If I Loose my home where will my pets live......

[Whitehouse Quail]

Could you sell them on petifinder or craigslist? Ask like $1,000 for all.

 

[meriruka]

I often wonder what will happen to my animals if I'm in an accident & don't survive.
Luckily my house is safe as long as I can scrounge $ for the taxes, but having no immediate family
I have nightmares about them either living in horrible conditions or slaughtered. Most of my friends live in the city, so they wouldn't be able to take any of the chickens or turkeys.

My heart goes out to those of you with those high mortgage payments in this economy. It would crush me to have to give up my home--
my heart is so linked to this place.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

To the OP, you do need to start thinking about where these pets would go, and many of the ideas are good ones. I am taking note.

I know I may be facing something similar shortly. I only have 3 chickens and 2 cats, and I CAN afford to have them. What's the problem?

I was one of those people who bought my house in 2005 when prices were high. I barely got into my mortgage, but I needed a place to live, and I had a good downpayment. I was self-employed while I finished my teaching credential, so couldn't get a "good" mortgage. In retrospect, I shouldn't have bought anything, but was encouraged by relatives, my mortgage broker friend, and a bank willing to sign on the other dotted line. Now, I have a great job that pays twice as much as I was making when self-employed, have nearly renovated my tiny bungalow that used to be a total "fixer" and can afford to pay the high amount that would come with a fixed interest mortgage. I also have no credit cards and no car loan. I think I would be a good risk for the bank.

The problem -- the banks loaned with abandon to people who refinanced to pay off big debt and go on vacations, and all the people who thought flipping houses and making a quick buck in the real estate market until it crashed and then walked away from the properties. Now the banks use the value of the foreclosed properties to tell me my house doesn't have any equity, even though I invested over $150,000 in cash, and about $100,000 in sweat equity during the renovation process. My mortgage had a 5 year term. I have lived here for 4 years and 8 months. I was never irresponsible, other than the initial purchase of the home. It doesn't seem fair. I feel like I held up my end of the bargain. I am a teacher. I do have savings, but I don't have huge cash reserves to cover the difference between the perceived value of my home and the mortgage balance. I hope I can work something out with the bank, or I will lose everything. Sorry for the rant and the hijack.

If you see a post in April about needing homes for 3 chickens and 2 cats.....

 

[GOSPELSOLDIER]

most of you guys didnt get the point. Me Personally im okI wanted to sorta help people out incase you guys have any ideas where animals can go until things clear if by any chance a person who has animals loses its home. I Stated over and over that im ok, i know that if i cant keep my own animals i wont.......thats a DUhhhh.. What i was trying to accomplish was not for people to get sad, be sad or start telling me to rehome the animals, it was more to gather ideas incase anything ever happened to me. but more for others that i know. sorta like asking if you guys knew any organizations, or shelters, or farms that helped people out while things got situated....anyways... thanks tho

 

[speckledhen]

Re-reading your first post, it appears you are asking for yourself, from the way you worded it. Sorry if folks got the wrong impression.

 

[hikerchick]

I AM in that situation; moving from a house to an apartment in the city. We had 7 dogs, 6 goats, a dozen or so hens, three roosters and about 10 guineas.

I am blessed that my neighbor took three of my goats and all of my hens. We listed the dogs on Cragslist and Petfinders.com classifieds; we were able to place three of them together in a home with a stay at home mom and a bunch of kids; and the pit bull went to an person experienced in bully breeds. We can keep the other three dogs in the apartment (which is a blessing). I also posted on here, Sufficient Self and Backyard Herds about the other three goats and I may have found a suitable home nearby. So I just need to find homes for three bantam roosters. The guineas- I figure they are going to stay here no matter what I do. My neighbor will take them but they will just come right back. We figure that whoever ends up in my house is going to have to shoot them if they don't want them.

Don't get me wrong- this has been emotionally wrenching for me. But I can't end up on the street because I am trying to save my animals.

 

[Whispering Winds]

As a lot of you probably have read me saying I am a realtor, I do what is called BPO's. It's actually a mini-appraisal, whether the lenders want it called that or not. There are hundreds of companies across the US that handles these for the big banks. Use to be you would get one a month, maybe two and it was for people either refinancing or some were actually foreclosures. We never knew. Now, I am averaging 15 a month, 95% of them are foreclosures. We are in scary times, and the politicians are lying to us when they tell us things are turning around. I talked to one of the agents in Pittsburg, Pa. last Monday and she told me she is over 5 central states and they were just handed 28,000 orders. This is just ONE company, folks. I am doing these for at least 4-5 different companies right now, so this is a good indication of the homes that are going to be on the auction block or for sale in the coming year.

My nephew is a trucker and he was telling us the other night that his company told him and the other drivers that the loads are getting lighter and fewer. Any other OTR truckers feel this way? My theory all along has been as long as the truckers are rolling, then things are being hauled, there is a need for products and the economy is hanging in there. No truckers, no loads, no economy and its slowly inching that way. Getting off the subject a little bit, but TAKE SOME EXTRA MONEY, SAVE YOUR CHANGE, START STOCKPILING AND PLAN A BIG GARDEN. SHARE THE WORK OF THE GARDEN WITH FAMILIES YOU KNOW AND TRUST AND START CANNING AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, AND FREEZE TOO. I PREFER CANNING MORE AS IT KEEPS 3-5 YEARS AND WILL BE THERE IF WE NEED IT DOWN THE ROAD.

I don't mean to scare anyone, but we really need to start planning. I think we are going to see hard times like we haven't seen in most of our lifetimes.

 

[LizFM]

It doesn't have to be just people who took out loans they couldn't afford or got animals they couldn't afford to care for. We have always lived within our means but due to life circumstances (farming in the 80's, job loss, etc) we have never been able to build up a cushion.

When both my husband and I were working, we could easily afford our home, animals, and hobbies. When he lost his job because he got hurt (it was a 'right to work' state so when they fired him for getting hurt we had to get a lawyer and fight for what was legally owed us) we went 6 weeks with zero income from our main earner...then months with very little.

If you lose your job it doesn't matter if you bought a 'too expensive' house our a cheap one. No income means no way to pay anything.

We are doing better now but are painfully aware that all it would take for us and our animals to be homeless is one of us to lose our job. And both of us have graduate degrees.

 

[OrpingtonManor]

Well, I took my own advice, and started to plan for an uncertain future. I am not in foreclosure, but have to renegotiate or refinance a scary loan. If I cannot work things out to stay here, I have already found a place to live, that will also allow me to take my chickens and cats with me. I am much relieved! Now, I can concentrate on staying here without that knot in my stomach if I cannot make it happen.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

ok-so economy sucks....

But look at it from another point of view for just a moment.

what if it wasn't money that caused the problem..... I have a great example for you...

in June 2006 a man threw his hot woodstove ashes out in the woods...it started a heck of a wildfire....
Alaska lost over 100000 acres ! I was the first Residence lost to this fire. I was mandatorily evacuated. Me, 12 dogs and 25 parrots in a car & 1 truck.....

when the house burned there were no dog houses saved, no Parrots cages saved. we lost it all.
I made arrangements with my sister and a friend, to house the animals, but I had no where to stay.....

The birds were kept in kennels (cat & dog portable)in a garage, my dogs were tied to trees without houses. it was over 50 miles one way to care for them 2x daily. I spent most of my cash trying to take care of us all.

These are unexpected things that happen in life. You don't plan for them, and that causes alot of stress during a really stressful time. I was lucky that everyone in my life knows how I feel about animals and I was able to keep most of my animals. I did lose a few as well, but not from lack of care. the Stress caused alot of health issues for me and my animals.

my suggestion: Plan what ifs:
sit down and figure out where you would house your pets temporarily if your house burned to the ground.
Who would look after your animals if you had an accident and couldn't care for them yourself......

by failing to plan=you plan to fail....when life gives you the roller coaster all you can do is hang on.