The Curse of Neptune

50 bags of insulation to haul off

On October 2, Sunday morning, I was out back filling up a water bowl for the dogs. As I was standing at the faucet I heard water. I opening the crawl space door--water was spraying out. We had to call an emergency plumber to come out and fix a hose that had burst. Getting a plumber out on a Sunday morning is not cheap. While he was crawling around under the house, he noticed the joists were soggy. He recommended a sister company, CARE Inc. They came out and set up dehumidifiers under the house and in both bathrooms and then they pulled out all the insulation. They submitted a nearly $6000 bill and Mike said, wait a minute. They really padded their bill, expecting insurance to cover the bulk of it. Mike complained about their estimate so they reduced it to about $4000...still a rip-off, but a lesser one. They wanted to charge $900 to haul off the insulation and we said, no, we'll do it ourselves. Mike got a musician friend of his to haul it off for $400. Then we got another musician friend to come and fix a few more leaks under the house. THEN we got yet another musician/handyman to shore up the joists, fix my bathroom and put the insulation back. The bathroom remodel is almost done. I needed a new floor, toilet, vanity etc etc. We've done very little to the house over the past 16 years, so just about everything is falling apart now. I can't even enjoy getting a new bathroom, because all I see are bills. I've been completely out of sorts for weeks now. My routine is severely disrupted with all this repair work going on. And the dogs are most displeased. They aren't crazy about strangers in the house. When it's all finally finished and I can once again use my own bathroom, it will be wonderful. I'm trying to be patient.