+We had just moved to Florida three weeks ago thanks to my mom’s new job promotion as General Manager of the Comforts Inn Hotel in Tampa. The owner of the hotel had been letting my family stay there until my mom found a new home for us to stay in. It was just me, my mom, my grandmother and my two brothers. At the hotel there would be a party in the bar area every Saturday night. They had live music, a DJ, alcoholic drinks and fresh cooked food. Although I wasn’t allowed to be in the hotel lobby during these nights, my mom would let me stay in her office and play games on her computer until she finished supervising for the night.

As the nights went by, I noticed my mother started developing a close relationship with the DJ. I, being only 12 disliked liked him as soon as I noticed this. Once I told my mom how I felt, she explained to me how the man was only a good friend and was going to help us find a new home. I came to my senses and began to like him once I realized that he was only helping us. One Friday afternoon, Jay, the DJ, and my mom’s friend decided to take me and my mom out to eat at my favorite restaurant Red Lobster. When the night came about and we arrived at the restaurant, he handed me a gift bag full of surprises for me. It consisted of a journal and colorful glittery pens. It was the perfect gift for me since my other journal had gotten lost on our process of moving to Florida and I really loved glitter pens. I thanked him and we were soon sat down by the waitress to eat.

After our food arrived, my mother and him started discussing the house he had for us. He said that we could move in as soon as possible and could pay him as soon as were officially settled in. He describe the house perfect to me and because I was so tired of being in the hotel and being isolated not around a lot of kids, I was more than ready to move into the house. He gave us the address stating that it was located in Ruskin, FL. He said it would be at least a 30 min drive. We thanked him and ended our night. The next day my mom decided that we should all go see the house. The drive seemed more than 30 minutes but we could adapt to it. The area seemed very quiet and country. There were barely any activity in the area. We loved that.

Once we finally pulled up in the driveway of the house, we all automatically got excited and already started liking the house based on the outside. It was a 3 door garage and a big patio in the back to sit, relax and watch the lake area quietly. My mom’s friend was already waiting inside the house. We walked right in to an amazing site. The house had 5 bedrooms, my mom room the master room consisted of two walk in closets, a stand in shower and a bathtub a big as a Jacuzzi. My room was big! I was so satisfied to finally have my own room. My grandmother fell in love with the kitchen. It had a Big Island in the middle and lots of shelving space. She couldn’t wait to use it to cook. The rest of the house was nice the dining room and living room area was amazing. The house was overall perfect. My mom accepted the deal with her friend and said that we would be moving in as soon as her and my grandmother found some furniture.

The next weekend came and my mother and grandmother had finally choose all the furniture for the house. They offered to move the furniture in the same day. While the movers sat the furniture up in the house. Me and my mother went to go by a few decorations and bed set for everyone’s room. We stayed and the house for the first night and it felt good. Days went by and we were officially settled into the house. Me and my brothers had already started making friends in the neighborhood. All of our neighbors were very nice greeting us, all accept one. Our neighbors across the street were not very fond of us. We noticed this from the first few days we moved into the house. They would always stare with a mean curiosity look on their face. Whenever one of us the would wave they would just look the other way. We kindly just ignored this unkindly gesture and remained to mind our business. Usually we would have a big house warming and invite family and friends over to break the house in. Since we where the only ones of our family we just decided to have a cookout with just us to break  the house in. My grandmother grilled, chicken steak and hamburgers, My mother made the sides, of collard greens rice and baked beans. I got the chance to make a cake all myself . It was pretty delicious.

As the day advanced we talked, laugh at my grandmothers unintentionally jokes as always and filled our stomachs with delicious food. I was the perfect way to enjoy our new perfect home for us. As the night came we decided to watch a few movies. We watched two scary movies, the Devil Inside and Then The Women In Black. Half way through the second move everyone had gone to their bed to sleep leaving to finish off watching the scary movie by myself. Laying down on the couch watching the TV hanging on the wall, I sat up to grab my phone off the table to see what times it was I. I could remember it being around 10:30. This was extremely late for me to be up but  I had no school so I decided  to watch the movie for a few more minutes. Before I could lay back down on the couch. A light shined directly on my face from the front door and then went away. Confused at first but then I just thought it was the neighbors pulling into the drive way and laid back down on the couch. At least 10 to 15 minutes had pass and the movie was just about to end when I heard now a clicking sound at the door. I now sat up alert staring at the door not able to look away in confusion and shock. The door continued clicking for about 10 seconds until I saw the door finally open and the same flash I had seen minutes ago shined on me. Stop what your doing and put your hands up yelled what I soon realized to be a police officer. I was now crying only because I was confused but I was scared,  she had her weapon drawn directly at me. In seconds every one was coming out of there room , every one was in a confusion and wide eyes staring at the gun she still had pointing at me. She asked was anyone else in here, we gave a quick response of no. She stared at me still crying and quickly had to come into realization that I was a child and pulled her weapon back and came to me to apologize  and to stop me from crying. After she wiped a year off my face she grabbed my hand and asked if all of us could please follow her outside. We followed her outside and I was amazed by the 6 police cars stand align outside our home. Three officers  entered our home to do a . We all stood there in a big circle with the neighbors from across the street. Waiting to find out what was going on the officer told us that we were basically squatters in a person home. The neighbor across the street was close friends with the owner of the home and contacted him to congratulate him on renting the house out and got info that he hadn’t rented the house out yet and to contact the police for who ever was in the home. The owner had been on a long business trip away in California. The police coped with us and asked us what were we doing in the and mom told her about her friend who rented her the home and how he had so much paper work and ownership of the home she had thought he was a legitimate home owner. The officer asked for the lease and was giving conformation that it was not the actual owner.

They ran the name of my moms friend and found out that he had already had similar arrest warrants. The officer sincerely apologize and still gave us more bad news. We had only 3 days to move out the house. She said that my moms friend was going to be tasking care of immediately and to next time do a careful background check for incidents like these. All the police officers wrapped up there search and were gone within 20 minutes. We came back into the house and went into our rooms and slept off the confusion that just happened. The morning came and my went early to find a moving truck and storage room to put all the furniture away. We began moving immediately. The hotel owner understood our situation and let us stay in the hotel again. It was extreme disappointment, embarrassments for the family and  my mom especially. She had to deal with 4 different news stations coming to her jo while working b to interview her about what happened. One news station had try to accuse her of actually being a squatter and that she was in on moving in the house with out the owner knowing on purpose. This is a time and situation in life that I would never want to live again. This was total embarrassments loss of money and a bad first experience for our first months in Florinda. I wanted to move back immediately.