I have a question about crowdfunding. yes it's a health question.

i'm no good at it. i tried it when i desperately needed to get medical care for my dying cat. i did get some help from a couple of facebook friends but i guess i just don't have the network i need, and i'm not good at begging, which is what it feels like.

should i ask someone to do a crowdfund for me, someone who's good at it? or should i try it and ask y'all to help me reach new readers with it?

i'll explain the situation.

my guy and i live in a house that is falling apart, which believe it or not is NOT the problem, but bear with me. we are both on social security disability and food stamps (ebt), which is barely enough to live on, with the mortgage and the pets and the utilities (with which we get help) and the fact that we had to replace the air conditioner and the furnace this year, the stove just totally died (the oven still works) and the deck has holes in it and i already injured myself on it once. that's NOT the problem.

the problem is that our house is killing us with mold spores.

we are budgeted, from the county, for personal care assistants (each of us) and homemaking help (also each of us) and an independent living specialist (we have separate hours but with the same worker). the ils worker can't come into the house, and we can't get the other help, for the same reason: we finally got a grant for an air quality check, on the suspicion of those mold spores, and yep, we have 'em, bad. we shouldn't even be living here. i've been sick for six weeks now, albeit better for the last week, but not ALL better. the sore throat won't go away. i had bronchitis and it triggered my asthma. my guy is intermittently ill. everything in the air quality check report says we have stuff in our house that causes all the symptoms we have and more -- there is the danger of kidney and liver damage and emphysema too. i am particularly vulnerable to those things with my asthma and diabetes. we just had the check but we have reason to believe the mold has been here for over a year. it is my current illness that has lasted six weeks.

so... now it's not just a matter of the $350 for the air quality check. now we need i don't even KNOW yet how much money, a thousand or two, or more? JUST for the mold remediation, and maybe for hotel and pet boarding while the work is done. see why i say the broken stove and the dangerous deck and the debt we're in for the furnace and air conditioner aren't the immediate problem? the immediate problem is, as i say, that our house is killing us and we have no money. we thought we were in trouble BEFORE, trying to deal with those things. this thing is more dangerous and more urgent. we were afraid to lose the house and we still are, but we're also now afraid to lose our lives (and think of what it's doing to the pets!)

so i think i should try crowdfunding again, but i don't hold high hopes. i'd be asking the same gang, and those who could help have already helped. if i did crowdfund, could i count on anyone here to share the links far and wide so it could read a new readership, or should i ask someone to do it for me, and how would that work, or...?

i'm not asking for advice how to get more help from the county. if you can think of it, i've already done it. trust me, i've been aggressive about trying to get help locally. my ils worker (we go to the library or sit in her car) is looking into 1. finding out how much this might cost and what it might involve and 2. whom to ask for grants, which often take months or even over a year to get, if one gets one at all, and there IS competition.

at least i am pretty sure none of you will ask me if i've tried a local church rofl rofl rofl!

thank for reading this.

g