Saturday, July 17, 2010

The House Saga continues

July 14, 2010 – Wednesday

We stopped by our house on our way home to see if the contractors had had any issues with any of our stuff being in the way. It was like going to a totally different house. All of the carpet has been torn out except for the living room (which is where the majority of our stuff that wasn’t able to be put into storage yet is sitting). A lot of the ceilings have been torn out and paint and wallpaper has been torn off the majority of the walls. I was amazed at how much work they got done in just a day! Hopefully we can get the rest of our stuff out soon, so that way they can get everything dried out easier.

July 15, 2010 – Thursday

Jon was able to leave work early so that Marc and him could finish up the roof by putting up the rubber sealant. Unfortunately, like so many other things, this didn't go as planned either.

When they got up to the roof and took the tarp off to begin unrolling the rubber sealant over the whole roof they discovered that all of the OSB that they had just put down is completely ruined and would need to be replaced. Liz and I were supposed to take supper over to them around 5:30pm, but Jon called and had me check the weather since it was supposed to rain the next day. If they had some more time, they were going to try to fix it, but if the rain was supposed to come early they would just put the tarp back down and secure it better than before.

When I checked the weather it said we were supposed to get rains starting at 7am and going until 3pm. Jon decided that we'd better go to Lowe's to get more supplies to make sure the tarp would stay put. So, the boys came to pick Liz and me up and we headed to Lowe's.

We got back to the house around 6:30 I think and it took them until almost 9pm to get everything secured. Hopefully it should stay put because they were able to tie boards to the ends of the tarp and hang them over the sides of the house to give extra weight to keep it from coming up.

July 16, 2010 - Friday

Well if the rains came, we never saw them. It appears that once again the weather people were wrong. Needless to say, since we have been going full steam ahead for so long that we have been absolutely exhausted!

Jon and I were finally able to get a little relaxing in - watching TV and then headed to bed early (9pm).

July 17, 2010 - Saturday

I am home today by myself. Jon and his parents had to get up early this morning to head over to Marc and Liz's house to put hardwood floors down in their house. I've been able to get some more laundry done and organize the laundry that has already been washed so that everything isn't as chaotic. I can't wait until things are organized.

Still no word on the insurance, the contractors were supposed to come out yesterday to see how the drying process was going. I don't think they actually did end up coming out though.

We were able to find out a little more information yesterday on our insurance, like our claims number, our claims adjuster's name and phone number and how much our deductible is.

Please keep us in your prayers!

I know some people will find this next prayer request a little bizarre, but please pray for our dog Alex, the last couple of days he hasn't been eating and he's been really lethargic. A couple of nights ago he had a rough night of throwing up and he's barely eaten anything since then.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The Demise of our House

Friday, July 9, 2010

Friday we went to work exhausted, praying that the tarp would hold or that the weather people would be wrong and the rains wouldn't touch our house. Well, the weather people were wrong, but not about the rain. They were wrong because they didn't see that we would first have high winds and then torrential downpours for most of the afternoon. When we got home, we found out that we really didn't have much of a house to come home to.

Evidently (after talking to our neighbors) we found out that we had really heavy winds that must have whipped the tarp away from the roof even with bricks and tape and boards there to hold it all down. Since the roof was no longer protected when the rains began they just started going inside our house.

We went into our house on Friday night, only to see a stream of water coming down our stairway and water just seeping down the walls. We ran up to our bedroom to discover that everything up there was completely wet except for a small area on the far side of our room closest to the windows. Fortunately we had recently purchased about 10 plastic bins to start organizing our belongings, so Jon grabbed those and we started using those as buckets to catch the water that was pouring into our house. I tried to dry and then cover up our bedroom furniture the best that I could so that it wouldn't be completely ruined. Depending on the room plaster or ceiling tiles had fallen off the ceiling. All of our clothes in our closet were soaking wet. We went into the kitchen to see the ceiling tiles really full of water and a huge puddle of water just standing in the center of the floor. After going downstairs we discovered that the room that we had redone in the fall was pretty much untouched except that water was pooling on the hardwood laminate floor from the other room. Jon told me to call my parents to have them start praying that the rain would stop soon, so I called them quickly and explained what was going on.

It was amazing to see how God kept the things that were really important to us (i.e. pictures that can't be replaced, or furniture or gifts that were from my grandma that had more of a sentimental value) untouched. There could be water streaming just 1/2 an inch away, but those items weren't even touched! My piano, our couches, even our electronics (except for Jon's computer) weren't even wet.

While I called the insurance company, Jon called his dad to get some extra help. He also got a shop vac running to get some of the excess water out. He was able to call his mom to see if she could pick up a u-haul on her way home. When I got off the phone with the insurance company my mother-in-law had called and let me know that the U-haul place had closed at 4:30pm that day. By now it was 6:20pm to 6:30pm, she knew that they usually went to a place in Moon Township and suggested I try to find out if they were open still because she thought that they might be open until 7pm. Like I said before our electronics were dry, so I was able to grab my laptop and look up their information. I discovered that they were open until 8pm, so I called her back to let her know. Since she was still traveling home, she told me to find out if they even had any trucks available.

I called the U-haul place and found out that the largest truck they had was a 26 foot truck, but that any truck we rented that night would need to be back by 7am the next morning. I said that was fine, we had to get our furniture out immediately and we'd get it back. I called my mother-in-law back to let her know that we had a truck, someone just needed to go and get it before they closed at 8pm. Since we didn't have any place to put our furniture, she wasn't sure we should get the truck because we'd have no place to put the contents anyway.

So began round two or three depending on how you look at it of phone calls. I called Marianne Ayers (who lives about 6 blocks from our house) to see if they had any space we could use. Her line was busy. I then called Pastor Harrison (who had recently moved into a new house). He answered and I asked him if they had any extra storage at the new house and then explained our predicament. He told me that sorry, they didn't have any extra space because they had someone that had just moved in with them, but that given the circumstances we could use a room or two at the church (which is also a school building).

I called my mother-in-law back to let her know that we had a place to put the contents of the truck, but it needed to be picked up (I think by this time it was about 6:50pm). She was on her way to our house and needed someone to drive the truck, so since Jon's dad was at our house, she picked him up and went to get the truck.

Now that we had a truck and we had a place to put our belongings, we just needed to find people to help out since we were working against the clock. I called Marianne back because she'd called me in the meantime. She offered to go and grab us some supper and to help move things out as long as I could watch her children (an almost three year old and a 1 month old). I said that wouldn't be a problem. Then, she suggested I try to call the Buterbaugh family who also doesn't live far from us to see if they could help out. As I called the Buterbaugh's, their phone was busy. I ended up getting a hold of them and was told that Marianne had already called and told them what was going on, and that Terry (the husband) was changing clothes and could be here in 5 minutes. I told her that we didn't have the truck yet, so if he could come closer to 8 that would be great.

Sometime between all of my phone calls, Jon had called his friend John Duwel and he had said he was going to be coming over right away to help. Around 7:45, everything just started happening at once. Mr. Buterbaugh came, so I showed him the house and the damage. John Duwel arrived and helped Jon get the ladder up to the roof so that they could fix the tarp and get it back in place (meanwhile it was still raining). When I was done showing Mr. Buterbaugh the house and came out the back door, the truck had just arrived. I saw someone get out of their car and come up to the house with a tool box in hand. It was Pastor Harrison, he had brought his wife and some other lady that I never did catch her name. Marianne showed up and brought food for us. People just started going and getting shop vac's and garbage bags. I had had a chance to call my friend Amber and she and her husband were on their way.

Jon's mom and I left to take our dogs over to her house, so that they would be out of the way and safe. So, by the time we got back a lot of the truck was already packed up and more people had shown up to help. I think we probably had about 12 to 15 people helping us get our belongings out in a timely manner. Amber and Joe had arrived and Amber was getting ready to leave to come to our work (Jon, Amber and I all work at the same place) to get boxes to help out with the packing.

I went with Amber to get the boxes. By the time we got back from that the whole house was pretty much packed up (the things that we really needed to get out that is). By the time the house was packed up as much as we could, it was already going on 11pm (I think, maybe midnight - I was so tired by that point and I wasn't even allowed to help with anything physically).

We then went over to the church to unload the truck. Amazingly it only took about 40 minutes to unload. While we were finishing up unloading the truck, Mark Ayers was finally able to come and help (he'd been at work and had just gotten off). He brought his truck and so we loaded up all the bags of wet clothes and towels, sheets, bedding, etc and dropped it off at my in-law's.

Jon and his dad were still gone because they were taking the truck back the U-haul rental place. I had to stay up to get some laundry done since all we had were the clothes on our backs and they were soaking wet. By the time Jon got home (to the apartment in Jon's parents' basement that we are now staying at) and we were able to get to bed it was 2:30am.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

We were supposed to get up at a decent hour so that we could work on clearing out the house, but we were so exhausted we ended up sleeping until 10:30am. We never did end up working on the house that day though we went over and emptied the dehumidifiers. While we were there Jon found my bag that had my brush and spray gel, so I was finally able to do my hair. The majority of my day was done doing laundry in which I probably did at least 12 to 15 loads, if not more.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Before our house drowned, Jon was supposed to help Marc and Liz butcher their chickens on Saturday, but this was pushed back until Sunday. Jon was able to help them get their chickens butchered in the afternoon and I was able to get a lot more laundry done.

Monday, July 12, 2010

We debated about going to work since we had been told that the insurance adjustor would be contacting us that day. Jon had to go in to work because he's still incredibly busy, so I went too since even if they did call I wouldn't have a vehicle to go meet them. They never did call. We found out later that somehow they had Jon's parents number listed as our home phone, so the contractor had called there. Jon was able to call him back and got things set up for a meeting on Tuesday.

We soon discovered that while we had quite a bit of our things needed for daily living (considering the circumstances) that we still had a bunch of stuff we needed to find, or else go to the store and buy replacements (which we really didn't want to spend much money at this time). So after work, we got the key to the storage area and headed over to find the items needed.

Surprisingly, we were able to find almost everything that we were looking for. I was able to find my make-up, some contacts, my shoes (I only had a pair of flip-flops that I had been wearing on Friday and a pair of dressier shoes that I don't wear very often) and some other things that I didn't figure I would see for quite some time.

We really needed to find the remote to the fan in our bedroom and even found that. The only thing we weren't able to find was our DVD/VCR player remote. But, we already had our DVD/VCR remote from the player that had been in our bedroom which we found. So, we were able to swap those out so we could get things set up.

We even made it to the grocery store and got some food.

I told Jon while we were in the storage room and while we were finding things that we needed that I didn't feel quite as homeless as I did before.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

We went into work since we wouldn't be meeting the contractor until around 10:30am to 11am. Around 10:30, Jon found me and said we needed to leave right then because the contractor had just called and was headed over to our house.

We got to the house and were able to empty the dehumidifiers while we waited for the contractor to arrive. The house reeks, so I was headed to the front door to open it up to get some fresh air in the house, when the contractor came walking up the stairs. As he came in he told us that he rarely ever reads the file before he meets people, but for someone reason he decided to read ours and that he felt really badly for us since we were trying to make the house better and just weren't able to get the roof done in time.

We gave him a tour of our house and he was just dumbfounded by the damage. He then told us that the insurance had coded our claim wrong that evidently they didn't realize the extent of damage (although both of us had talked to the insurance and told them that every floor is flooded - with standing water, etc). So, we should have been coded under an emergency status and then they would have been out on Saturday to start drying everything out.

Evidently, because everything is still so wet, he wasn't able to do an estimate. He said the first step right now was to get huge dehumidifiers in and industrial fans to get everything as dry as possible (even with their equipment it would probably take about 4 to 5 days to dry everything out). While everything is getting dried out, his crew is going to come in to tear out all the carpets and flooring, they'll have to check out all the ceilings and insulation as well as walls. It sounded to us that in order to even give a proper estimate they are basically going to gut our house first.

He told us that he wanted to get this moving right away since we'd already lost 3 and 1/2 days due to the insurance coding error. We needed to get the rest of our stuff out as much as possible, or at least for now move things into a room that didn't get as much damage.

So, we when we got home from work (by the way, when I say home now, I mean the little apartment we are staying at because our house does NOT feel like our home), we quickly took care of the dogs and ate some food. We got over to our house around 6:30 and worked until after midnight. Liz, my in-law's and Jon and I were trying to get everything taken care of.

When we left the house last night, we had gotten a lot accomplished, but still have a lot to try to get out before this whole process is through.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

So here we are today absolutely exhausted! At this point, we would covet your prayers that the insurance will cover all of this damage, whether that would be to fix everything or to declare it a total loss. Either way, would be fine with us. Our concern at this point is that because we were in the process of redoing the roof that they will just not cover anything. Please pray for this situation. We would definitely appreciate as many prayers as possible about all of this.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Update on Baby Walker and Roofing Project

So here is the latest news about the baby:

I had my ultrasound on July 6th and they were still unable to tell us what the gender of the baby was. My monthly check-up was the next day on the 7th, so I went to that and was told not to be alarmed or worried, but that my amniotic fluid is normal but on the low side of normal. They want to keep an eye on it, so they scheduled an ultrasound for July 20th at 12:45pm. So, we get another chance to find out what the baby's gender is!

Update on life in general:

Saturday, July 3, 2010 to Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Starting July 3rd (the beginning of a 90 degree + heat wave), Jon, his dad and his brother were all working on re-roofing our house. We had all sorts of delays. The first started on Friday, July 2nd when Jon and I got off of work and went to pick up all the roofing supplies at Lowe's. We were working our late week (so 10:30 to 7), but since it was a holiday weekend, we were allowed to leave a little bit early. We went home and took care of the dogs and then headed to Lowe's. We needed to rent a truck to get everything home. When we got to Lowe's, it was about 7:30, so I got in line at the customer service desk and waited for 15 minutes. When I finally got to speak with someone about renting their truck I was told "sorry, but we can't rent it out past 7pm, 7:15 at the latest." I asked how soon the following morning we'd be able to rent the truck and was informed that the store opened at 7am, so if we were there then, we could rent it right away.

I went in search of Jon to tell him not to even bother grabbing supplies because we couldn't get the truck until the next day anyway. We looked through Lowe's and Jon got an idea of what was needed and where it was located and then we went home.

The next morning, Jon got up and went to Lowe's (which is about 1/2 an hour away) with his dad. When they went to rent the truck they were told, "sorry, but the truck went in for maintenance this morning." So, they had to go to another Lowe's that is in the opposite direction from our house and is also about 30 minutes from our house. Needless to say, this was a pretty big setback already since we were planning on already having the supplies on Friday night so they could get started first thing on Saturday morning.

Shortly after getting started on the roof, Marc and Jon realized that there were a lot more layers up there to get rid of to get to the tresses than they initially thought. So, began the setbacks. Other setbacks included, but were not limited to, finding out that there was a metal sheeting put over a chimney that was no longer in use and that started to crumble when the sheeting was removed. This needed to be fixed by going and buying mortar and fixing the chimney. Then as they were nearing completion of the roof, they discovered that the eave at the back of the house was completely rotted, so would also need to be completely replaced. While this project was going on, Jon noticed that he was starting to have a hard time gripping and holding anything with his right hand. Due to setback after setback, Jon had to take Wednesday off of work to try to get everything done. That night, Jon and I went to a Med Express clinic to have his wrist checked out. He was told that he had tendonitis.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Thursday he had to be back at work because of all of the work he needed to get done there, so Marc volunteered to call off his job and work on the house with his friend Tim. They weren't able to get as much accomplished as they hoped because it was the worst day of combined heat and humidity (not to mention by this time Marc had put in about five 13 hour days previously). We really needed to get the roof completed that night because we were supposed to be getting scattered thunderstorms the next day (Friday). When we got home, Jon started helping Marc and Tim with finishing up the roof. Because it would still take a lot of time to put the rubber sealant on the roof to seal everything and it was already after 8 pm, Jon and I went to Lowe's to get tarps and tape to put over the roof until the thunderstorms were over. The guys worked until about 10:30 that night and then Jon still needed to clean up the ground, since our dumpster was supposed to be taken the next day. He stayed up until 12:30pm getting everything cleaned up.