier doesn't answer voice calls, only responds to texts.  Then in texting she says she is trying to rent it herself because she was trying to sell it but the broker was not honest.  Then she tells me there is nobody here with the keys to show it.  So wait a minute...even AFTER I pay the app fee, how do I look at it before actually signing a lease and sending her $2000?  She tells me she will try to send the keys to a friend, unless he is out of town.  At this point I am pretty sure this is a scam.

I go online to look up property information, and the owner name does not match her name.  Current assessment on the property is $1.3M !!!!  This house was built in 1954 and looks every minute of it.  You can look it up yourself on Google, 1404 Nanuka Dr, Anchorage AK 99504.

So at this point I am not even going to send the %50 app fee, because despite being just perfect for me at the right price, it's just too dicey.  How do I know she is even going to pay the gas & electric? 

I am however trying to figure out what is going on here?  Why does this old tiny 2 BR house have a $1.3M property assessment value on it?  Who is this woman trying to rent it out on the sly?  I'm guessing the property is in probate, maybe her mother died and she wants to sell but mom had debts and there are claims on the money.  Why the absurd valuation on it?  So it doesn't sell, forcing her to keep paying taxes and keep the utilities on so it is not declared abandoned and repoed by the court?

I am however losing hope on finding an apartment besides waiting for one of these big housing agencies with the long waiting lists call me up.  Getting out to go look at places is very difficult, and the application fees are a killer.  Starting Sept 1st the day after my birthday, I will try to not buy any supplementary foods or drinks, quit smoking again and cancel my Amazon Prime subscription for the duration until my name finally makes it to the top of some waiting list.

RE

[K-Dog]

1601 Atkinson De. Anchorage, AK 99504 is less than a quarter mile away.



For sale.  $345,000

[RE]

1601 Atkinson De. Anchorage, AK 99504 is less than a quarter mile away.



For sale.  $345,000

Although I have improved my credit rating now enough to be deemed worthy of a $5000 unsecured Visa card from my credit union, I doubt I could get a mortgage for a $345,000 house.  That would take a minimum down payment of say 10%, $35K I don't have.  Besides as I have mentioned many times, I am philosophically against property ownership.

Further research on the rental house indicates the woman is in fact the owner, but Zillow reports the property as Sale Pending with a sale price of $250K, which seems more reasonable..  Obviously there is some conflict over the property, and I sure do not want a house rented and then sold from under me and get evicted.  That is a fast track to finishing my days as a homeless cripple freezing to death this winter on the streets or in the parks of Anchorage Alaska.  I'd rather not add my name to the roll call of this winter's homeless death count.

On the Good Newz side, I got a letter from Alaska Housing that I am now on their waiting list for 2 of their Senior Projects, Chugach Manor & Chugach View.  The latter has a waiting list estimated at 1-3 months, which if true is very waitable.  Good location, right next to the Anchorage Senior Center.  I hope to get over there soon to check it out.

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[K-Dog]

Besides as I have mentioned many times, I am philosophically against property ownership.

Private property yes, but personal property is fine.  You can even own a home and be socialist if you live in the thing, and don't rent it out.  A home like a toothbrush has use value.  Use value vs exchange value.  In America people can own anything except other people, and even that was legal a century and a half ago.  In America moral qualms about ownership is a white buffalo, and money owns everyone.  Confusion about ownership morality, and the lack of any in America is normal.   

I found the house close by to show that the one for rent is allegedly assessed at triple what it should be.

[RE]

Besides as I have mentioned many times, I am philosophically against property ownership.

Private property yes, but personal property is fine.

My philosophy is that of a Nomad, you can only own what you can carry with you.  Since I lived a nomadic life moving from place to place and taking many jobs, never sure how long I would be staying anywhere it was an encumbrance to buy a house, just to have to sell it 3 years or in a couple of cases 6 months later.

Owning a bugout machine or tent is OK, just not the land it's parked on, which to me is all commons.  I do realize this is NOT the case under British Common Law, which the Amerikan legal system is based on and was grafted onto this continent during colonization.  My view is what it was prior to that when this was still Turtle Island.  When the Mohicans sold Manhattan Island for $23 worth of Beads & Blankets they never though that was giving the land away for all generations into the future, just rights to use it for the folks who came in off the boat.  To them the idea any person could own land was ridiculous.

The idea of land ownership came along with Agriculture and the sedentary lifestyle.  That led to the towns and cities being built and what we call "Civilization".  Nomadic people never had cities or towns, everybody just met at some designated place in the summer to exchange goods and people for marriages to prevent inbreeding.  Where the Summer meeting was changed all the time depending who was hosting it in a given year.

Obviously, the world doesn't work that way now, but it will again in the future!  I am just either behind or ahead of the curve, lol.  Tent cities, living under overpasses and squatting in abandoned buildings is the shape of things to come.

For now of course I must rent my place to park my crippled ass to have some security, and fortunately I can afford it once my number comes up on the waiting list for affordable housing for old people and cripples, where I fit in both demographics having past the Age 62 benchmark for Senior status and had a leg chopped off to be officially recognized as a cripple.  If I wasn't crippled, I most certainly would have been living in my Bugout Machine by now, touring the lower 48 burning FFs and looking for free places to park with the rest of the Van Dweller community.

Meanwhile as I wait for my notification, Medicaid picks up most of the tab for the exorbitant $16.5K/mo it takes to keep me here, and leaves me the generous    allowance of $200/mo to buy some cokes and brownies.  I'm still a Nomad at heart though.

RE

[RE]

Here we have a topic I am a bona fide World Class Expert on, Electric Wheelchairs for Cripples!  lol.  Along with prosthetics, this industry is overrun with people and companies who have turned an incredibly simple device into something they claim is so ultra technolgical and customized that only with years of study can a cripple get the "right" chair perfectly suited to their needs.  Needless to say, this raises the cost of getting a chair (at least trying to use either private insurance or medicare) into the stratosphere, and only a few companies get the Gold Star from the insurance companies as manufacturers and certified service providers.

Here in the Gulag, I constantly hear the horror stories of cripples waiting over a year to get a chair, and like my shitty prosthetic leg which Medicaire paid $26K for are so outrageously overpriced it's no wonder they drag their feet buying them.  I buy all my own mobility devices, and I get them for at least half the price and usually 25% of the cost of one Medicare will buy, particularly when you add in the cost of getting a doctor to prescribe one, a physical therapist to measure your body parts and a provider who will "customize" a chair to fit your body.

To get such a chair, a person needs a prescription, authorization from their insurance company, and a custom fitting from an assistive technology professional. Like a tailor crafting an exquisite suit, these technicians meticulously measure a client's body to ensure the device's specifications will match.

assistive technology professional is what the guy who sold me the leg was, and to get this sheepskin to put on the wall of your office take a 3 year graduate program which costs nearly what med school costs.  $200K in student loans he's got to pay off by selling peg legs to amputees.

Now, the fact is, an electric wheelchair is just a fucking chair on wheels with a fucking motor to propel it.  It's not a technological marvel.  If you have a fat ass you need a bigger seat, duh.  Footrests can be adjusted with an adjustable wrench, you don't even need a ratchet and socket set though it helps. They come with extra bells and whistles like lifts to help you stand if you need it or recline if you need to lay back periodically and so forth.  But there is nothing so super special or custom about any of them, and I have seen many.

ALL the chairs sold by prescription by the companies that make them can be purchased by anyone withou the prescription, as long as you have the cash.  Almost all are built in China, and your best deals are from the Chinese companies NOT certified by US insurance companies.

The thing is, many if not most of the people who need one of these chairs buy the whole idea they need it custom made and prescribed by a doctor, and their insurance company makes it as hard as they can for them to get one paid for.  I fortunately was smart enough to buy my chairs before I got all my money captured by the system.  That's why staying inside a Gulag sucks, because everything has to go through insurance and the reams of paperwork and lack of staff at every level, causing everything to take forever.

Everything on an electric wheelchair can be fixed by a decent bicycle mechanic with experience with electric bikes or scooters.  You don't need an expensive post graduate education for this job, but medicare will only pay people who do have that ticket.

My advice to anyone past about 65 is buy one of these things before you need it and keep it in the garage.  You can get a really good one brand new from China for $3k, including shipping.  It's a good insurance policy even if your walking problem is just temporary, like a broken ankle.  Also fun to cruise around on.

https://www.statnews.com/2024/05/01/wheelchair-repair-delay-numotion-national-seating-mobility/

After private equity firms gobbled up wheelchair makers, users pay the price in long repair times

RE

[RE]

My main EV Cripple Cart that I tool around on here in the Gulag got a flat and I have been back in my manual chair since yesterday afternoon.  It is a major pain in the ass.

I went to the pain clinic for my monthly visit to renew my Opiate scrip, and disembarking the Cripple Cab my wheel  wedged up against the lip on the ramp and I think pushed it enough to break the seal.  It was on the way back so no problems at the doc office, but back here I am stuck pushing myself around which I don't do well because my right arm is partially paralyzed and doesn't push well.  I tend to go in a circle, lol.  I have to do 2 or 3 small pushes with the right arm for each push with the left to stay straight.  The distance to go outside for a smoke is the full length of the facility inside then about half the width outside, plus a small hill.  It is slow and kills my hands too.

I have an electric pump I bought to be prepared for such eventualities, but for some reason it stops pumping after a few seconds when attached to the valve.  Works fine if not hooked to the tire.  Batt seems to have plenty of juice.

I am waiting for maintenance to show up to use their pump, which hopefully will work.  If I have to get a new tire or tube or valve I may be stuck in this manual for a couple of days to a couple of weeks, which would really suck.  The only bright side is it's better to be in the Gulag with this sort of problem, since I have help on site  At home trying to get a guy from the one store in Alaska to come make a house call would probably take a couple of weeks just for an appointment, then the waiting time if a new tire has to be ordered.  Just the housecall is like $100 I think.  If you have to wait for Medicaid for a payment authorization it can be months.  Fortunately, I pay for my EV stuff out of pocket because Medicaid wouldn't buy me one since they bought the manual and will only buy a chair every 5 years.  Also, if you are in a facility like this they won't buy an electric since there is staff around theoretically to push you.  Except they are too busy most of the time to do that.

Another sucky day in the life of an aging cripple. 

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[TDoS]

My main EV Cripple Cart that I tool around on here in the Gulag got a flat and I have been back in my manual chair since yesterday afternoon.  It is a major pain in the ass.
RE

In May this was the statement.

Here we have a topic I am a bona fide World Class Expert on, Electric Wheelchairs for Cripples!  lol.

And hence the value of "expert" in RE venacular. They can know everything on a topic...and can't accomplish dick related to it. Be it starting an engine that has sat for awhile....or fixing a flat.

I recommend less brains for smart folks...more accomplishments! Otherwise the smart folks aren't even worth...dick.

[RE]

Of course I can't fix a flat.  I have a paralyzed arm.     Even if it worked, I can't get down on the floor and get back up without help.  There are TONS of things I can't "DO" for myself.  That's life as a cripple chief.  Your empathic ability is astoundingly low.

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[K-Dog]

I was working on the limits to growth web page night before last and I suddenly felt nauseous.  I stopped and went to bed.  Within an hour I was hurling and yesterday I had a temp over 100 degrees.  Stomach pains so bad I did not want to be here.  It is good we cannot make such decisions in such a state.  Now I am getting back to human.  And back on the Diner.