Mainers in Crisis Residents are forced to make difficult choices to keep their homes heated

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Editor’s Note: With the costs of home heating fuel skyrocketing, Bangor Daily News reporters set out to discover the actual difficulties those costs are creating. Many alarming stories emerged, some of which will be told in more detail next week. Some are not being told at all because the victims of $100-a-barrel oil feel too embarrassed by their circumstances to let us reveal them. Here are some vignettes of Mainers in Crisis.

Ellsworth: A few gallons at a time

Bruce McAlpine and June Days of Ellsworth had every intention of saving money for heating bills, but an unexpected autumn derailed those plans.

First, McAlpine’s towing business burned down, forcing him to look for intermittent work.

Then, their newborn son, Bryce, spent 49 days in the neonatal intensive care unit at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor dealing with withdrawal from painkillers his mother had been taking.

“We were driving back and forth to Bangor and not realizing how much it was costing us in gas,” Days said this week from the couple’s trailer.

When they brought Bryce home after Thanksgiving, there was no oil to run the furnace. McAlpine couldn’t find a heating oil company that would deliver fewer than 100 gallons, which would have cost the family more than $300 they didn’t have.

“I ended up going down to a local store, getting a few gallons at a time and bringing it home in a jug,” he said.

The couple, who also live with Days’ two daughters from a previous relationship, Brooke, 10, and Harley, 5, have received some assistance from the Emmaus Center, a shelter in Ellsworth.

“We try to cook [dinner] in the oven every night and then leave the oven door open,” Days said. “Sometimes even the dryer helps. Yeah, we still have the electric bill, but they won’t turn it off on us until April. That’s how we rob Peter to pay Paul.” (Eric Russell)

Bangor: Heat or medicine

Christine, a 33-year-old working woman, wife and mother of three, this winter is having to choose between heating oil and medicine for her husband, who recently suffered a heart attack.

To keep the pipes from freezing at the family’s Bangor home, which is in foreclosure, Christine has gone out nightly to fill up two 5-gallon tanks with heating oil or kerosene from a pump at a convenience store, “just to be able to have heat through the night.” She’s forced to buy her oil daily because she can’t afford to fill her 275-gallon tank, which would cost her around $600.

“Our thermostat is set at 50 [degrees] and that’s where it stays” at night, she said. She shuts the heat off during the day. “The price of oil is … destroying us financially.

“The only money that I seem to be dishing out is for oil,” said Christine, who works in the restaurant industry. “I haven’t been grocery shopping in over a month. If I have $10, I go to the store and get spaghetti and sauce.”

The 10 gallons of oil, which cost her around $40 daily, usually lasts through the night, but her fear that she’ll wake up to frozen pipes never leaves.

The toughest decision she has had to make this winter was between purchasing “oil or my husband’s medication.”

“We were doing OK before the heart attack,” she said Wednesday.

Her husband, who is not yet strong enough to go back to work, is on nine different heart-related medications. Luckily, the family does have health insurance.

“As so-called ‘middle-class’ citizens, we’re not making enough to get by, but too much for the [low-income] programs to help us,” she said. “If we can make it through the winter will be the question.”

A godsend came when her father told Christine last week that The Salvation Army once helped him out with a tank of fuel. Christine called, and because of her need, her tank, which had been empty for two days, was filled.

Even though Christine is “in a rut,” she still worries about her neighbors.

“There are people worse off than me who don’t have the money to get those containers of oil,” she said. (Nok-Noi Ricker)

Bangor: Heat or car

William, 34, rents a house in Bangor with his wife and two young children, where in addition to their monthly rent, they also pay for fuel and electricity.

“We’re pretty much going without a vehicle to pay for fuel,” William said.

He and his wife are both disabled, but make too much money to qualify for general assistance. The Salvation Army has provided some help, but he said it’s not enough.

“We’re trying to basically find all the resources we can to pay for fuel,” William said.

Many of the places where William said he has sought help have turned him away.

“They said they had no funds,” he said. “We got an appointment in March for fuel assistance, but that doesn’t help us now.”

The family has a car, but it’s in need of repair.

“We can’t afford to fix it,” William said. “It’s either fix it or have fuel.”

The family does qualify for public transportation through MaineCare because of the number of doctor appointments they attend each week. Their 3-year-old son is nearly blind in one eye and has doctor appointments in Waterville.

“We signed a year lease here so we’re going to have to find ways” to make it through the winter, he said. (Aimee Dolloff)

Lincoln: Heat or hot water

George Blake has a small, well-winterized home and cuts wood on his land to fire his second heat source, a wood stove.

But the 73-year-old retired Lincoln millworker lives on a fixed income, and his last full tank of heating oil cost about $500.

“I couldn’t have afforded it at all if [the heating oil company] didn’t let me pay it off $100 at a time,” he said.

His propane gas provider isn’t as understanding, and demands cash upfront for future deliveries, so Blake hopes his 500-gallon propane tank, which is about half-full, will power his hot-water heater until spring, he said.

The Blakes applied for LIHEAP assistance, but were told his Social Security and two small pension checks leave them with too much money to qualify. (Nick Sambides)

Lamoine: Heat or the bills

A 21-year-old Lamoine woman and her boyfriend spent the summer and fall and all of their savings paying off debts. So when they ran out of heating oil at their rental home in November, they had no cash reserve.

“We were able to scrape together $150, but the oil company wouldn’t deliver less than 100 gallons,” she said.

They turned to the Emmaus Center, but because they both have steady jobs, they were not the top priority for funding. After three weeks, with help from the shelter and a local church, they had enough funds to get an oil delivery. In the meantime, they kept the thermostat at 50 degrees, borrowed some space heaters and bought small amounts of heating oil in 5-gallon cans.

Once there was oil in the tank, they were able to get regular deliveries, but the high cost of the oil has forced them to make cuts elsewhere.

“We’ve had to not pay other bills,” she said. “We know they won’t shut the electricity off in the winter, because they can’t. We won’t pay the electric so we can afford to get the oil.” (Rich Hewitt)

Rockland: Heat or the rent

Judy Ruszczyk, 38, rents a heated apartment in Rockland. Recently she ran out of oil and called the landlord, but was told he couldn’t get more oil because he hadn’t paid the bill.

“He told me to pay the bill and deduct it from my rent,” she said. “The trouble was the bill was $514, which is more than my rent.

“I called the oil company and paid the bill,” she said. “It took every cent I had, which wasn’t enough, so I had to borrow the difference to pay for the oil.”

Ruszczyk said she has paid for two deliveries now, and the second one cost her another $300. “The oil company told me I could charge 100 gallons in my name, but because I don’t have an automatic delivery account, I had to pay a $75 delivery charge on top of the oil price.”

“When I ran out of oil, I put on nice warm socks and a sweater,” she said. “But there are a lot of families with kids who don’t even have that.” (George Chappell)

Carmel: Heat or bedding

Clarence Moulton, his wife and five children live in a two-bedroom trailer in Carmel. Two of his daughters sleep on a full-size mattress with holes throughout and springs poking out of the cloth.

The Moultons were able to save up $150 to buy a secondhand box spring and mattress from The Salvation Army, but when they went to buy it, no mattress was available.

On learning the Moultons’ tank was running low and Moulton really wanted to save his $150 for the bedding, the organization gave the family 50 gallons of heating oil.

Later the family car broke down and the $150 went to repair it.

Moulton said the family needs a vehicle because he wants his children, who range in age from 6 to 14, to participate in school activities.

“I don’t want to take things away from [them] because I can’t afford it,” Moulton said. “I only finished the sixth grade in school – I want them to have something more in their lives than what I’ve got.” (Toni-Lynn Robbins)

Lamoine: Help coming in April

Nicole Dammier, 27, has applied to several agencies for help so she and her fiance can keep their rented home and Dammier’s three young children warm. She said she recently applied to the town for help and for an oil voucher from Citizens Energy, the heating oil assistance program run by former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, but still is waiting to hear from both.

She also has applied to Washington-Hancock Community Agency, but said its waiting list is so long that she cannot get an interview until April 3.

“We’re looking at springtime before we find out if we’re approved or not,” she said.

As it is, Dammier and her fiance buy 50 gallons of heating oil at a time.

Dammier said she tries to keep the thermostat turned down but her 1-year-old son just got over a case of bronchitis, which affected everyone in the household.

“We put some extra blankets on the kids [at night],” Dammier said. “Sometimes I have to turn on my kitchen gas stove for extra heat.” (Bill Trotter)

Caribou: A long winter

Ann Douglas admitted she is worried about the chunk of winter that lies ahead.

The Caribou resident, who recently moved to the area from Pennsylvania, said she and her fiance talk “daily” about the amount of money they’re spending to heat their two-story home.

“Everything seems to cost more – food, electricity,” she said. “I don’t know what we’ll do if the cost of oil gets much higher. What can anyone do?” (Jen Lynds)

On Monday: The cost of heating his home deals a devastating blow to an Orono man.