A Major Mechiah ... From a Real Mensch

(c) Minnesota Historical Society
For over a year I have been worrying along with my mother about finding a new place for her to live.Her house - the house my brother and I grew up in, and where someone in our family has lived for over 50 years - is just too big and too expensive to maintain. We have plans - approved by the planning comission yet! - to expand onto our house and create a separated living space for her. The timing is, however, not good for us, as I am writing full-time and we don't have the income to support that kind of construction, which would be well over 250k.

So what to do? My mother does not want to live in an apartment - yet. She is used to a house, enjoys a yard and some privacy, can manage stairs now, etc. We would love to have her live close to us, but the price of housing is very expensive in our community.
In fact, one of the houses directly across the street from ours was advertised at 480k - for just a little storey-and-a-half that backs onto a commercial alley.

Fortunately, we have found a solution. We have a very good neighbor who lives in Chicago but maintains his family house - the one next-door to the 1.5 storey number. I got to thinking that this family house stands empty probably 45-50 weeks of the year, our neighbor coming up only a few times in the summer and fall to visit relatives and friends. We would often chat when he visited and Tom and I keep an eye on the place when he's not there.

So I collected my courage and called up our neighbor at his office and asked if he would consider letting my mother live in the house. I explained that she could come and stay by us whenever he wanted to visit. Thank Gd, he was very open to the proposal and when we met today he said that she could live there for at least a year for a very reasonable price - reasonable even on my mother's miniscule income.

We are so blessed with a mensch for a neighbor and a wonderful mother.