Date: 2008-07-01
From: Sherrills Ford NC

To: Sherrills Ford NC
Miles today: 0.0

Day 134 & 135 ¢ Monday & Tuesday June 30 & July 1 ¢ Sherrills Ford NC - Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 1638.4We spent Monday and Tuesday hauling most of the stuff out of the storage unit. Undamaged stuff went in an empty storage unit to the right.   Damaged stuff went in an empty storage unit to the left. Then once we had all the watermarked boxes identified, we started to unpack them to determine the extent of the damage.   We were pleasantly surprised and pleased with the results given what it could have been. The watermarks on the boxes, some of them as high as a foot, only represented the capacity of cardboard to soak up water and not the actual depth of the water in the unit. All of Brakeman's stereo speaker boxes were wet, but upon opening them we found the speakers fine (except for the subwoofer), as the Styrofoam packing material was thicker than an inch. That little piece of Styrofoam saved them!His CDs and cassettes were also safe thanks to the packing method despite the box looking water logged. His 120+ collection of albums, which he was going to transfer to digital this year, did get hit hard and are damaged. We are trying to dry them out, but are not sure what the end result will be. The cardboard covers on many of the albums were soaked and stuck together. As we tried to separate them, they ripped.   All of our mattresses were wet and mold has already started to grow!   A box of clothes was lost - wet and moldy. I'm thinking Mrs. Grasshopper had something to do about that one, as she HATES GRASSHOPPER¢S T-SHIRTS!   And a few pieces of wood furniture will need to be refinished on the edge that was sitting in the water.   The one additional piece of bummer news is that the huge, bulky, nearly dead TV is still functional despite sitting in water.   Grasshopper asked Brakeman if he needed a pitcher of water to pour into it to render it dead, but we decided to be ethical.   DRATS!But all in all, boy did we get lucky that there was no further damage! You know those commercials about ALLSTATE and "BEING IN GOOD HANDS"?   Hmmm, not so much! Tuesday morning we called to file our claim.   The claim representative started asking all kinds of questions about the source of the water.   Hmmm, we did NOT like where the direction of the conversation was perhaps headed.   We were originally told that the water main outside the building broke, so that's what we told him. ¢Ahhh¢, our claim rep said, ¢that is therefore called surface water and you are NOT covered. To be covered you would need flood insurance, which you do not have.¢ At which point, Grasshopper hangs up the phone in total disgust. Probably a good thing, as who knows what earful he would have received from her!   Luckily Brakeman was also on the phone and calmly stayed in communications with the lovely claim rep. We then headed to the storage unit to talk to the owners and their insurance rep who was there.   Their insurance rep was great! He explained to us that the break was inside the building and that we are covered and that we needed to call our claim rep back.   And then he had a few choice comments about some of the major insurance companies and the games they play.   So another call was placed to our claim rep.   Before he would agree to cover us, he wanted a letter from the plumber stating the location of the break.   So next we called the plumber.   He did not want to get involved and wanted to remain anonymous, stating that a $50 job for him will cost him 4 days in court. Wonderful.   Luckily another contractor, who was also involved in fixing the plumbing issue, was willing to talk to our claim rep and provide whatever info they needed.   We stressed the need for him to clearly and accurately report the location of the pipe break.   We had the rental unit insurance rep on standby to also talk to our claim rep, if necessary.   About 4:30pm, we hear back from our guy.   We are covered after all. Well, gee, thanks for putting us through that 8-hour drama exercise! Just what we needed! At least Grasshopper did not grow any more gray hair!   Know why - cause she doesn't have any non-gray hair! )On top of the bad news on the storage unit flood, we got more bad news on the medical front. Would you believe the wrong test was performed in Meadville, so now we are back to the drawing of blood stage again! When will it ever end? The Vermont doctor faxed an order for a Hepatitis screen and a lipid profile.   Apparently a liver profile was to be performed, not a lipid profile. So now Grasshopper needs to call her regular North Carolina doctor to get more blood drawn and the proper tests done.We could use a few days without so much drama!