Part 7 let the insanity begin

Unless you have suffered, and yes, i do mean suffered, through a large loss, that is what it is called in my world, you cant grasp the absolute chaos that ensues.  Some of my GF's know, they were there the day of the fire.  Not the middle of the night, although KF did come to my rescue, poor thing...I think we scared her to death!

I'm talking about the day time, seems like the next day, but it was actually the same day.  Insanity erupted at the house of Mayhem.  Not only were friends and family there, helping, consoling, assisting in what ever means possible, but companies where there to take stuff.  Oh, and the vultures.  More on vultures later.

Companies....there was a company there to take all of our clothes, linens, towels, bedding, drapes, throw pillows, throw blankets, everything washable. 

There was a company there to take everything electronic, from flash drives, to old cell phones, to my TV's and *gasp* Xbox. 

There was a company to take pictures of every room of my house, from every angle, and then to start boxing up every single possession we owned.  Marking it alive or dead.

Do you know how humbling it is to have complete strangers go into your underwear drawer and put all of it into a bag?  OMG!  how bout those cute little items we wear on valentines day, or other special occasions that are hidden in the back of the drawer!  UGH!  It makes me shudder!!  God, I hope I didn't have any holey underwear in there!  They have all of C2's stuffed animals, her dolls clothes, but her doll is un salvageable. They have our cold weather gear...jackets, gloves, long socks, long underwear, sweaters, comforters.  Our bed has a cheap thin 'comforter' on it.  It SUCKS! 

They told us to give them a three day emergency supply of clothes and they would give us a 24 hour turn around on that.  So, they got all of hubbies dress clothes for work, C3's football clothes, a bunch for C2 and not much for me, cause kids come first.  i wound up wearing the same clothes for quite a while cause I forgot about myself.  I even remembered C1's clothes even though he was out of town. 

Of course, we had bought a bunch of stuff only because we didn't know that this was going to happen.  I think even if we did, I would have done it away...gone shopping for a couple of outfits for everyone.  its that mom nurturing thing I think?

Electronics company walks through and takes everything electronic.  Top to bottom.  Of course they have taken advantage of my.  Bastards!  See, at one point I told hubby that they had all of his electronic gear for his boat.  I figured it would make him feel better.  Hubby says, dont have them clean it. the other components were attached to the boat.  It will do no good to clean them since the boat melted into a pile of goo.  I tell them that.  See they give me a final pack out sheet with item numbers for each item and a desc and what room it came from to help me identify things.  So I tell them by item number which items not to clean regarding the boat.  They say, so clean the rest, I say, without thinking, yes.  WTF.  I have just paid to clean a VCR and DVD player that were under my bed, hadn't been hooked up in years.  A broken TV antenna that we used to stick out the window to watch the Bears lose.  Cell phones that were in the drawer cause I was to lazy to recycle them, a remote control to a tv we dont own anymore, etc etc.  See if I had had an agent(maybe part 8) that was telling me how to do things, i would have looked at the entire list and said, no dont clean that. 

I get the final pack out list and a cost cleaning list.  I paid 85 bucks to clean a vcr we didn't use anymore.  Sigh!  First, i can buy one for cheaper and second, give me a break.  The day of the fire, they also asked for an emergency list of items to rush to get back to them.  If I had knows that it would cost more to clean my POS netbook than it did to purchase a new one, I would have said no!  They took advantage of us. 

Cleaning bill from electronics company, $6,500. 
Cleaning bill from Cleaners, $5,500. 

This money comes directly out of my personal property amount.  Of course, every time the electronics company delivers something to us, we get charged.  We also get charged to have them store the items.  We get charged for the bubble wrap they wrap our stuff in.  I get charged for them to bubble wrap cell phones that are garbage.  Yippee!

One company I will mention by name.  ServPro.  AWESOME COMPANY.  Their job is to come in and box up every item that is left.  and I do mean every item.  and they count every item also.  My linen closet.  They take everything out, its all on the un list, and write down every single item and how much the container holds. 
3 Act kids flouride rinse 8oz
1 calcium tablets 250 600mg
4 deodorant axe 8oz

why the hell did we have 4 axe deodorants?? 
1 nail cutter
1 nail file
2 razors
1 suave conditioner 22.5 oz

and on and on and on. 
(my cat, you remember dumb ass, is on the ledge in the family room chasing his own tail)

they do this for each and every room.  Its quite humbling. 
Each time they removed a piece of furniture from a room, I was horrified to see the dust and crap under or behind it.  I mean HORRIFIED!  and at the same time, depressing. 

the people that we worked with were incredible!  If I got upset, which I did a lot, they all stopped what they were doing until I could continue on.  If said said WAIT...they froze. If I said, I cant part with that right now, they didn't argue.  They were kind, caring, sensitive, and funny!  But most of all, understanding!  They never rushed me, hurried me along, or acted impatient with me. 



Now everything goes back to the warehouse where it is unpacked again, and items are then seperated into un and salvageable.   Pictures are taken of the un and they are re boxed and eventually thrown into a giant pile.  Ready to be depressed?


Our wedding cake topper - un
but why were there 3 golf balls in my bedroom?
All of my laundry baskets
every single rubbermaid or tupperware container.
every single board game(they all have some sort of plastic pieces)
every single knitting needle and all yarn
most of my picture frames
a hell of a lot of books
every single lego
every single baby toy we had saved
every piece of thomas the train set
every single fall, Halloween, xmas decoration
C2's american girl doll
every nerf gun and bullet
all of C2's trinkets, bracelets, necklaces
99.9% of my kitchen

and now I have an excel spreadsheet with way to many tabs, one for each room, and a list of every single item that was in or near that room and is un.  I then get to get a replacement price for it.  I also have to put where purchased,  and how old it was. 

One thermometer  5.57
3 yellow bandanas  .99
1 chuckit dog toy  11.77
2 pair of socks  6.99
1 lego Electric Train  129.99

For all 2500 items on this list.  Now keep in mind that some items are not on this list because we are all human and  this list does not include the thousands of items located in the garage.  

Once this list is done, then I head out to stores and try to remember things that were not on the the list.  not to mention that were in the garage! 

hey folks...if you haven't looked at your insurance policy in 5+ years do it!  We all have several computers now and Ipads and other cool gadgets you didn't have back them.  We will hit our coverage on personal property.  It should have beeen upped.  We got it back before we even had one computer, now we have 7!  OUR AGENT SUCKS!  more on him later.

so, now I am looking up prices.  and adding ages to my items.  My favorite age of an items is 147 yrs!  Fantastic!  Although I have been told by several people that everything is less than 3 yrs old :)

So far the house alone is over 75K in  personal property loss.  Not including the garage, and appliances.  Appliances that are hooked up to the house, like your dishwasher are structure, those that are not, electric range, or fridge are personal property.  I dont know what washer and dryer are yet.  And this does not include furniture that is toast, which is most of our furniture. 

The only thing left alive in our house, furniture wise, is our bedroom set and the boys bunk beds.  Maybe a coffee table.  that's it.  The rest is dead. 

To replace my dining room set alone will be over $1,000.  Not to mention the rest of the furniture.  Sigh...this is exhausting! 

are we done yet?  I so want to be done with this! 

Next up...adjusters...a living hell