Fighting for their home (couple's home sold at auction due to $1.83 tax bill)

In 1996, the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office mailed a paltry $1.63 property tax bill for the Slidell-area home of Kermit and Dolores Atwood that never reached its destination.

The seemingly innocuous, misaddressed bill was the start of a bizarre legal ordeal that threatens to leave the couple homeless and now stands at the door of the state Supreme Court.

The chain of events that followed the wayward property tax bill, including the eventual sale of the home at a sheriff's tax sale, is described by Dolores Atwood as "seven years of emotional hell."

"I don't know how much more I can endure," said Atwood, 69, while sitting in a FEMA trailer in front of her Katrina-ravaged brick home on Dauphine Street, just north of Slidell.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-8/1184482256189990.xml&coll=1

Nobody buys a tax certificate for $1.63 without dubious wishes.

Countersuit, baby.

Unfortunately, like most of the SE, Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic candidate to get the majority of the electoral votes here.