Cambridge mother of three lands on feet after sudden eviction
Rebecca Gray has put her Short Street home in the rear-view mirror.
Almost three weeks ago — after working the night shift — the Cambridge mother of three was startled awake by the sheriff coming to change the locks on her rental house.
Moving was the last thing on Gray’s mind on Friday, March 22.
Her rent was paid on time to her landlord, Sarah Kon, yet Gray was still being told she was immediately evicted.
When the sheriff first showed up, Gray was worried it was a scam, so she called police.
After some “yelling,” Gray said, and conformation by police that the situation was real, the family agreed to leave the home.
Everything they owned, short of what they could carry out in 10 minutes, had to be left behind.
In a What’s App exchange with Kon, Gray asked why the sheriff had arrived at the door.
“We have nowhere to go, it’s freezing. Apparently, you no longer own the home,” Gray said on the app.
Kon said she was contacting her lawyer.
She told Gray she was in the processing of refinancing her mortgage with a different lender and “they aren’t supposed to seize anything” until July.
Gray and her family signed a oneyear lease and moved in Jan. 15. The home was repossessed on Jan. 19. “That’s four days after we moved in,” Gray said.
“She knew what was going to happen and she still signed the lease with us and let me move in with my three little kids and then not say a word,” she said.
“I would never do that,” Kon said about duping them into a rental agreement.
Kon told her, in their conversation, she had already worked out a monthly payment arrangement through her lawyer with the finance company until the refinancing was completed.
Kon has not responded to requests from The Record for comment.
Gray made as many phone calls as possible, including reaching out to the Landlord and Tenant Board and her realtor. There was nothing she could legally do at the time.
Her realtor, with the help of Kon’s realtor, set her and her children up in a hotel for the weekend. On March 24 a friend let them move into a vacant home they owned in Paris.
Last Thursday, Gray was allowed to go back in the Short Street house and given eight hours to pack up her belongings.
“They offered me three hours to pack my three-bedroom house, and I was like, yeah, that might take a little more than three hours. We just unpacked it all. We were only there for two months.”
On Saturday, Gray was given time to move her belongings out and take them to her new residence in Paris.
“I don’t have to go back there again,” Gray said after completing the move.
“Some of the neighbours even came out and cheered us on. It is still somewhat surreal that it’s only been two weeks since we were living there, but I am glad it is over with and we can move on with our lives.”
While her life is getting somewhat back to normal, Gray said she has had to rearrange schools for her children.nThat has proved somewhat difficult for her older daughter, who was in an enrichment program in Cambridge.
Gray said she has had time to think about what happened and next steps.
She’s still perplexed the Landlord and Tenant Board couldn’t help. They told her all they could do was give her a legal aid number to call.
“I was like, what do you mean? We have a lease, we have tenant rights, don’t we? They’re like, this is all we can give you. That was the end of that conversation.
“I just can’t believe it’s not a Landlord and Tenant Board case.”
Gray said she is still owed her last month’s rent and two weeks from March. She also had to buy some furnishings for her new home, including a playpen for her child and inflatable mattresses to sleep on.
As well, there are moving expenses and having to take time off work to deal with the situation.
The legal advice she got recommended getting a paralegal to help, though there is little case law in these types of situations, she said.
A civil suit could be two to three years through the court system. She is still considering whether it is worth pursuing a case.
“Right now, we have to decide if it’s worth it. I don’t want this to happen to other people, so I do kind of want to take that route. But I don’t know if it will be worth it in the long run for us financially.”