Yes I did it! I illegally crossed the US/Canadian border. I really did jump the ditch between Blaine and Surrey. And that’s how it all starts. My life changed overnight and now I’m trying to deal with all the consequences. And I arrived to a conclusion that this would be the best time to start writing about it and share my story with the World.
Not that I would be obsessed with my own life, but just because my story is unique and right now I have absolutely nothing else to do than to think about it, summarize it and write it down once and for all, to explain how it all developed.
This following video covers my journey from Fayetteville,NC to Canada. It’s in Czech language, but I’m planning on adding subtitles in near furure.
I’m walking down the sidewalks of the city of Havířov, Czechia these days and looking around at all these different people. How will they know who I really am when they look at me? I mean, I look just like every other average person. I perfectly fit in here. When you look at me you won’t see anything special about me. So I’m walking among these people with my head filled with my story.
And I can’t really approach random person and tell him: “hey, you know what? I just got back from United States after almost 18 years living there illegally and one day I just jumped across the Canadian ditch to get back home undetected, because I needed to apply for E-2 investor’s visa, because I needed to try to rescue the situation with my house in Fayetteville, North Carolina. But then my visa application was of course denied and now I’m just stuck here in Czechia, have no money, can’t do anything, I’m sleeping with my sister on a foldable sofa in her studio apartment and I really really miss my busy American life flipping houses and creating beautiful living spaces…”
The random person would be like thinking I’m just some kind of crazy person. Some kind of poor homeless idiot making stuff up so the people would feel sorry for. And have I mentioned I’ll be 43 this May? Fuck.
So first I decided I’ll start recording these videos about my crazy story. Just me talking to my iPhone in the privacy of this room. Well actually first I got this idea when I was in city of Brno little over a month ago where I was trying to find a job. Unsuccessfully. And I started getting really frustrated at my hostel room. All by myself in foreign city. No friends. No family. My family was not aware that I was back home yet. It was supposed to be a surprise after I get my visa. Which never happened. Unfortunately. So I started recording these videos in the privacy of that hostel room and I was trying to explain how I got to this point. My lowest low point in my life I ever was.
Then I realized I ran out of money and there is no way for me to make it there in Brno and I was forced to finally get in touch with my sister to rescue me. I couldn’t afford the hostel anymore and I needed a roof over my head and food. (I will return back to this topic and cover it in depth but right now I just wanted to talk about these videos I keep recording.)
I pre-recorded about 27 chapters of this story, but I have not uploaded them yet, because my sister Silvie does not have unlimited internet data. She only has 60 gigs a month and last month, when I was trying to upload the videos we ran out of data and had no internet access over the weekend. And of course my sister got mad at me, because she is surviving on a very tight budget herself plus she is feeding me now too. Which I of course highly appreciate and value her sacrifice. So I told myself I won’t be uploading any videos until I will have my own internet access. And also a computer. Because I can’t really constrain my sister’s privacy. I mean it’s really difficult for her now too. She had her apartment to herself she had routines, order and privacy. And now all of a sudden I show up and bring chaos to her life. So I need to wait until I move out. And I told myself, in the meantime, I could start a free WordPress blog and start writing about it instead.
So I need to wait with uploading the videos till I’ll have my own internet access. But that time seems to be in a very distant future, because of one simple reason. I have no money. And it doesn’t look like I’ll have some anytime soon.
I left Brno on February 8th. Day before that I signed a sales contract on my house. Yup. It looked like I finally found a buyer for my beautiful house sitting on the market for 6 months in Fayetteville, NC and I felt optimistic that I will somehow make it through. That I will survive couple of months at my sister’s place (because it usually takes about 60 days for the contract to close). And then I will finally have the cash and I’ll be able to pay off my property taxes, that were already due on January 5th. And I’ll be finally able to move on with my life. Basically all my problems would have got taken care of by selling my house. So I was already making plans what I’m gonna do after April 2nd. I was planning on crossing the Canadian border illegally again and get back to States to keep flipping houses. (I’m going to talk about it more later.)
But boy, was I wrong. At the time of signing the contract I was suspecting something is not right because it seemed to easy. Buyers signed the contract even without seeing the house in person. They just saw videos that agent recorded for them, because they were located in Arkansas. I think. The buyer’s agent never inquired about the flood zone documentation or even the flood insurance cost prior signing the contract. That’s right. My house happens to be located in a worst rated flood zone in Fayetteville. Well. Anyway. So the buyers were not aware of the flood zone, because of this stupid real estate agent who never did a research on it.
About 3 weeks into the contract the buyers flew in and viewed the property on the day of the home inspection. Couple days later I received the home inspection’s report and repairs requirements from the buyers. There were a few minor repairs that needed to get done that I forgot about when I left the house on November 2nd 2017. I had my head full of planning my escape and I completely forgot about some little stuff. But the major repair they wanted to negotiate about was the driveway.
The tarmac driveway was in really rough shape. Cracked and had several big pot holes in it. And I didn’t have anymore budget for repairing it so I left it as it was. I got an estimate from local tarmac company and it would cost me $6,000 to lay down a 2inch thick layer of a fresh tarmac. Yes it would look good, but I literally spent all of my money on that house and I only had some cash left for food till I’d sell the house.
Then the agent started emailing me, asking about the flood zone. That’s when my prediction fulfilled. He never did the research and never notified the buyers about it. What an idiot. The buyers must have been very disappointed. I can only imagine what was now happening between them and the agent, but I’m sure, they must have been pretty upset with him. Making plans. Paying for the plane tickets. And starting their search for their dream home all over again. Then I received a 2 day due diligence period extension. And at that moment I knew, the deal was off.
They probably did their flood insurance quotes and weighted the pros and cons. I tell you what. The flood insurance is so expensive that I don’t even blame them to back out of it. I mean, to pay extra 300 bucks a month on top of the mortgage is a lot of money. The following week I then received a contract termination.
And my plans for the future vanished again.
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