Beware tax auction!

A Sonoma County property tax default auction ends on 10/24; if you have bid, offer to pay a real estate agent a small fee to tell you which of the properties can be used once they're bought. If you've bought one you'll never be able to use, write off the deposit and cut your loses. In 2008, I bought a parcel for $30 k, which the county government sold knowing it would never allow the buyer to use it. As a result, not only have I lost my life's savings, but: I've lost two teeth and am about to lose a third because having land I couldn't live on disqualified me from dental care for five years; I've lost about another $10 k in property tax and in loss of food stamps and other benefits; my $1k but big and comfortable motor home has been stolen because I couldn't park it on my land; and--far worse than all other loses combined--my very beloved cat friend died because I couldn't afford safe housing.

The neighbors at one of the county gates to the area that includes this lot say they've lived there for 45 years and people have been coming to them all that time with the same account. In other words, the county has a practice, of at least 45 years' duration, of selling land it will never allow the buyer to use, waiting for the owner to give up and blow it off for back taxes, taking the land back and selling it to the next person, at the next tax auction. I, the county ombudsman, my long-experienced Sonoma County realtor and a county housing commissioner have all looked into the matter but gotten nothing but lies and obstructionism. I asked my "representative" on the County Board of Supervisors--corporate toady Shirlee Zane--for help, and all she did was to have someone in her office call me back and tell me everything I had just told her, which I believe translates into English as /\!\\.