Mother Nature Hates Our House!

It’s Friday evening at 6:10 and as I’m driving down the road after a 9 hour shift at work to stop off at a couple of stores I rarely get the time to go to, my phone rings. Traffic is heavy, so I find a street to pull off on and check my voice mail.

My first thought is that my ex has called with a question about my kids, or that my mom thought of something for me to bring home after work. Yep, it’s my mom. Her voice is frantic, on the verge of tears and I immediately think she’s hurt or that my kids are hurt or that something is wrong with my dogs.

But, no. It’s worse. So, I call her. She says the tree fell on the house! I can hear in her voice the anxiety and fear, and excitement. So, I ask for clearer details. Where did it fall? Is anyone hurt? Is the tree IN the house?

She doesn’t know much,it fell towards the front porch as far as she knows.

 

Rainbows and Missed Exits

I hang up the phone and call my man who I assume is also just leaving work after closing up. He says he’ll meet me at my house which is about a half hour drive. So, I turn around and get through traffic and a couple of stop lights before getting on the turn pike.

I notice that there’s this weird rectangle in the clouds that has a rainbow in it. Man, storms are crazy. This storm was a long thin line of really high winds with a little bit of rain. Apparently the wind was enough to knock over our long dead tree, but not much else.

After missing the closest exit to my house and having to drive another 4 miles past town, I finally get through more traffic and a speed trap with construction to my neighborhood.

 

Nosey Neighbors and Freaked Out Moms

As I pull up, there is a crowd on my street. I see my ex husband’s truck, and my man’s mustang. I don’t all the people standing on the street, but I do notice a neighbor lady that I know. Is it that bad that strangers are lurking? Holy crap?

I walk around the corner of the house to see the tree laying nearly ¾ the length of the house, but not on top of the porch like Mom had made me think. Whew!

But the small fenced in section with the old lawn furniture inside it where the dogs go do their business is crushed under the limbs of the tree. Mom said the dogs were out and that Max was under one of the chairs when she came outside to see what happened.

Everyone appears to be okay. The dogs were found, not hurt, and my mom is on the phone, but apparently uninjured. My ex and my girls are excited and tell me about another piece of drama created by a neighbor who was out of line with my mother. He was promptly told to leave by my ex and our other neighbor. I won’t get into it, but the cops had to be called out for his behavior.

My man and my ex take me on a tour of the uprooted tree, and around to the other side of the house. The tree clearly hit the peak of our house, and then rolled down the south side. There are sizeable limbs on the back side of the house and later in the evening, I notice this lovely crack in our dining room ceiling. That probably means structural damage. sigh…….

 

 

Getting Other People To Be Responsible

Our mobile home park has been negligent in getting this issue taken care of. The tree is their responsibility. They removed our other dead tree and claimed they couldn’t get the truck /cherry picker in to the area where this other tree was. I don’t believe that’s true.

Our park manager was really nice when she and her husband arrived on the scene with the police. She told us that she had finally gotten the tree guys to say they would come out and deal with our tree and others in the park in Novemeber. Too little, too late! The other tree has been gone for about 3 years now. Really? It takes that long?

Anyway. The Park Manager says that they will cover insurance deductible (as they should). But, our insurance adjuster/inspector can’t come until Monday. Apparently the park is owned by a man who doesn’t live here, but his sons do. It was one of his sons who caused the ruckus with my mother. But, it was another son (or two) who staying in the rain to patch our roof. He apologized for his brother’s behavior and was super nice, funny even.

My guess is that the best case scenario is that we get a new roof and maybe a new ceieling. Worst case? I don’t know. If it cracked or damaged some main supports? No idea how long that takes to fix or how much time it takes to fix it. Cold weather moved in this weekend.

 

 

I’m not looking forward to construction in cold weather.