I’m a Senior Who Was Evicted from My Hamptons Home After 35 Years and Have Nowhere to Go

I never imagined living a housing nightmare in my seventies

Photo by Sebastian Enrique on Unsplash

It ought to be a crime for any landlord to evict a tenant from their home where they have lived for 35 years.

That’s what happened to me in September 2023. I was a perfect tenant—neat, clean, quiet. I’d always paid rent on time and in cash. In addition, I paid for all maintenance costs during those years, including plumbers, electricians, cesspool clean out, lawn care, and more.

Additionally, over the time I lived there, I upgraded the property, both inside and out, for a cost of about $50,000. I replaced ancient kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, and installed a ceramic tile floor. I had hardwood flooring put down on the first floor and painted the exterior of the dwelling twice by myself. I painted indoor walls twice, too. I also removed the old barn doors on the front of the place (a converted garage) and had a thermal glass slider put in.

I enclosed the huge, ugly propane gas tanks behind a tall, wooden fence, landscaped the barren property with pine trees, forsythia bushes, hydrangea bushes, beach grass, and other flourishes, then hired professional gardeners to design and plant two small flower gardens, both adjacent to the front door.

When Covid hit in March 2020, my town quadrupled in size, as many New York City second home owners escaped to the country where they deemed it to be much safer.

In the ensuing four years, the rents in the Hamptons have skyrocketed Then my greedy landlord approached me to say he wanted me out. He needed to get $3,000 a month for the place. Of course I couldn’t pay that living on Social Security benefits. (All my IRA accounts had been depleted when the owner increased my rent by 55% in 2019.)

A lengthy court case was settled last August. I was given three weeks to vacate the premises.

In my late seventies, divorced, childless, with all close relatives deceased and my closest friend in assisted living suffering dementia, I was essentially alone with no one to help me with the monumental task of moving. Since I couldn’t afford to pay for movers or storage space for my possessions, I lost everything. I walked away with a few pieces of clothing and my jewelry box, leaving behind most of my furniture, appliances, dishware and other things I couldn’t sell or give away to various charities. 

To backtrack several years, my younger half-sister in Albany had been begging me to move in with her and her husband, paying an equivalent rent to them, for a room above their garage. I declined repeatedly as I loved the darling cottage I had created along Alewives Creek in Southampton Town’s North Sea area. After all, I lived in the beautiful Hamptons, near world-famous beaches. Why would I ever leave?    

Yet when I was going through the months-long eviction process with the courts, my sister suddenly lost interest in boarding me in my senior years. She refused to assist me in any way and wouldn’t allow me to send my possessions up to Albany for temporary storage in her garage. She insisted that she needed it for her car.

So, impulsively, I made quick arrangements to move back to my hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. A lifelong family friend offered me a room in his three bedroom home until I got settled. Or so he said.

I flew to Des Moines. The man’s welcome lasted exactly twelve hours. When he returned home from work the following afternoon, he threatened to send me to a homeless shelter if I didn’t leave immediately. Why, I never found out. I called the police. They came. Tempers were high, my “friend” was furious, and he drove me to a Days Inn across town. I stayed for two or three weeks. Friends and people I’d known for over 60 years shunned me. No one called me. No one visited me. No one invited me to their homes. I was appalled at their indifference, their complete lack of empathy for my circumstances.

By this time, my money was running low. I had no other choice than to phone my sister and ask to be taken in. She agreed, but grudgingly.

 With no other choice, I moved into the room above her garage in a state of insecurity and complete panic at what I would find there.

I’d love to say that I was welcomed with open arms, that the room was lovely, but it was a cluttered mess. I felt like a prisoner in a cell up in no man’s land. My sister hadn’t even stocked her fridge with food, my bathroom shower didn’t function, and I had to sleep on an air mattress!

My sister put in a space heater but told me I had to unplug it every time I went downstairs. Furthermore, there was no telephone line or wifi connection in my room. If I took the portable phone upstairs, I lost power within minutes of calling people.

Just days after I’d settled in as best I could, she interrupted me one weekend night to say, “We have to talk.”

Once again, I was subjected to verbal abuse, criticism, threats of being thrown out, and complete indifference to me, my situation, and my future.

The next morning, five cops escorted me to the Hampton Inn a mile or so from my sister’s home.

Over the next month, I emailed and phoned hundreds of people about area rentals. I made endless calls to Albany’s Social Services for assistance, all for naught.

In the end, I phoned almost everyone I’d known during my forty-year residence in Southampton. Finally, I found a woman who would rent me a room. I returned in November 2023.

Now the woman wants me to leave, so I’m going through my fourth eviction in fourteen months.

I can’t believe this is my life….at 78!

I’ve placed ads in the newspapers for a room to rent but have gotten only a handful of responses. Even room rentals are up to over $1,200 a month, well beyond what I can afford. One woman actually asked me to pay for renovations on her gutted bedroom and bathroom. Another had a camper to rent…for $1,900 a month. Several calls have been from others needing rooms! Can’t they read?    

The situation is dire. Just about everyone here is now motivated by greed. Most real estate agents are only interested in high-rate rentals and/or multi-million dollar home sales. A 660 square foot home located in Sag Harbor is listed for $1.3 million. Oh, it features an attached garage. Most hotel rooms are $550 a night or higher.

When I moved to Southampton forty years ago to write children’s books, it was a beautiful village by the sea, long inhabited by local homeowners and business owners. It was a desirable and affordable place to live. How it has changed over the years! It’s now a playground for the utlra-rich. Modest older homes are being torn down and replaced with mega-mansions that take up the entire property. Stores sell overpriced goods, like $565 sweatshirts. Food prices have soared.

I’ve been on a list for an affordable Hamptons apartment for over four years. The woman who manages the list won’t even tell me where I stand. Last week I applied to three more complexes. Why the town social worker didn’t inform me of these other places or get me the applications sooner is anybody’s guess.

Most people say that I’m not alone, that my problem is “not unique.”    

These words aren’t comforting in the slightest. At this point, all I can do is trust in the universe. And wait.

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Open Secrets Magazine editor Rachel Kramer Bussel has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for senior Dianne Moritz to find new housing as she faces eviction.

https://gofund.me/d3f8d084

Dianne Moritz, a former teacher in Los Angeles, is a bestselling picture book author with five published books, hundreds of poems for kids, and poetry, essays and memoir pieces for adults. Her book, 1, 2, 3 By the Sea, has sold over 100,000 copies and is still selling after ten years. She has joined the ranks of Chicken Soup authors, with her essay “The Late Bloomer,” in their book, Just Say Yes, released in July 2024. Follow Dianne on Facebook.