I am going to leave out most of the story. And, I would add that my troubles were not caused by speculation or risk taking; au contraire, I was trying to consolidate and move to a defensive position financially when I got caught in the housing market debacle.

I pick up the story at the point of my attempt to do a “short sale.”

I contacted a local Realtor, and after entering the date in her company’s computer program, she came up with a value of $140,000. This was about half of my cost for the house and property. However, I had to accept the fact that something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it.

Fortuitously, I received a cash offer for $120,000, which was just within the 15 percent of appraised value required.

However, The Bank had a separate appraisal for $170,000. The Bank nixed the sale and demanded the Realtor raise the price to their appraisal value, which of course we did.

And, not another person looked at the house, and the short sale period timed out.

I was curious as to why and how The Bank appraisal was so out of line with the market.

The representative for The Bank would not return my calls.

I asked my Realtor to ask the representative why he did not return my calls. He told the Realtor that he was too busy and he would not talk to me by phone, email or any other way. He was just too busy.

I tried to get help from HUD. They could offer no help in this situation.

I emailed my grievances to my Congressman: No word.

After dozens of calls to The Bank, I gave up and attempted to take the next step available: deed in lieu of foreclosure. So, I filled out all the paperwork and submitted it to The Bank.

I was assigned a representative, and was told to vacate the property by Sept. 20, 2011, which I did.

I was told to wait to be contacted for a “walk through.” That call never came.

I called The Bank several times, and my representative finally stopped calling me back.

After three months I called The Bank and was told that my file was with a law firm because there was a lien on the property.

I called the law firm in question and found out that the lien was from Sunrise Bank. So, I got on the net and found that Westamerica Bank had purchased Sunrise Bank.

I called Westamerica and got through to someone who was sympathetic and she promised that she would try to resolve the situation.

This took me, without hyperbole, 10 minutes. It took the person at Westamerica two days to get the error corrected.

Now I figured, I was back on track. So I called The Bank again, and I was told that my paperwork had a “perishable date,” and needed to be redone.

I immediately got the forms and resubmitted the paper work. I did not hear anything for a week and so I called the bank and was told that my file had been closed, and that, according to her computer, I was denied “deed in lieu of” last September. Case closed.

The problem is that my daughter co-signed and, of course, she would like to get the “clock” started for the seven-year period it takes to clear her credit.

So, I called The Bank and they said foreclosure is in the works, and that there is no way to expedite the process, and no way to know when it would take place.

I had accepted my fate and just wanted the nightmare to end. I just wanted to give back a three year old house that was in perfect order.

I asked for nothing, just closure, after a total of two and a half years since the debacle began.

The Bank was rescued by the taxpayers because it was “too big to fail.” I am thinking now that The Bank should have failed because it was too big.

The Bank, by the way, is servicing the loan, they have no stake in the outcome, they are churning fees no matter what, and the government, which is the ultimate guarantor of the loan, is footing the bill.

Those of you who have preached laissez faire (government non-intervention), I would suggest that if you ever had to deal with The Bank, you would start thinking about another French term: guillotine.

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.