It's a good thing we didn't have CTV News in the early 80s in Alberta...
It all started two years ago, when she purchased a home in Jasper, Ont. along the Rideau River.
At the time, the property was listed for $465,000, but Hartmann says she paid $200,000 over the asking price.
"It was quite ludicrous, there were bidding wars and it was just really stressful," said Hartmann.
But just seven months later, she was laid off from her well-paying job at Microsoft and at the same time, soaring interest rates nearly doubled her mortgage.
"I said ok, I can’t afford this but then I started to default on my payments," said Hartmann.
Hartmann said she tried to sell her house through two different realtors and ended up handing the keys over to Scotiabank in November.
Hartmann couldn't afford her house after she lost her job. That's all tragic and such, but really this used to be why "man bites dog" was a maxim. Sure it caused people to have a distorted view of the world, but at least it was newsworthy.
Again, after Rat Bastard 1.0 brought in the National Energy Program the economy of Alberta was absolutely trashed, and huge numbers of people had to go through what Hartmann endured times ten, and they didn't get hagiographic writeups by the national newsmedia. The trends got mentioned, and they might throw a human interest story in to help sell the trend, but the "meat" of this story is Hartmann's, not the macroeconomic circumstances that make her story more and more common.
