Twelve years ago Norm and Oriane Rousseau put their life savings into a down-payment on a house at 580 Wilshire Place, Newbury Park, CA.

Details of the disaster that followed can be found in a lawsuit filed by the Rousseau's against Wells Fargo, the bank that eventually assumed the loan.

Twice they refinanced, in 2002 and in 2007. At the latter time, despite insisting that they wanted a 30-year fixed-payment loan, the bank agent steered them into an ARM, misrepresenting multiple facts about the loan and attempting to slip through a $4,000 prepayment penalty on the previous loan; this despite his assurances to them that there would be no such penalty.

In April of 2009, Wachovia bank failed to record their payment, even though it had been by cashier's check, and insisted it was never paid, despite being sent a copy of the cancelled cashier's check proving that the bank had cashed it. Despite numerous attempts to clear the situation up, the bank never did and began hounding the Rousseau's about the allegedly "missed" payment.

In early August of 2009, the bank sent an Notice of Intent to Foreclose. Contrariwise, on August 8th, John Nickells in collections at Wachovia told the Rousseau's that



the account was current and apologized for the mistake.

Were that it were so.

It just got worse from there and you can read in gory detail the absurd-if-it-was-not-so-tragic blow by blow in the lawsuit, and/or another recounting. Included is a loan modification application snafu that would make even John Stumpf (CEO of Wells Fargo) cringe -- if that were robotically possible -- and a deadline Wells Fargo insisted on but was impossible to meet which would have allowed the Rousseau's to reinstate the mortgage.

At some point Wells Fargo acquired either the loan, or Wachovia, or both, and by November, 2010, the house was foreclosed on. But the Rousseau's weren't done fighting. Norm's lawyers were able to obtain an injunction forbidding Wells Fargo from evicting them based on the banks' unprincipled actions as long as the couple made their monthly payment.

Then it all came crashing down.



But, by December of 2011, Wells finally wore the Rousseaus down and they just couldn't make December's payment. They used up all their money fighting Wells Fargo, and Norm had been unemployed since the foreclosure. He was taking odd jobs as a handy man to make ends meet. Wells Fargo immediately goes to court... gets the injunction dissolved... then proceeds with the Unlawful Detainer.. the lockout is set for May 15th, 2012... at 6:00 AM. ... So, it was Sunday, yesterday, around 10:00 AM and Norm couldn't get the motorhome running. He must have realized that he couldn't handle the shame of seeing his wife and stepson evicted with nowhere to go; living on the street. I don't know how anyone could face that reality. I don't think I could. Sometime mid-morning on Sunday Norm Rousseau ended his own life. He went into his garage and shot himself. At one point he could have reinstated his loan, that's what he had planned to do, but Wells Fargo had made that impossible -- they stripped him of everything he had.

being total scum

If there were laws in place forbidding banks fromsimultaneously processing loan modifications while doing foreclosures this tragedy might have been averted.

If banks were even capable of admitting and then fixing their own mistakes instead of having bureaucratic process spiral out of control, Norman might still be alive.

If this were still a country where someone could be reasonably certain of getting a job, Mr. Rousseau might not have fallen into despair.

But none of this, even after four years of horror stories, has yet come to pass. We still allow banks to do as they please; we still refuse to create jobs for people who desperately want them, even though we know damned well how to do it.

F--- you, Wells Fargo. And your lobbyists. And your politicians. F--- the austerity nuts and the austerity economists and everyone who rolls by in their SUV and shouts 'get a job!'

I really mean it.

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True, The eviction didn't actually happen today; apparently there is a shred of humanity left in someone at Wells Fargo, because it has been postponed. But it's still going to happen.



The bank has responded to concerned emails, stating "the eviction has been postponed"

A Tweetlonger message to the President:

Dear @BarackObama



In the interests of #WeThePeople, of the United States of America, I am requesting that you issue an executive order- #ExecOrder -halting all Home #Foreclosures, until such a time after there has been a thorough, and judicious review, of the epidemic of fraudulent foreclosure filings happening across The United States.

And if the details in the case of Norman & Oriane Rousseau, linked below, are indeed factual, I would #Hope that any Office of the President of The United States of America, could help to #Change the course of events for Oriane Rousseau's family. If you are unfamiliar with the details, I've pasted the account of Norman & Oriane Rousseau's foreclosure proceedings, in Ventura County, CA, here: http://mandelman.ml-implode.com/... Rousseau Family court filings, here:



http://www.scribd.com/... Thank You for Your Time, Mr. President.



I know you have an extremely busy schedule and I would hate to be a nuisance for you. If you don't take action soon, Mr. President, someone else will. And it do not believe it will look pretty. Mr. President, if you are unable to help this family, I would ask that you urge @JerryBrownGov to do so, since the two of you, to the best of my knowledge, are the only ones with the ability to do so.

Alternet picks up the story