Mitigation Migraine
Three days of thunderous fans endlessly running. Three days of dancing around electrical cords plugged into various outlets. Three days of sleepless nights followed by stressful morning routines. It was enough to drive even a sane person crazy. Since the Great Flood on the 21st, I had been waiting to hear anything on my reported claim. I gone onto the insurance website checking the status like I was tracking a package from Amazon, but nothing. Not a single inkling of what to expect in the next steps of this new experience. I figured it was because we were so close to Christmas but still, I needed answers on how to handle this situation moving forward.
By day three of having a man-made tornado in my house all I could do was wait. Were the walls even dry enough at this point? I didn’t know. Would I ruin the drying process if I unplugged the fans for just an hour of peace? Again, no idea. Unfortunately, my questions were answered at the most inconvenient time. I was on my lunch break from work and had decided to take a shower in an attempt to drown out the obnoxiously low humming of the fans. Feeling clean and refreshed, I wrapped a towel around myself and continued onto the rest of the beautification process; that’s when the doorbell rang…
I peaked over the upstairs rail to see the mitigation company truck parked just outside my house. Racing back to the bedroom I scrambled to find something near by to throw on instead of just my towel. I pictured this horribly embarrassing scene playing out like a bad 70’s porn video. To make matters worse the only article of clothing I managed to grab in haste was a mid-length fuzzy green sweater jacket WITH NO ZIPPER! Clutching my sweater with a death grip I answered the door to two mitigation workers. They stated they were here to do demolition of the walls. By this point my timid demeanor due to my poor wardrobe choices quickly changed to sheer annoyance. Demolition? I didn’t agree to any demolition. Plus, I hadn’t heard anything back from my insurance company yet and had no idea if any of that would even be covered. Oh, and lets not forget that no one even bothered to call before deciding to make the drive over to tear walls down. I immediately turned to one of the workers and simply told him no. He looked at me like I had just stepped off the mother ship. “Well, this is something that has to be done to avoid the chances of mold.” He said, in a quick recovery. It was clear to me in that moment that fear was going to be his motivational selling tactic. Though I understood where he was coming from, I wasn’t about to be stuck footing the bill in the event my insurance didn’t authorize the work. The chutzpah of this worker… his reply solidified my decision to cease any further work they wanted to do. At first, he had asked me what I was so afraid of... umm excuse me? I told him he was confusing fear with unwillingness to assume financial responsibility. This is when he proceeded to tell me that any questions, I may have had for my claims adjustor he could answer and that is when I told him to collection their equipment and leave.
Faster than the speed of light and definitely faster than the initial setup of these industrial buzzing beasts, they had everything packed up and were out the door. So, there I stood in my mid-length fuzzy sweater, dry warped floors and the entire contents of the Harry Potter room stacked on plastic tarp in my dining room.
[this isn’t the end of the nightmare. Stay tuned]