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I had two babies that day. I smelled smoke, but since the ENTIRE TENNESSEE VALLEY is on fire due to a year of drought and multiple arsonists, I thought the wind had just changed direction again. Turns out the HVAC unit had burst into flame, but since I turned off the air when I smelled smoke, it didn't draw the fire or smoke into the house.
I went outside to see if it was really smoky out there, and saw smoke billowing out of the crawl space below my bedroom window. So I ran back in, grabbed both babies (left the pets) and ran back out. The fire department smashed a bedroom wall to get to the fire, and the joists below my bedroom and my kids' bedroom are burnt through, and there are scorch marks up the brick outside of the house. The firefighters pulled out both cats and the smoke in most of the house is almost completely gone--ServPro ran ozone overnight.
So I've had to close my business and we're staying with neighbors while I try to coordinate the HVAC installation, home repairs, and smoke cleaning. We can't get heat back into the house until there are joists to attach the ducts to, and we can't get the insurance to cover a hotel room until the contractors submit a timeline to project completion. So basically I'm just running back and forth between my house and the neighbor's house all day, saying, "See? Burned! Fix! Fix fast! Please fast!"
I hate everything!
The silver lining is that, if my thrift store clothing is more expensive to clean than to replace, I can just get a check from the insurer and look forward to many, many, many hours trying on clothing.
Wait--that's not a silver lining. That's the thought that finally broke me down in tears.
Nobody is willing to start work for the next two weeks because nobody wants to work any time near a holiday. ServPro disappeared off the face of the Earth, and then just told us they want me home all day tomorrow to review which items are cleanable. Uh, no--you can't tell me at 3:30pm to take the next day off. I'm temporarily turning myself into a nanny for my sibling pair, and I can't up and cancel at this time of day.
And until the gas is back on, I can't reopen, because even if I bought a window unit heat pump for the day care area of the house, there still wouldn't be any hot water.
This is horrible.
I went outside to see if it was really smoky out there, and saw smoke billowing out of the crawl space below my bedroom window. So I ran back in, grabbed both babies (left the pets) and ran back out. The fire department smashed a bedroom wall to get to the fire, and the joists below my bedroom and my kids' bedroom are burnt through, and there are scorch marks up the brick outside of the house. The firefighters pulled out both cats and the smoke in most of the house is almost completely gone--ServPro ran ozone overnight.
So I've had to close my business and we're staying with neighbors while I try to coordinate the HVAC installation, home repairs, and smoke cleaning. We can't get heat back into the house until there are joists to attach the ducts to, and we can't get the insurance to cover a hotel room until the contractors submit a timeline to project completion. So basically I'm just running back and forth between my house and the neighbor's house all day, saying, "See? Burned! Fix! Fix fast! Please fast!"
I hate everything!
The silver lining is that, if my thrift store clothing is more expensive to clean than to replace, I can just get a check from the insurer and look forward to many, many, many hours trying on clothing.
Wait--that's not a silver lining. That's the thought that finally broke me down in tears.
Nobody is willing to start work for the next two weeks because nobody wants to work any time near a holiday. ServPro disappeared off the face of the Earth, and then just told us they want me home all day tomorrow to review which items are cleanable. Uh, no--you can't tell me at 3:30pm to take the next day off. I'm temporarily turning myself into a nanny for my sibling pair, and I can't up and cancel at this time of day.
And until the gas is back on, I can't reopen, because even if I bought a window unit heat pump for the day care area of the house, there still wouldn't be any hot water.
This is horrible.
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