Get Back to Living Your Life (Not!)

So I'm supposed to 'get back to living your life' - as the professionals who handle all these fire, insurance and renting things say - and I'm with the pets at a furnished, wall-to-wall carpeted townhouse with a lot of stairs because I said I have pets and no one will rent to me.  Finally someone said, we will for $$$$$.  I have the insurance coverage to fork over the $$$$$, and my dogs have been outside for 50 nights, and I've said 'yes' to every house that didn't have visible repairs made with duct tape and string.  Problem solved when the insurance company said OK.

No, problem temporarily solved.  30 days later, I'm living my life at work because that's where I think I should be Monday - Friday, and I get a call from my short-term company who collects the $$$$$.  The complex where the townhouse entered my unit and found pets.  I have to go.

Even though I did have a foster cat named Keyser Soze in the past, I'm not a criminal mastermind that can disappear after walking out of a police station with my SUV full of pets and their supplies, so I had a reality check with - I told you I have pets and other people in the complex have dogs (some also have 2) and other people have cats.

Not good enough, even though she admitted I had honestly rented and fully disclosed my pet head count when renting from them.  It's not them, it's the complex - and they hadn't thought they entered units 'at will'.  Yeah, I don't like this 'at will' thing either.  They didn't even lock the door when they left.  It was closed, but not locked.

Meanwhile, I can't repair and move home because the insurance company stubbornly thinks my house was a teardown with boarded up windows before the fire, so they're saying they're not paying to 'improve' the dwelling by replacing windows.  They also denied my request to winterize the house (drain the water from the pipes) because they don't think New Jersey ever has temperatures below freezing.  And if I do any work on the house they haven't pre-authorized, my fight for windows and drywall for where I used to have walls goes up in smoke.

It seems common sense to prevent pipes from freezing in an unheated house, but there's a lot of people from Sandy that either used their own savings, credit cards or an initial settlement amount,  and they started to get some work done because their houses were being taken over by mold.  Their insurance companies - home, flood and FEMA - then said any repair to their damaged house invalidated their outstanding claims.

After the lack of action on the part of the corporate, short-term housing experts last time, I started making calls on Day 3 of the Hunt for Somewhere to Live Part Deux.  Within an hour, I was speaking to a real estate agent who emailed me photos and showed me a house that evening.  I said 'yes' again, and since he already explained my situation to the homeowner he was ready with a lease.  I signed with the caveat that I need approvals from the insurance company because common sense seems alien to them, along with anyone giving a flying rat's ass that I will have nowhere to live again.

It's now Day 7 of the Search Part Deux - legally I'm now in a mess because the insurance company didn't give a 'yes' or 'no' within that 72 hour refusal period of the contract.  I'm antsy, and didn't settle for leaving voice mail so I kept picking up the phone and dialing.   What's the hold up?  Am I moving in 3 days or not?  Clock is ticking.  I need someplace to live.  If I can't live there, I want them finding me someplace because that's their profession not mine.  I know I'm a difficult case because my pets did survive the fire and I'm a cold-hearted bitch unwilling to cooperate and put them into a shelter (they have no clue about the definition of 'No Kill').  My pets are part of my family, and since I don't look for attractive pets they'll be euthanized if I go along with the professional advice on how to 'get back to living my life'.

Temp housing accomplished

Let me start off with the positives -

1. No person or animal was hurt or worse during the fire.

2. They are all still relatively well.

3. There is one company that will short-term rent to my family of one full-time adult, one part-time adult student, two dogs, and some cats (number varies due to foster adoptions)

After I consider all that, I suppose everything that follows is just aggravation.

One dog has to be retrained because he doesn't respect the gate after 50 nights of living outside.  I've had to crate him when I'm not present. He's good in the kitchen if I'm on the first floor with them.  I've restricted their 'hang with me' time because it seems to confuse the dog being crated.

I also have a third company that I'm not pleased with.  Since they have the contents of my house hostage right now, I'm grumbling about their shortfalls.  They were supposed to clean and pack a pile of items I made to take to the temp house.   A big pile of boxes formed while they worked, and I waited while wondering if I needed so much stuff - it hadn't looked like that much when I put it together.  I had a subset already with me where I was sleeping.

When the housing was finalized, they had said they'd move the items in their van.  Then when the time came, they backed out of it.  Inconvenient, and since the billing goes directly to the insurance company instead of to me - was that charged?  And because this was a professional relationship, my disappointment was greater because I'm used to personal acquaintances saying 'no' when I call them after they grab my hands in theirs and insist 'call me if you need anything'.  For some reason, I take that literally and call them.  I know, I know - it's only a saying that doesn't really mean anything.

I moved the pile, then began unpacking.  Then I had to unpack it all quicker because the stuff I was looking for wasn't there.  It could be in storage with everything else.  It could have been thrown away or stolen.  I won't know for months because I do not have access to the items put in storage until it's delivered back to my house.

It's stupid things, but I need some of them.  Like my printer - it made it, along with the USB cable that was attached to it.  But the power cord was removed, and I searched through all the boxes looking for it.  And I don't like getting lip about it must be my mistake when I put it on the pile - uh no, I unplugged it with all related wires and wound them once around the closed printer.  This one folded up into a nice rectangular cube with nothing sticking out.  And although I have another Canon printer and a box of spare cables, they were all packed up.   Amazon was more than happy for my purchase of a printer power cord and other little things that happened to be omitted.

What was in the rest of those boxes?  Well, in the lightest box ever were all the instruction manuals to my appliances that I had in a kitchen drawer wrapped in paper plus a lot of air.  I know I didn't request them.  Someone guessed I'd like to read about my dishwasher features while I'm washing dishes by hand daydreaming about moving home.  

The same stupid asses packed up every stuffed animal from my daughter's room to send with me.  Do I look like I need them?  She doesn't because she went to college without them.   Those are going back with the other eight boxes I already have repacked to go back to my house (I'll stick them in the attic to get them out of the way).

And you know why I think they did this shit on purpose?  To further aggravate me, my full boxes of cat litter had a hole stabbed in the bottom.    Lots left in them since I buy the 40# boxes, but it looks like someone shoved a screwdriver into the middle of the bottom through the tape into the plastic liner bags.  One box is an accident, two, three, and four is not.

They also misplaced the key to my house.  There's a lockbox on the front door, and when the next contractor visited, it was empty.  I had to leave work to admit him. They answered my question of 'where's the key?' with an accusation that I must have taken it.  

Update on Fire Aftermath

Actually there is no real update, and I am counting days since the fire on Day 0.

After the initial two weeks of hurry up and get over there to disarm and arm the alarm (electricity restored on Day 3), and lock things back up, besides making sure if they've removed a board from a window that it's replaced (not always done), nothing has happened in the past two due to waiting for the insurance company.

They have been to the house twice already - on Day 2 (ok to hire electrician to turn on power), and on Day 25 to confirm the adjuster's assessment on Day 2 regarding future structural work to restore.

Their initial structural adjuster on Day 2 talked about smoke in the hollow walls all the way up to the second floor. (I realize how lucky we were to catch the fire that quickly due to that tidbit about balloon construction used for over a century) 

Before any approvals can be given to do more than cut peepholes in the wall, another insurance company rep needs to inspect the house.  He has an appt for Day 35.

Even if I try to see it from their POV (point of view), this seems inefficient.  Let's say their initial person dispatched has no authority other than to say 'yep, it was a fire', the second one should have some assessment ability to report back to them and begin the approval process.

Also, I am using their chosen restoration contractor.  Do they distrust this company so much they need to do this many reinspections?  

There's also my sarcastic angle.  I was told this week I will be out of my house 6 to 12 months.  If they send two guys a month out to my house to stick a dry sponge in their peepholes that long, will they eventually come out clean?   When that happens, they say 'No further work needed other than some spackle and paint'?

I've also let my not-so-nice side out of the cage to talk on the phone since I'm 'definitely not satisfied' with the ability to utilize my loss of use coverage through a company that specializes in short-term disaster, emergency, corporate, and government leases for temporary furnished housing.

At first I was not sure how long I'd be out of my house, and I realize a dog-owner with cats would be difficult to place.  However, I expected at least ONE phone call or email for me to list preferences, quantity, or any dealbreakers at some point because I was told they would call me on Day 1.  They didn't.  They didn't call for many days.

This morning I rec'd a response to my 'not satisfied' ranting - Day 30.  I'm told expecting any query regarding my preferences would be premature because they need insurance company approval first.

Am I supposed to empathize with these bureaucratic buffoons because I know what it's like to have a place to live with all the comforts of home, including my pets?  But apparently since my life is not their life, these numbnuts prefer to dick around for a month.

Meanwhile my dogs have been sleeping outside for a month.  They made it to their golden or senior years without ever doing that for even one night.

Due to my reliance on these companies at this time, I am leaving their company names absent from this blog post, but I intend to edit them in later once I get a sliver of deplorable service out of all these slower-moving-than-a-glacier incompetents.  Future updates may reflect an improved level of service, but at the moment I'm not classifying the insurance company or temporary housing specialist as efficient or able.

Sandy

Just a quick blog entry to say, yes, I live on the Jersey coast facing Staten Island, and not much got broken at my house.  The stray roof shingles I saw falling outside my window on Monday afternoon were from someone else’s house one street over, and they were in the middle of a project so it’s not like they lost their roof just before the worst of the storm hit.

I have no power, internet, heat, or phone (either) service when I’m at home.  I can do some things at work, but when I’m at work, I’m trying to work :^)  So I just wanted to briefly post something in case someone’s inquiring.

I’m fine, the pets are fine, and I’ve sawed the tree branches into easily handled hunks of wood.