7 days remain until my house shows up at a foreclosure public auction.  Mum’s the word on my lender’s side when it comes to a loan modification program that has been stuck in the review process for nearly 6 months.  The silence scares me and not because it could mean final foreclosure next week.  I’m frightened for a different reason called the 30-day postponement of sale at public auction.  This is foreclosure purgatory to most but to me it’s total hell.  I do not want to live here any longer.  The place wreaks havoc on my mojo with its bad juju.  Unbeknownst to me the hexing started long before the foreclosure – long before I even owned the house.

It’s sometime prior to March 22^nd, 1997 and the artist formally known as C/1995 O1 (AKA the Hale-Bopp Comet to non-astronomy geeks) embarks on its closest approach to earth.  At roughly the same time a small throng of misguided individuals wanders around Southern California in hopes of bumming a ride from a flying saucer to immortality.  When The International Astronomical Union announced the Hale-Bopp Comet in 1995 this group of hopeful intergalactic hitchhikers, who may or may not be the biggest Cat Stevens fans ever, found their long-awaited “cosmic train” in the form of this gargantuan chunk of ice blazing a trail of dust through space.  Initially known as HIM (Human Individual Metamorphosis) this group of people were apparently engaged in an all out war with the likes of The Unification Church (Moonies) and Scientologists to claim the title of nuttiest religion ever. 

Similar to Unificationists and Scientologists HIM proved to be adept at raising significant sums of money in the name of religion.  With a website design business they amassed enough capital to rent a mansion in an upscale Southern California community and rebrand themselves as Heaven’s Gate.  On March 24^th, 1997 the group stuck their proverbial thumbs out for a ride on the Hale-Bopp Comet by donning black jump suits with Nike track shoes, ingesting Phenobarbital-laced applesauce and finishing it off with a vodka chaser.  Even if the Heaven’s Gate folks were big Devo fans this is still no way to “go out in style” for more reasons than one.  Their farewell bash a few days prior consisted of a visit to the local Marie Calendar’s where the cult dined on a last supper of turkey pot pie, salad, iced tea and blueberry cheesecake.  Who on earth drinks iced tea before they’re about to meet their alleged maker?  I can assure you fidgety hands and frequent caffeine-induced urinations do not impress even the most compassionate of deities.  Less than a week later the lifeless bodies of thirty-nine members of the cult were discovered in the mansion.  A tragedy no doubt, but by my estimations they secured the title of Kookiest Religion hands down.   

Economist and Crisis Consultant Randall Bell notes in his book, Strategy 360:

While the press never knew it, the cult had sent a suicide letter to the home's owner. The tone of the letter suggested that they were actually doing the owner a favor by creating a famous event that would make the house an invaluable shrine. In reality, after the house was cleared of the bodies and their belongings, significant physical damage remained, which amounted to well over $200,000. Looking for some kind of break, the home owner tried to appeal his property taxes, only to receive a letter in return from the San Diego Assessor's Office that rejected his appeal on the grounds that a mass suicide in his property did not qualify as a disaster. Eventually, he was forced to give the property back to the bank. The bank sold it at a deep discount to a nearby neighbor who promptly had the house bulldozed.

Whether or not this was a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure situation is anyone’s guess but regardless, forced to give the property back to the bank is just another term for foreclosure.  [If you care to examine one of my previous entries you’ll find one more example of bulldozing a house after foreclosure.]   If the Heaven's Gate people were looking for an eternity fix all they really needed was a hefty remodel project and a subsequent foreclosure.  As a single guy in his mid twenties in 1997 enjoying a humble apartment existence in Southern California these events of religious cults, foreclosure and resulting bulldozers are a blip on my zeitgeist radar that bear no connection to my life… yet.

It’s January 2006.  I stand in the driveway of my neighbor’s home as she tells me members of the Heaven’s Gate Cult once lived in my house.  “Um, excuse me?” I say.  In my mind there’s no way my measly $625K ball and chain of a house could possibly attract this mansion-seeking clan.  “Yeah, some of the Heavens Gate people used to live in your house,” she says.  A brief moment of silence ensues as I parse her words inside my head thinking, “Whew!  She said some - not all of the Heaven’s Gate lunatics.”  The enthusiastic optimism pales in comparison to my pale face as shades of color retreat behind its maze of capillaries.  My house needs a lot of luck to qualify for refinancing with a remodel-in-progress and these Heaven’s Gate masterminds don’t strike me as ambassadors of luck.  

“My niece specializes in cleansing.  She can even do it remotely,” my neighbor says handing me a slick-looking brochure.  “Whoops, I’m sorry.  You must be mistaking me for some sort of filthy jerkoff,” I desperately want to respond.  Instead a warm, neighborly “thank you” slips from my mouth and I head toward my paint-splattered front steps feeling self-conscious about proper household hygiene. 

I survey the interior of my habitat and come to the conclusion additional cleaning is not necessary.  Even if it were how could someone clean a house without physically being there?  A remote-controlled Rhoomba purchased a few months ago does nothing but scare the hell out of my cats and get tangled up on shoelaces when I’m not present.  This crown jewel of backwards, useless technology cost me $200 and hours of programming I’ll never get back.  Furthermore, the maid, who deftly manages to unhinge the glass shower doors after each visit to the tune of $85 per week, grates on me.  I am so over paying to be disappointed by overpaying for the automated comforts of life… or at least I like to think I am.  

A further investigation of the fine print in the brochure reveals a purveyance of a different kind of cleaning service.  The woman is offering to relieve the house of bad juju.  Hmm… Sounds interesting.  It also sounds as goofy as hitching a ride on a comet to immortality.  As an archetype who gives most things a shot (i.e. day trading in a stock market on the brink of collapse) I consider the notion.  Just how much will this remote cleaning service cost me?  $800.  “$800?!  Are you f-ing kidding me?” I say to myself as I scan the brochure overwrought with New Age clipart.  Um… thanks but no thanks.  It’s one of the rare occasions my bad business sense makes an attempt to be good whilst behaving badly.  There isn’t an unincarcerated home appraiser around who considers a remote cleansing added equity in a home and so I promptly file the brochure away in the recycle bin. 

It’s October 21^st, 2009.  I sit in my living room thinking the $800 for a remote cleansing nearly four short years ago would have, could have and should have been money well spent.  Several months ago the neighbor who recommended the remote cleansing hired a dowser to divert a mysterious, steady stream of underground water that was flooding her garage and another neighbor's front yard.  Within days the perpetual trickle of water disappeared.  I tend to put my faith in sound reason based on science but I must admit there may be something to New Age solutions for old world problems so I grab a smudge stick and light it up.  As I walk through the house wafting the smoldering bundle of herbs I feel like a complete idiot. Given my luck of late defined by lack of preparation meeting lack of opportunity, I anticipate accidentally catching the house on fire and gently retire the smudge stick to its holding dish.  For those unfamiliar with smudging this is what the poor man’s version of remote cleansing looks like:

I know right?  It looks like I died and went to heaven… in Jamaica... with a fat dooby.  I can tell you from a great deal of carefully worded infrequent inexperience it smells a lot like one too.  Admittedly, I’d love nothing more than to have the Feds show up and seize the house in a misconstrued drug raid.  Something tells me it would be easier to wrestle this house back from being in hock with the government than to wrestle a loan modification away from my lender's hands.  It wouldn’t be the first time the Feds raided a house on my street.  Stay tuned to find out why my house isn't the only cursed place on the block.