Top 10 things I will NOT miss about the home I lost

1. The Home Owners Association - Oh my god. These little self appointed governments attract control freaks like flies.  The fees kept going up and it took over a year to fix one simple problem. I even had to pay a "transfer fee" of $100 for someone to look up something on the Internet. You have to pay them to stop paying them! Tonight I am enjoying ripping up every single shred of paper related to my ex-HOA.


2. Mountains of Paper - Holy living crud. Pest reports, monthly home owners association news letters, bank statements, tax statements, loan papers, estimates, disclosures, US Patriot Act customer Identification...


3. Working for the Bank - Being a wage slave to a 30 year mortgage is not my idea of living. I felt like an indentured chump the whole time I  shelled out my hard earned earnings.


4. Annoying Neighbors - Screaming kids, smokers, crazy ladies who bang on my door.


5. Ghosts - If the marriage doesn't work out, sometimes you have to move on to move on.


6. The Money Pit - money paid to the bank on a loan with nothing to show for it, taxes, new carpet to replace what a bulimic renter destroyed, HOA dues, home repairs, inspections, paying the city for water, paying the city for sewer and garbage service, paying for ads to find renters, paying the CPA to figure out the tax consequences, paying the lawyers to determine if I can walk away.


7. Watching your home's value drop - I lost so much money.


8. Harassing Phone Calls - Are you able to make a payment today?


9. Wasted Time - Waiting on the phone to talk to the bank -  hours of my life gone, waiting for what never came: an acceptable loan modification, missing so much work to deal with home issues: repairs, renters, the bank, taxes, the HOA, the real estate agent, the title company, the CPAs, the lawyers, the window shoppers pretending to want to buy.


10. Blow After Blow to My Self Esteem - Knowing I made the worst financial of my life, the uncertainty about what would happen, the slow sinking of the ship, the destruction of my good credit, worry about tax consequences, worry about delinquency notices, worry about rising HOA fees, worry about foreclosure.