Last week, we had to finally let our oldest dog, Flash, go. He’d been doing poorly for the last year or so, but we realized it was time to take him on his last car ride. My wife and I took the day off, and we spent the day with him- we hugged him a lot, gave him chocolate for the first time in his life, and basically tried to give him one last good day. Then we held him while he passed. He was sixteen years old, and he was the best dog in the world.
Then the hurricane hit. Our basement flooded, badly. We’d been telling our landlord about the leaks for about three years, and he never did anything about it… and now we’ve got a completely soaked carpet down there. That was our living room, so our couch and chair are ruined, and while we’ve moved the computers upstairs, we still don’t have TV.
Our other two dogs are completely confused and depressed. Everything has changed for them. Neither one is eating well, and all they want to do is sleep.
The house reeks of mildew and mold, and we haven’t been able to get a reclamation company to come out yet- but they say we’re “at the top of the list”. And I imagine all they’ll do is rip up the carpet and remove the paneling on the walls- so we’ll have to get the landlord to spring for refinishing the basement (and, presumably, fix the leaks). Oh, and our roof needs repair now, too.
We love the location, but our house sucks. And we won’t be able to find a place this cheap this close to the office but still with tons of yard for the dogs. We don’t want to buy a place, yet, but we may have to- it’s normally quite difficult to find a rental that allows dogs.
I know that a lot of people have much larger problems than we do. We both make really good money, have had jobs all throughout this recession, and we’ve got renters insurance and our good health. But still, damn… I’m feeling overwhelmed.