Thanks all. Actually I put our fire in perspective - when I started with State Farm, I was handling WTC/9-11. All we lost was a cat and the house, mrAru, our roomie Phlip and I are alive and we have insurance [and the other cat and our conure are alive.] The house can be rebuilt, belongings can be replaced [well, except for some antiques and family heirlooms] so … And besides, there is nothing to be gained by running around screaming and whinging at this point in time. And between my previous job working insurance and the accounting, I am pretty well able to manage the whole matter. I did laugh in the face of a guy who stopped by to offer his services as an independent agent to manage our claim for us for a percentage of the payout … bwahahahahaha. I know it is legal in CT - but what a con job …
I really do have a certain odd sense of humor - which is shared by my husband. We look at it as we are alive and that is what matters. Sort of the military/EMS sort of humor where if you don’t laugh at something you might find yourself crying. Though Jezabel is wandering around the hotel room doing a little ‘where are you’ cry looking for Five. She is normally pretty mellow now she is not quite as shocked, but the TV channel [history] seems to be playing a fair number of cat food commercials and kitty litter commercials and the cat sounds make her run around looking for Five again.
And there are no hydrants on Water Street because it is out in the country and the water is in the form of ponds, streams and swampy areas.
And yes, arson investigation doggie. And the state investigator was a pretty nice guy - though I am cheesed off at the local guy. We informed him we were leaving at 10 am to sort out replacing my medications at the military base and he was pissed off because we didn’t get back until almost 5 pm … sorry for being a diabetic on INSULIN and having a heart condition that requires 4 different meds to control, but I personally would rather not DIE thanks very much. My health takes precedence over your investigation, especially as we had been there since the fire occurred and there really wasn’t anything else we could add to our statements…
Good question, if I wee going to commit arson, I would make sure that the hot tub were plugged in and it was a definite short, or some other wiring defect that could be construed as natural rather than arson. I certainly wouldn’t just torch the hot tub trying to make it look like a wiring fault unless there was actually power going to the damned tub.
Besides, I also would have removed all our computers, family heirlooms and jewelry that is impossible to replace. I am exceptionally cheesed off at losing irreplacable wedding portraits, family pictures, family heirlooms and both desktops, both laptops, my tablet, my ipod and all my clothing except what I walked out of the house in, and all my medications. And my damned cat wouldn’t be dead.
We were the victims of arson many years ago when my girls were about 6 months old. Fortunately we only lost the garage and the roof and there were no casualties, human or feline ( my condolences…poor kitty). While the girls and I were sleeping off the excitement at the neighbour’s, my type A hubby was busy trolling through the garage making a list of everything that was destroyed and had quite a detailed list ready for the insurance adjuster when he arrived in the morning. Needless to say, they looked sideways at my husband for quite a while until the actual culprit was caught.
Fire is very scary. You don’t realise how much it has affected you until the first time you smell a neighbour’s wood fire and you run around the house making sure it’s not you on fire again. Sorry again for the loss of kitty and I hope the rebuild goes smoothly.
I haven’t lost a home to fire, but during a roof repair our building did start burning once upon a time. It was put out with only minor damage but very scary. Thought I was over it, but ever since then the smell of woodsmoke or tar will yank me out of a sound sleep by my eyelashes.
What the OP and **kbear **have gone through - orders of magnitude worse. My condolences on the losses, especially poor Five.
Thanks. I am more twitchy about the jackasses who roam around thieving from empty houses and whomever it is that is driving that dark blue pickup truck that seems to like driving past really slowly until they see someone is onsite then they speed away. I swear, next time I may paintball the damned truck. The state cops have been informed and they are doing a driveby when they can mange it - maybe 3 or 4 times a day.
I can’t wait until we finish sifting rubble and can demo and haul everything away!
I wanted to grab my favorite wheelchair and hit the mall for some clothing until I realized it had been in the house and all I have right now is a transport chair … sigh Yet another thing to replace.
Can’t really say anything to make things better - other than perhaps “here, have a million dollars” It happened, we have to deal with it and get on with life
Though I really hope we can find Five’s body and give him a nice funeral. I hate losing a pet and not getting to give them a funeral - they are family and deserve it.
That’s just the perfect smoke-flavored icing on the ash-flavored cake. Phooey.
I’m so sorry you are dealing with this but so glad that all (except poor Five-kitty) are ok.
I must admit it does strike my sense of absurdity though. I mean, I am guessing that health insurance pays something toward the cost of a new wheelchair every X years… so now you’re in the fun position of trying to explain to the health insurer why you need the chair earlier than X years, asking your homeowners’ insurance to cover it, and seeing them fight it out to try to make the other one pay. Sigh.
Is your insurer taking care of you for now, making sure you have a safe place to live etc.? Do be vigilant about how they try to get stuff done (assuming you’re planning to rebuild). Don’t let them cut corners, etc. Friends of ours had a pretty major house fire a few years back and the mom had to trot out her inner eagle-eyed bitch on more than one occasion.
On the positive side: if you do rebuild, you can make sure things are wheelchair-friendly from the ground up as opposed to retrofitting an existing house (assuming that’s what you did).
And be careful about joking around, too - a co-worker found out that the fire department does NOT like it when you say “except for the meth lab in the basement” (he was kidding!!!).
<evil grin> Lapsed, but at one time I was licensed for insurance in my state … I am more than qualified to actually work on the claim from the companies side, so I know all the little tricks. [Though I once worked for my auto insurance company, not our homeowners company, same difference =) ]
I am simply going to have a picture of the wheelchair remains included with the request for a new chair … and a copy of the fire inspector’s report. Hard to argue that I don’t need it replaced, though it is actually not too long til actual replacement time anyhow.
We have a leased house we are moving to on Monday, they have been housing us in a hotel and I am going nuts because my diet has become annoying with all the restaurant garbage we are eating. I can not WAIT until I have a kitchen again!
And we are putting a modular in place, more or less this plan, just a one story ranch instead of having a loft and second bedroom. Nice and accessible, I spent an hour with the guy yesterday refining the floorplan. We theoretically should be in it around mid Feb, just in time for our anniversary.
Nice! Can they make the shower roll-in and the tub step-in for you? My in-laws’ last place had a shower that had no lip. Neither was in a wheelchair but it made it easier for MIL to get in (with her bad hips) and I could see that it would be great for someone in a wheelchair as well.
I don’t know how I missed this when it was first posted, but I feel for you. My family home in North Carolina was destroyed by an accidental kitchen fire back in May - the only occupants were my elderly mother and disabled brother - and our family dog was killed, which was heartbreaking.
It’s been a taxing couple of months but we are coming through to the other side. I dealt with most of the insurance stuff and I understand it pretty well by now.
We had State Farm and they have been very fair with us. One thing I learned was that it’s not like when you make an auto claim and the payments max out at the value of the house – our adjuster’s estimate was just a little bit over our policy limit so we got the maximum value for the house -even after the balance of a small second mortgage was deducted we had enough money to do some clean-up and salvage, knock down the burnt house and infill, grade and seed the lot so it can be resold AND buy a new house - we went into escrow Friday.
The new house is a little smaller but brand new and a much better fit for my mother and brother, it’s in a planned community with a clubhouse and pool and access to maintenance services. It was slighty more expensive than our old house would have been if we had put it on the market right before the fire.
The procedures for documentation and replacement reimbursement of the personal property are onerous, but it looks like we will eventually get the max on that as well. My tip is…list every little thing — don’t forget vitamins and supplements, prescription meds, cosmetics, spices, tea bags, food. This is important because these items add up and they won’t be depreciated the same way the furniture and clothing will be so it will boost the initial payout.
And if you get an additional living expense allowance, manage it yourself it at all possible. My insurer gave my mother the number of the person that would arrange for temporary housing, etc but when I looked into it she was calling an outside service that arranges and finances the hotel stays and apartments and bills the insurer directly at a mark-up. The allowance sounded like a lot but I realized that it could be blown through fast and it would have to be managed in order to last 6-8 months.
Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions or just want to vent. edit — I just now see that youre an insurance pro so you probably wont need my advice
Congrats at making it out alive! And yes, I agree, documentation is onerous - we are barely a quarter through the rubble of the inside and I have almost 400 pictures and spreadsheet items of just the stuff we are unable to salvage and are claimable … sigh though mrAru and I do have a sort of black Addams Familyesque humor thing going. I figure that since we are going with a modular house as a replacement, and things with the structure claim are going well we should have the new structure up and be in around Feb at the latest - it is the personal property claim that is going to be occupying my time - I am treating it as a full time job, I do the spreadsheet during the day while mrAru is at work and in the evenings we crank up the generator for light and sort rubble.
It happened, we have to deal with it and get on with life 