Journal Entry #3
Not too far into the book, Jurgis and his family of Lithuanians decided that they wanted to buy a house instead of renting beds for the rest of their lives. This seemed like a reasonable idea to them, because they could pay a few more dollars every month for a few years and then not ever have to pay a monthly bill again. If they decided not to do this they would have to pay a monthly bill for renting a room in a tenant for as long as they lived. However, they did not know enough about buying a house. The Salesmen were all cheaters and liars. The houses they claimed were new were actually old, cheaply made houses that had been redone several times to make it seem like it was new to the customer. Furthermore, the house deeds that their customers were required to sign were very tricky. The salesmen mislead their customers to believe that the only had to pay a fixed monthly rate of about 15 dollars a month for a limited number of months until the money owed was paid off. However, what the salesmen did not tell the families was that included in their monthly payment was a percentage of what they still owed the housing company, and if they didn’t pay off every cent of what they owed in the given amount of time, the family would lose the entire house. Also, none of what they paid would be accounted for.
Fortunately, Jurgis and his family did not have to find this out the hard way like the last four families to occupy the same house. They met an old woman and her grandson who informed them of the actualities. This information did not matter any to Jurgis and his family though, because would lose the house later on for a different reason. After Jurgis went to jail his family could not keep up with the monthly payments. At which point, it was the salesman’s decision to kick them out of the house or not.
