Michael Kartman had been staying with a friend because he had no oil to heat his Vassalboro mobile home and, since he couldn’t pay the electric bill, no electricity either.
He got rid of insurance on the home on Webber Pond Road that he has owned since 2001 because he couldn’t afford it. He recently put the home up for sale, hoping he would 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 his friend’s to find it had been destroyed by vandals.
Someone had smashed the window to his daughter’s bedroom with a snow shovel that had been on the porch.
He found the window in his son’s room had also been smashed, along with windows in the hallway and the living room.
The vandals also destroyed furniture and smashed a television set.
With no insurance, Kartman can’t pay for repair work. His real estate agent said 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.
“I haven’t had any estimates on the repair work, because I don’t have any way of paying for it,” Kartman said. “I don’t think anybody is going to want to buy (it) 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 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’s children, 16 and 17, live with their mother.
Rodrigue said he hopes a 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 six years of clinical depression, he said. He spent a week in the hospital in June to get help for 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.”
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