Interestingly, Rita tried to shift the conversation here because she refused to cooperate in refinancing the home in the fall of 2012. I think she thought it would make our financial situation very precarious–and it did–and she could use that as leverage to move to Michigan where she could live inexpensively with Debbie, or more likely Mike.
I’m not sure what she means about me not moving out when I said I would, besides the two days at the start of 2013 when determining the source of the cigarette smoke smell. She understood the situation I faced in trying to find a place mid-semester, so she knew I wouldn’t be moving out in the fall when we tried to refinance the house.
Q. All right. November, December, the agreement was that he would move out the end of December, into this efficiency apartment that was available the end of December. He would then have visitation with the children at the house three evenings per week and every other weekend, and you would leave the house while he was visiting in the house, and he would move into the cheapest place he could find, which was a basement efficient apartment. Do you remember that agreement?
A. That was an agreement
Q. I’m asking you if you remember that agreement.
A. I remember it.
Q. And in fact, he did not move out on the 31st. He moved out, I believe, on the 1st. He didn’t move out fast enough for you.
A. He didn’t move out until
Q. The 2nd when you had him a PFA filed against him?
A. The 2nd or the 3rd, I can’t remember exactly the date. Nothing was packed. Nothing was moved.
I have already discussed the issues I had with the apartment smelling like an ashtray. I’m not sure if I told Rita this, but I doubt she would have believed me anyway. If she had cared to see if I was telling the truth, I could have given her the landlord’s telephone number, or she could have talked to my dad, who was aware of the situation.
I wasn’t going to take much from the house because the apartment couldn’t hold much; see the image gallery. Plus, I was planning to be at the McBath Street house three evenings a week to get whatever I needed, and I wanted to leave the place pretty much as it was so it wouldn’t seem different to the kids.
Q. So he was moved out when you filed that PFA against him, wasn’t he?
A. He wasn’t moved out then; he was evicted.
Q. So ultimately March 4th you provided Laura, your previous attorney, with a letter which was then forwarded to me that said I will not be signing papers today and mailing them until this information is made clear to me, and you said, after looking over the papers, I think it’s best I consult with some financial person. From what I understand, Eric wanted to roll a line of credit into the house into a 15-year mortgage, taking the current mortgage payment from 1,500 to 1,338. However, my understanding, I would just take over the first mortgage not the line of credit. In fact, you had two lines of credit, didn’t you?
Rita seems pretty pleased that she got me evicted, and again I have no idea what she expected I would move given the situation. Maybe she wanted all my clothes out of the house; I really don’t know. I planned to take a week’s worth of clothes to the apartment at a time because there was no place to hang anything.
I’m not exactly sure when Rita fired Laura and hired Tonia. I also don’t know why, although Rose told me that Laura was doing things Rita didn’t like. I suspect Laura probably told Rita to forget about moving to Michigan because it would not likely happen. I believe when she met Tonia, who had experience with tormenting an estranged husband, Tonia said she might be able to get it done.
A. Yes.
Q. And you said, my understanding for the reason to refinance was to save us money so we could afford two places to live until divorced. All I see is this saves him about $700 a month.
A. I don’t recall.
Q. Let me show it to you.
A. Right, this is when I was trying to understand all the numbers of what the refinancing meant and didn’t quite understand when we had the meeting about child support and spousal support and why wasn’t the line of credit counted into that. I was very confused.
Q. In fact, Eric was paying the line of credit, wasn’t he?
A. I had no idea. I had my mail stopped. I wasn’t getting any information.
Q. On top of the child support.
A. I had no idea if he was paying them or not.
I think she misspoke here because it would be dumb for her to have her mail stopped. When I moved out, I realized that you could have it forwarded for one person or everyone in the household. The Post Office told me that mail addressed to both of us would not be sent to me. Thus, I requested that they forward all the mail because I didn’t trust, for a good reason, Rita to pay the bills.
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