Charmaine Finegan took one last look around her house.

Well, the bank's house.

The furniture was gone. So was the refrigerator and nearly every other possession she owned. Hauled off the day before in a moving truck.

A dining room table remained, along with a couple of chairs. There was a pile of junk against a wall. The mortgage company could have that.

Finegan, 44, stood in the living room, where two days ago her family — longtime partner Archie King, 40, and their 14-year-old daughter, Taylor — slept for the last time because the bedrooms were in disarray. Charmaine and Archie in recliners. Taylor on the floor.

It had been their last night in the house — the first one they had ever owned. The one that got them out of subsidized housing less than five years ago and onto a quiet, dead-end street in Akron's North Hill neighborhood.

But they couldn't pay their mortgage anymore.

Now it was time to go. Today was eviction day.

''I'm very upset and sad,'' Charmaine said. ''We loved this house.''

She walked outside for the last time, got in a van with Archie and drove away.

Moments later, contractors changed the locks.

One family's story

Charmaine and Archie are two of the latest foreclosure victims in Summit County, which has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.

Last year, 4,522 new foreclosure lawsuits were filed in Common Pleas Court and sheriff's deputies handled 227 foreclosure evictions.

Charmaine and Archie allowed the Beacon Journal to follow them the week before they were evicted. Perhaps, they said, people can learn something helpful from their story, or at least realize they aren't alone.

Buying first home

Charmaine and Archie met nearly 20 years ago.

She was a cashier at a grocery store and a North High School grad. He was a customer with an eye on her. He survived on federal Supplemental Security Income. He also did odd jobs for extra Please see Family, A12

money.

''Like you men do, you check people out,'' Charmaine said. ''He didn't have the nerve, so he had one of his sisters come in and ask me out. I said yes and we've been together ever since.''

In early 2003, the family was living at Colonial Hills, an Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority complex in North Akron.

''It was getting bad up there during the summer. Terrible,'' Archie said. ''People were getting stabbed, shot at. Girls were fighting. Bottles were getting broken. I didn't want my daughter around that.''

So they started talking about moving. And about buying their own place.

Friend James McMullen Jr. recommended his street, Columbia Avenue — a dead-end street off Tallmadge Avenue and just down the road from North High School. There was a small, three-bedroom house for sale.

A bungalow-style home with white aluminum siding. At 1,045 square feet, it was no mansion. But there was a finished basement, a small deck in the backyard and a shed.

It was perfect.

So Charmaine and Archie sought a home loan. They knew it would be tight.

Charmaine was a cashier at a large home improvement retailer at the time, bringing home a little more than $1,000 a month. Archie, a portly man with a goatee who has rheumatoid arthritis, was getting about $600 a month in SSI payments.

They weren't wealthy and their credit was poor.

But the mortgage broker figured they could swing the loan payments.

Archie wanted a 30-year fixed-rate loan. He wanted the homeowners' insurance and property taxes rolled into the monthly payment.

The broker came up with $588.90 a month.

That, Archie figured, they could handle.

Skipping over details

But Charmaine and Archie never read the paperwork from Creve Coeur Mortgage Associates Inc. of St. Louis, Mo.

They put their faith in the broker, assuming he would do them right, they said.

What they signed and what they thought they signed on May 1, 2003, were radically different.

There was no fixed rate. They got a 30-year loan, but it was an adjustable-rate mortgage with the interest jumping after three years.

Homeowners' insurance and property taxes were not included, meaning they were responsible for paying hundreds more a year.

The starting interest rate was 9.2 percent, much higher than the typical adjustable-rate mortgages that were going for 5 percent or less at the time.

And their loan was for $71,900, while the home was appraised at only $56,380. (Today it's appraised at $60,000.)

They slowly realized their mistakes.

''We thought it was a pretty good deal,'' Charmaine said. ''We had never bought a house before.''

They didn't learn about the adjustable rate until they tried to refinance.

''If somebody is going to buy a house, go over the fine print and definitely make sure everything is in there that you asked for,'' Archie said. ''And if you don't think it is or you have second thoughts, walk away from it.''

Telephone numbers for Creve Coeur have been disconnected. And Heartland Wholesale Funding, a company using the same address, announced late last year that it was closing ''due to turbulent market conditions facing our industry.''

Settling in, falling behind

Despite some uneasiness about their mortgage, the family settled in to the house.

Charmaine hung a framed, scenic 4,000-piece jigsaw puzzle on the dining room wall. Archie grilled out on the deck. And the family just enjoyed being in a quieter neighborhood.

But money was tight.

And as soon as the house payments jumped in May 2006, Charmaine and Archie had trouble making ends meet. There were the house payment, utilities, food, homeowners' insurance, property taxes and other bills.

The house payment hit $740 a month.

By fall, they were well behind. Mortgage holder Household Realty Corp. filed a foreclosure lawsuit in October 2006.

They said they tried to work with the mortgage company and asked for help.

''They would call us up and say, 'Can you come up with $3,000?' '' Archie said. ''If I could come up with three grand, I'd be making the house payment.''

Then, Charmaine was fired in February 2007 after her till came up short one day. She said a customer shorted her and she didn't catch the mistake.

She said she hasn't been able to find another job.

''I'd even clean toilets,'' she said.

Facing eviction

In July, a lady knocked at the front door. She didn't introduce herself. She just handed Archie some paperwork and walked away.

Their house had been sold at a sheriff's auction and they were being evicted.

It was time to find another place.

Their home was sold for $42,000 at the sheriff's auction. Household Realty, the mortgage holder, bought it.

Charmaine and Archie owed $73,931.87, including penalties, at the time of the foreclosure.

As their eviction date approached, they started looking to rent a home. They were used to living in a house and didn't want to go back to an apartment. They certainly didn't want to go back to subsidized housing.

They started saving a little money for rent and contacting landlords.

Each place they liked, though, they didn't get. Landlords played nice to their face. One even took a down payment. But there always seemed to be a snag and somebody else ended up with the house.

They don't know why. Probably because of their credit history.

They even signed up for Section 8 housing, but the waiting list is eight months to two years.

Sleep didn't come easy, if at all.

Charmaine and Archie fought. And Taylor's grades Please see Deputies,A13

slipped at school.

''I was worried and my parents were fighting,'' Taylor said. ''It was a lot of stress.''

Charmaine tried to reassure her daughter that she didn't have to fear.

''Honey, you have only four things to worry about: What you're going to wear. What time you're going to get up. Make sure your homework is done. And when (professional wrestler and crush) Jeff Hardy is going to call you. Don't worry about the house. We have a roof over our heads,'' she said.

Visit from deputies

In early December, Summit County Sheriff's Deputy Joe Ohls showed up on the front porch.

His job, at least for the last seven years, has included serving eviction notices and telling families they must move out by a certain date.

Ohls and the other deputies saddled with the difficult assignment bend over backward to be as nice as possible.

''We spend a lot of time talking to the people,'' Ohls said. ''The sheriff's office has always tried to do this with a kinder, gentler approach.''

If he has to hold someone's hand, he does. If he has to give a hug for support, he does.

It's a fine line. Deputies have to be firm enough to get the message across, but they also don't want to add to the anxiety.

The main thing, Ohls said, is encouraging people to find a new place to live.

And that's what he did in early December as he talked with Charmaine — Archie didn't come up from the basement. She broke down, assuring him they were looking.

He stopped by again later that month to remind them about the upcoming eviction.

''He was really sweet,'' Charmaine said. ''He wasn't cruel. He explained everything to me.''

She was most worried about her possessions being dumped on the tree lawn. She's lucky. While some authorities do that, the sheriff's office makes sure that doesn't happen.

Deputies want to be as respectful as possible during the eviction, Ohls said.

Eviction day was set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 15.

Moving out

A week before, Charmaine and Archie still hadn't found a new place to live.

They had moved boxes of items to Archie's sister's house. And planned, if they had no other option, to stay with another of his sisters.

They would have to sleep on the floor, most likely. But at least it would be a roof over their heads.

They rented a U-Haul truck and began moving the larger items the day before the eviction.

The McMullen family — the same ones who had recommended the house in the first place and helped them move in — now helped with the move out.

The McMullens had been foreclosed on about six months earlier. They also feel they were victims of predatory lending.

''I'd like to have the guy who sold me the house in a (boxing) ring for two or three minutes,'' James McMullen said while dismantling a reclining chair. ''I guarantee I wouldn't be the one losing.''

In the kitchen, Taylor leaned her back against the kitchen counter and jawed playfully with the two younger McMullen girls.

''I feel so lonely. It's all so gone,'' she said, pointing to the empty spot where the refrigerator once stood. ''It just feels weird because I feel like we just moved in.''

Handing over home

The day of the eviction, Charmaine and Archie are there to hand over the keys.

The deputies, a bank representative and contractors are impressed.

The house is clean. Not eat-off-the-floor clean, but not trashed. That's unusual.

They have walked into homes with strange smells, broken bottles, smashed furniture and clothes strewn about. They've found abandoned, and sometimes dead, animals.

One time, they left the house to discover they were covered with fleas up to their thighs. Another time, every inch of the floor was covered with dog feces.

The crew also is impressed that Charmaine and Archie are there.

Deputy Ohls is happy to hear that they will be living — at least temporarily — with one of Archie's sisters.

''My concern has always been that you guys have a place to go,'' he said.

He gives Charmaine a hug.

Starting over

As for the future, Charmaine and Archie are still looking to rent a home. They hope to own another home one day.

''Down the road, I'm hoping yes,'' Charmaine said. ''It might be about when we're 90, but yes.''

''It might be the same time when I buy a Harley,'' Archie said.

''Which is never,'' she responded, jokingly.