Michael Kartman had been staying with a friend because he had no oil to heat his Vassalboro home and, since he couldn’t pay the electric bill, no electricity either.
He’d had to get rid of insurance on the mobile home on Webber Pond Road that he’d owned since 2001 because he couldn’t afford it. He’d recently put the home up for sale, hoping he’d get a buyer and could move into a more affordable efficiency apartment.
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Those plans came crashing down Tuesday, when he returned home after a few weeks at a friends to find it had been destroyed by vandals.
With no insurance, he can’t pay for the work. And his real estate agent says the home is too damaged to make it worth buying.
Kartman lives on $790 in Social Security disability support a month. He struggles with depression, as well as back and knee problems, and isn’t able to work.
He first saw the damage Tuesday when he arrived home after the time away. Someone had smashed the window to his daughter’s bedroom with the snow shovel, which had been on the porch.
Inside, he found the window in his son’s room had also been smashed, along with windows in the hallway and the living room.
The vandal or vandals also destroyed furniture and smashed a television set.
“I haven’t had any estimates on the repair work, because I don’t have any way of paying for it,” he said. “I don’t think anybody is going to want to buy the way it is.”
“In its condition, there’s no way to sell it,” said his real estate agent, Francis Rodrigue. “It’s hardly worth what the land value is at this point.”
A Maine State Police trooper took a report at the scene, but no one from the state police was available Friday to comment on the investigation.
Kartman and Rodrigue don’t have any ideas about who could have committed the crime.
“It looks like something that a kid would do who just was angry at the world or something,” Kartman said.
Rodrigue said Kartman’s asking price for the property had recently dropped from $50,000 to $40,000. But, he said, the damage to the property means Kartman is unlikely to find a buyer willing to pay enough so that the existing mortgage could be paid off.
Vassalboro’s code enforcement officer could not be reached Friday.
Kartman had been staying with a friend nearby. His children, 16 and 17, live with their mother.
Rodrigue said he hopes a local charitable group will be willing to manage a fundraising campaign to pay for the repairs to Kartman’s home.
Kartman said he expects his disability payments to increase in 2015 to $804 per month.
The damage comes as he works to recover from what he said is six years of clinical depression. He spent a week in the hospital in June to get help with depression and takes medication daily.
Until Tuesday, and despite his financial challenges, things had been improving.
“I’m not 100 percent,” he said. “But pretty good.”
Evan Belanger — 861-9239
ebelanger@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @evanbelanger
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