Day 72 - The End is Near

I have been purposely, superstitiously, ridiculously refusing to blog since I got some excellent news on June 30. I have been terrified that if I wrote about it here, it would be somehow cursed and wouldn’t happen. Now it has happened- it is done- and I feel like I can finally come up for air.

On June 21st, we called in our request for the dreaded final inspection. After the allotted five business days, I still had not been contacted by the inspector, so I followed the written procedure for such an occurrence, which is to call the inspection company directly and write horrible run-on sentences about it. They told me that my second inspection had been cancelled due to “duplicate request.” They said it exactly like that – as in, “No, we don’t have any record of who did the cancelling or why other than that it was duplicate request.” It sounded like “duplicate request” was some kind of virus that must be eradicated from their system. Of course, the only way to fix this problem was to have Chase re-initiate the process and go through all the mandatory waiting stuff again. I reluctantly called Chase and explained the problem. Of course, they did not understand what I was telling them.

“Ma’am, the request for an inspection is still active in our system. You don’t need to request it again.”

“I just talked to the inspection company. They have cancelled it.”

“That’s not how it works, ma’am. We have to cancel it.”

“Yes, but they did. They said you had to re-initiate the request.”

“Ma’am, the request for an inspection is still active in our system. There is no reason to start a new one. You already had one inspection, you know.”

“Yes, yes I do know. Thank you so much. May I please speak to your supervisor?”

I went through the supervisor and her manager before I finally got someone who was not intent on locking me into the ninth circle of loss draft hell. This wonderful, helpful, angel of a woman put me on hold and called the inspection company. It turned out that they DID cancel my inspection and Chase DID need to start the process with all the waiting periods again. It turned out that I am not actually a masochistic moron and I do comprehend the English fairly well. I asked her if there was any way she could expedite the process, and she said she couldn’t but then looked into my file. She noted that my 50% inspection report had come back 85% complete, and decided that she could request that Chase waive the final inspection and just send me the rest of my money right away. Wonder of Wonders, really – and she did just that. She called me back that evening to tell me that the request had been approved and they would be sending my checks via overnight mail after July 6.

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. The next day I got a voice mail informing me that my “request for deviation” had been declined, and I needed to request a 90% inspection to get my final draw. When I called back, I spoke to person after person trying to find out what had changed. After a solid 40 minutes on the phone, someone finally figured out that there was an error in their system or something and everything was fine. I was actually going to get my money without the final inspection.

The next day I got a voice mail informing me that someone had erroneously called me to tell me that my deviation had been declined when it had, in fact, been approved. Hey, Right Hand! It’s me, Lefty! Perhaps this process has made me a little edgy.

On July 7, I received the second third of our money as promised. On July13th, I had not heard anything about the final check and decided to call and make sure we were all still moving along. They confirmed that the check had been processed on July 10th and would be sent via overnight mail…in 2-3 business days. On July 14th, I missed the FedEx guy. Ironically, although this is the smallest of the three checks, this one will require a signature. I think the FedEx guy is secretly a Chase call center employee, though, because he checked every single box on the “we missed you” form and then wrote that the next delivery attempt would be the day prior to the day he was there. Yesterday, I obsessively watched the tracking online and waited in the house all day for the delivery. At 2:45 p.m., the Chase Loss Draft Nightmare of 2009 was officially over.

Now, if they could just finish with the house…more on that later.

Day 51- So close, yet so far away

We have floors! They are putting in a nice, wood-look ceramic tile all over our house. This was a major concession on my part because I loved my hardwood floors. Loved. I did not, however, love seeing them in a dumpster, and I don't think my heart could take it one more time. Ceramic makes sense for our lifestlye and for our repeat flood risk. I'll get some pictures up once they are complete.

Now, my house looks mostly like a real house instead of a construction site. Pay no attention to the dumpster in the driveway. This is both comforting and frustrating because it looks so nice, but it is really just a shell. There are still no appliances (except the fridge in the playroom), no functioning sinks, and no connections for the satellite dish and phone downstairs. It looks pretty, but it is still not usable. I have a promise from the contractor to have our appliances in on Friday, but I am not scheduling my life on that promise.

On the finance front, we did recieve the first "draw" on our insurance check from Chase. The bank put a 10 business day hold on the deposit, and the first $4000 that comes free will go to the demo dudes who have been waiting on their payment for about 50 days now. Although we completed the required "50%" inspection on Saturday, I have no hope of seeing the second check for at least 2 weeks, and the final draw will not even get started until we have a final inspection of repairs. After an inspection, the inspector has 10 business days to file his report, and then Chase has some allotted time to process the report and send the promised funds. Also, while the first draw is supposedly sent immediately upon reciept of the check (try 12 days later), the second and third draws are dependant upon successful submission of all the crazy paperwork.

Wordless Wednesday - Smiles

Chase What Matters (after allowing 2-3 business days for processing)

Friday, June 5: Received check from insurance company and called Chase to find out how to get their signature. The process includes many, many forms that have to be faxed to me to fill out. Faxing forms takes, apparently, 3-5 business days.

Monday, June 8: Received forms and 12 pages of instructions via fax. Read and followed all instructions to complete forms. Made several phone calls to Chase for clarification on how to fill out forms.

Wednesday, June 10: Mailed forms, signed and notarized, along with check via overnight certified mail.

Thursday, June 11: Called to confirm receipt and acceptance of forms and to request mandatory 50% Completion Inspection. I was informed that Chase has 2 business days to contact the inspector. Then he has 3 business days to contact me to schedule the inspection. My forms were not in the system, but they allowed me to go ahead and order the inspection.

Friday, June 12: Called Chase again to confirm receipt of paperwork. The unhelpful person on the phone informed me that I needed to write the specific words “self-contracting” in a blank on each of two forms instead of the very similar phrase that I wrote. NOTE: This is not in the instructions. The only way to make this change is to correct and re-fax the forms, allowing 2 business days for them to be processed.

Tuesday, June 16: Called Chase again to confirm receipt of corrected paperwork. The unhelpful person on the phone said that I need to write a “brief description of what happened to my home” in the blank for “…the undersigned hereby agrees to release and/or waive any and all claims of lien of labor and materials described as_,” rather than a description of labor and materials. I immediately request a supervisor. She is very sorry, but the forms must be correct. Today, I will correct the form and fax it once again, allowing 2 business days for processing.

Progress

Day 44 - Cabinets, Crises, and Cash Flow

Things are moving along ever so slowly at our place these days. The moldy wood floor has been removed. The base, chair rail, and wainscot have been replaced and primed. The frames for our kitchen cabinets have been built. We are at a stall until the cabinet doors are complete, but then we will have a flurry of painting and staining. Once all of that is done, I will have my kitchen back and life will be much more like normal.
We hit a roadblock shortly after my last post when our house was taken over by a poltergeist. It was either that or the neutral wire from our house to the transformer failed from water plus time. Lights in part of our house were barely lit while others were too bright to look at directly. Circuits and bulbs blew, and all things electrical quit working. There was this crazy fluxing thing that happened when the refrigerator kicked on. I had to pay some guy with all kinds of meters and gadgetry who spoke to me through an intermediary a ton of money to fix it all. I say all signs indicate poltergeist, personally. The repairs were expensive and probably not covered under our policy, but our electric company and the electricians/ghost busters really came through and got us back to normal as quickly as possible.
We received our payment from the insurance company on Friday. The “contents” part of the check was made out to us, so we opened a new checking account to make the accounting easier and deposited the money there. Then we went on a shopping spree and purchased our new dryer, oven, and dishwasher, as well as a new vacuum cleaner. Everything has been delivered now and will be installed as the cabinets are completed. New everything is a definite silver lining of this process.
The “dwelling” part of the check is more complicated. It is made out to the mortgage company and has to be sent to them for endorsement. They require inspections and all sorts of rigmarole to give us the money back. I googled “Chase Loss Draft Department” in search of forms, and found out that the first twenty websites are all just people complaining about how terrible this process is. I am super excited. After filling out an insane amount of paperwork, including a document (notarized, no kidding) that I will not take a lien out against myself if I don’t pay my construction bill, I mailed the check to them yesterday morning. I’m just going to pretend that this will go well until they prove me wrong, because I really can’t take another battle right now.

Day 30 - We have walls!

We finally have walls! Friday, the contractors put in insulation. Then they took the holiday weekend off, and so did we. Tuesday was drywall installation day, and yesterday they finished that up with tape and float. Aside from a very hot return home on Tuesday night when they had inexplicably decided to turn off the A/C, everything has been pleasantly non-eventful on the construction front. Our adjuster “finished” our claim documents, and sent them our way, but he forgot to include the kitchen appliances that needed repair and the countertops that had to be torn out to replace the lower cabinets.

In other news, we had a great weekend escape to Galveston Island for Memorial Day weekend. Most of the island has been at least cleaned up, if not quite repaired, in the months since Hurricane Ike blasted through. There are things that are still damaged and things that are different, but the spirit of the people there is good. There are billboards that say things like, “Tough times don’t last, but tough Texans do!” I’m not sure who spent the money to put those up, but it has this feeling like the town is hella determined to pull itself up out of the muck my its bootstraps.

It was great to be in one place for 4 days straight and to cook my own food. These are the things I miss most. I hauled my commercial grade Belgian waffle maker down with us and made waffles for breakfast. We grilled and baked and napped and played Wii games – the little things we have not been able to do at home for several weeks. It was all very restorative. Our friends and family have been cooking for us and hosting us in their homes, and we have wanted for almost nothing through this time. Still, it felt awesome to be able to do some things for ourselves, even if they were “vacation versions” of real life.

It was also oddly cathartic to see the damage that was still hanging around and the evidence of how bad things really were after the storm. I’m not sure why – misery loves company, maybe? The whole weekend just felt like the beginning of a turn back to normal life.