Sitting out in the back yard, half built and abandoned, is a sandbox.

The backyard stretches out to an old, wooden fence. All around is farmland, green space, trees. Beyond the fence, a wetland.

The family that lives there refer to their piece of paradise as “The Land That Time Forget,” and they work hard to stretch their family budget to cover the $1,500 a month that it costs them.

One early spring day this year Carleton Magus and his six-year-old son Lamir were putting the sandbox together when Katja Magus, wife and mother of three, came running out into the backyard.

“Stop building the sandbox!” she said, the color drained from her face. That was the day that Katja and Carleton learned that the home they were renting, in which they were planning to raise their family, was in foreclosure and would be sold.

“It was like the thief in the night foreclosure notice,” Katja said. “They literally came in the middle of the night and thumb-tacked the notice to the door. It was like in the movies.”

The Magus family moved into the two bedroom home on Southeast 60th Street in October of last year.

Katja and Carleton moved from their native Minnesota to study in Washington about 9 years ago.

Katja is a Naturopathic Physician, and Carleton is an Acupuncturist, and two years ago they started up their own business in Issaquah, Alpine Acupuncture.

“We fell in love with the place,” said Carleton, who grew up in a big city but always wanted to raise a family in a more natural environment like the one he found in Issaquah. “We started the business just before the economic downturn. It’s been a struggle, but we are getting by.”

They made it clear to the owners that they were eager to stay for more than just a year or so, though the owners would only offer them a one year lease.

“Now I can see why,” said Katja. When the Magus family move in, the owners never mentioned that they were almost $100,000 behind in their payments on the property, which also includes a neighboring home.

“When the foreclosure notice came, we called the owners, who live out of state, and they told us that they were working with the bank,” Katja said. “They told us not to worry. In retrospect I can see that they totally blew us off.”

A few months later, the family received another visit in the night and a notice tacked on the front door – an official notice of sale, announcing that the property would be auctioned off on July 24th. It is currently listed at www.usa-foreclosure.com.

Unsure of their options and devoid of any advice or counsel, Katja asked her grandfather, or former realtor, for help. And she hit the internet in search of whatever information she could gleam from Google.

“It seems that we have 20 days from the date of the sale to get out,” she said. “That’s going to be really hard. Maybe that would be okay if we didn’t have three children, but with a family, 20 days just isn’t enough.”

And at this point the family has no idea of their fate, whether or not a new owner will allow them to stay, whether they’ll put the rent up, whether they’ll want them out as soon as possible.

With their time and options now so compressed, Katja wonders why the bank would wait until the owners were $100,000 behind on payments to take action.

“That’s a lot of months that the owners and the bank has known about this,” she said. “What will become of our security deposit? Do we start looking for another place now? How would we pay for moving costs. And it is a tough time to be trying to find a rental…” These are all issues the Magus family are struggling to comprehend, in an environment that seems to provide plenty of support for the owners of property but not much for the working families that live in them.

“We could have bought a house, but we spent our savings on our education,” Katja said. “With renting, there is no protection. The only advice I read on the internet was to talk to lawyer. But that’s expensive. We have just enough for what we need every month.”

There is also the option of suing for moving expenses. But, as Katja said, that is not really something they want to consider.

In the meantime, they have to just wait – without information or the support of any agency.

In the Land That Time Forget they are the family that the bank forgot.

As the economy continues to put the pressure on home and land owners, the lives of working families that pay their rent every month hang in the balance.

The dramatic rise in loss of home ownership through foreclosures is a direct result of the current mortgage crisis.

Although the emergency has been well documented in recent months, less attention has been paid to the plight of tenants living in rental properties adversely affected by the systemic nature of this crisis.

According to a 2009 report, “Without Just Cause,” prepared by the National Law Center, about 40 percent of families facing eviction due to foreclosure are renters, but they have little protection.

If a landlord is foreclosed, tenants who have diligently paid their rent on time may face eviction without notice, coming home to find locks changed and their belongings on the street.

The report also found that only 17 states require any type of notice to tenants, and only 2 states, neither of which is Washington, explicitly preserve tenants’ rights in the lease after foreclosure.

The laws regarding the status of renters in foreclosure cases are complex and vary among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Even if they have rights, many renters are often unaware of them and few have easy access to lawyers, who may also be unaware of tenants’ rights.

“This report is a big, loud warning bell about what happens when renters are forced to leave their homes without warning because of a building foreclosure,” said Senator John Kerry. “Renters who do no wrong shouldn’t pay the price of being evicted without the necessary time to make alternative living arrangements. We need to change the law to protect tenants by allowing them to stay in their homes for at least 90 days after a foreclosure.”

The City of Issaquah financially supports a local service called 2-1-1, which includes some information for tenants, but is primarily concerned with shelter options for those facing homelessness.

It seems that families like the Magus’, working families who own businesses and work full time, whose housing crisis has been forced upon them, have slipped through the cracks.