By Bonnie Washuk,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Lisa Fortier’s Christmas tree was already down Monday.

Piles of moving boxes, filled with household items, were in front of the living room window where the tree had stood.

Instead of wrapping presents, the single mother of three is looking for a place to live. She and two other tenants are being evicted from the house at 985 Turner St. to make way for expansion of the Auburn Mall by developer George Schott.

“There’s no Christmas this year,” Fortier said.

She’s especially unhappy about how she got the news: She came home from work one day and saw “Almighty Waste” and “Almighty Waste Demo” spray-painted in blue and yellow on three sides of the house.

Fortier was afraid to go into her home, assuming it was vandalized.

“I thought, Who hates me? Who would do this?'”

She learned from another tenant that she was being evicted, Fortier said.

“I started crying and said, What am I supposed to do? I just put up my Christmas tree. I have no place to go, no money to do anything this time of year,” she said Monday.

Two or three days later, with no warning, there were skidders in the yard before 7 a.m. tearing trees down, Fortier said. “I look out my window. Three men are trying to tear down my swing set. They tore down my tether ball pole. They were trying to tear down my basketball hoop. No one knocked on my door and said, We’re out here doing this.’ There were trucks everywhere. It wasn’t safe.'”

A tombstone her son made for a pet bird that died and was buried in the yard was destroyed, she said. The memorial meant a lot to her children, Tyler, 15, Gabriel, 7, and Victoria, 3.

“I’m devastated at how this has all happened,” Fortier said. “I feel like they’re treating us like trash, just shoving us out.”

She was given 60 days to get out, with a deadline of Feb. 8. Legally, she can stay until then, but she was asked to leave in 30 days, or by Jan. 5. She decided to leave as soon as she can find another home.

Schott, who became the owner of the property on Dec. 1, said Monday that a combination of events led to Fortier finding out she was being evicted before official notice could be given.

He notified Leeder Property Management to give eviction notices and inform the tenants, Schott said.

That took time. Each of the three tenants had a different lease, preventing all three from receiving notices at the same time. Fortier’s neighbor was notified a day earlier than she was, Schott said.

At the same time Schott contracted with the demolition company, Almighty Waste, to begin clearing the property to make way for future stores.

The company’s policy is to first clearly mark the property on all sides. That way, said Almighty Waste owner Scott Ferland, utility records can be checked to make sure demolition is done safely.

There were three buildings to be torn down. Schott said he failed to inform Almighty Waste to hold up on marking the occupied building for a few days.

“It’s my fault fully by not telling them not to mark one building,” Schott said. “It was my fault for not forcing Leeder Property Management to call that lady a day earlier.”

Typically when a company is hired, it’s several months before the work begins. But this time of year “there’s not a lot of work out there,” Schott said. “I talked to the guy on Friday. He was there Monday. They moved more aggressively.”

It’s normal to have work done in the yard, Schott said, adding that no one had touched the house.

That’s no comfort to Fortier, who says she is having a hard time finding a new apartment just days before Christmas. “Nobody moves this time of year,” she said.