84-year-old Roy Prince didn’t exactly have the 2009 he had hoped for.

In July, his wife of 60 years, Betty, passed away. Then in November, a vehicle came crashing into his home, triggering a frustrating ordeal that would end up hijacking his life savings and leaving him feeling uneasy in his own home.

“The best way to describe it is that it felt like a bomb went off,” Prince said of the Nov. 14 incident in which an allegedly drunk 17-year-old boy drove a Mercury sedan into the side of his garage.

It was the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday and the Roseville man was at his dining room table, visiting with neighbor Kathy Frey. Frey actually saw the vehicle airborne for a split second as it flew by the front window.

The teenaged driver, whose name is being withheld due to his status as a minor, reportedly fled the scene, but was eventually arrested on suspicion of DUI. But for Prince, the incident was just the beginning of a massive financial and emotional headache.

Since Roseville Police made the determination that the teen driver involved had taken a friend’s parents’ car on a joyride at the time of the wreck, the ruling on the accident report was that the Mercury was “stolen.” And since that was the official finding, Farmer’s Insurance, which carries a policy on the vehicle, has refused to pay for damages.

That means Prince and his homeowner’s insurance are left to pick up the tab.

“It’s cost me a couple thousand dollars so far, but when everything adds up, I think it’s going to be around $5,000 or $6,000,” he said.

In addition to a $1,000 insurance deductible, Prince was left with a repair bill for his own vehicle, which was damaged while it sat parked in the garage. He even had to rent a car for two weeks because his was stuck in the garage.

Then there was damage to items inside the garage ? part of which will be covered by his homeowner policy - and trash that had to be hauled away at his expense. For someone like Prince, who receives no retirement pension and lives off his life savings, every dollar counts.

But the hit extends well beyond his bank account. The traumatic event has left him with an unpleasant feeling about being in the house Betty and him lovingly shared for so many years.

“I don’t want to move but I just feel its awful now,” he said. “When you get to be 84, things affect you differently. It’s not like I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but it’s certainly left me feeling uncomfortable.”

He said that in a recent juvenile court proceeding, a judge ordered the teen to pay him restitution. But since the boy is already making monthly restitution payments to another party for an unrelated incident that totaled $9,000, its unlikely Prince will ever receive any payment in his lifetime.

”He has to pay that off before I even start receiving anything,” Prince said. “And since he’s only paying about $20 or $30 a month, I’ve got to live to be 123 to collect anything.”

Frey and her husband David said the entire ordeal has been a nightmare and believes Farmer’s should step up and reimburse their neighbor.

“I really believe that they’re taking advantage of an 84-year-old man,” Kathy Frey said. “First this poor man loses his wife and now he has to deal with all this.”

Both she and Prince said most of all they are grateful that no children were playing in the street that afternoon, as they often are on Saturdays.

“I wonder what would have happened if that car had killed someone,” Prince said. “Would (Farmer’s) still say they’re not accountable because it was stolen?”

The Farmer’s claims adjuster who was in contact with Prince was reached for comment, but did not call back with an explanation by press time.