Silently Screaming

I feel like I've slipped off into a third world country. I've been looking at the cheapest places I can find which are technically still over our new budget and I feeling like they should pay me to live there. Carpets so nasty the sight makes you want to puke. Black mold creeping out around the edges of the bathtub. Not to mention the smell. And who the hell puts Linoleum meant for floors on walls around a bathtub? And metal sheeting instead of calk around a bathtub? A stove that is obviously broken and can't be cooked on.

These places aren't even safe for people to live in yet they're charging people $575 and $600 a month to live there. And there are small children living in these places. My daughter is twenty-one years old and I tremble at the thought we might have to live in one of these places. I don't want to have to move my child with Asberger's into one of these places that don't even make ghetto status. People should be receiving hazard pay for living there and children shouldn't be allowed to live there at all.

I try not to cry when Cherokee is home. I don't want her to be scared, but I'm scared. I don't know what else to do. I could put us on a waiting list for subsidized housing, but there's no telling how long that could take and they're not in the habit of calling you and informing you when you've been denied so you're not sitting around waiting for a call that will never come.

And aren't there any like health inspectors going around checking these places and making sure they're up to code? I'm not looking for glamorous, just safe and reasonable clean with working appliances. But apparently my expectations are too high. How dare I expect safe and clean with working appliances?

I'm in Hell and no one can hear me screaming.