Not all gloom

While the floor has been stressful / time consuming / disaster, there has been positive progress - counter tops were installed in early December.   We went with Silestone and they did not disappoint!   I love the color scheme in this house - probably because I picked out everything.  We were able to re-use the upper cabinets (money saver) and to create a consistent look in the kitchen we purchased unfinished lower cabibnets and painted everything gray.  All of the hardware (cabinet pulls, door knobs, faucets) are rubbed bronze.   Also, I am obsessed with the copper sink (right corner of the picture). 

Full Disclosure

What began as gang-buster success in repairs turned into chaos in November.  The floor (wood-look tile) seemed to stall in installation - for weeks it was nothing but excuses.  Leading up to the week of Thanksgiving we had reassurances the next time we got to the house the floor would be done; 100%.   We came on the Monday of  Thanksgiving week and not only was the floor not finished, there were a lot of workers at the house and no Contractor Brian to be found. We ended up staying in Houston for only two days as there was nothing we could do (install blinds, light fixtures, etc.) until the floor was done. It was absolutely heartbreaking - but it only got worse.
Sometime in the week following Thanksgiving the tile install was finished and grouted.  Unfortunately, the grout was left on the tile for three days.  Grouting a floor is laying tile 101 - wipe grout on and 15ish minutes later wipe grout off.  Leaving the grout on for three days caused damage to the floor that we are still dealing with.   The short version is that Contractor Brian was able to get the grout off of the floor.  At that point in time he disclosed that he had subcontracted the floor but was back on the job himself to make everything right - we thought the worst was behind us. 
The second week of December we indeed had a finished floor, but finished didn't mean right.  It was the first time was had seen the house empty of workers, and tools, and supplies - there were areas of the floor that were completely uneven.  The first area I noticed was in the living room and Contractor Brian assured us that the floor would be fixed - that was December 11th,  the day I wrote the previous entry on the blog.  When I came back to  the house a few days later I found about 250 sq feet of floor had been removed to be fixed - there were piles of broken tiles everywhere.  To add insult to injury a small portion of tile had been re-laid and it looked just as bad as before.  That's right, the floor had been installed wrong, removed, installed wrong again. Contractor Brian had been a life line and great worker in the beginning, but by this end he had scammed us of time and money. 

Even now it feels like such a betrayal.  You hear stories of people being taken advantage of and wonder how it happens - this is how it happened to us. I have had many a theory as to went wrong, and while I don't want to speculate, I will tell you how it ends.  I went to the house on Thursday December 21st unannounced.  No-one working.  It was for the best as I had several folks coming in to bid on fixing the floor / finish the tile in the shower and kitchen back-splash.  I called Brian that Thursday at 11 am to tell him we were letting him go - he was asleep and his wife had to wake him to take my call. 


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No-one said it would be easy

I wrote the post below on December 11th and I didn't share it at the time.  Other things have unfolded since I wrote this on the 11th,  and I will share tomorrow as we will have some definitive answers.  Please say a prayer, think positive thoughts, send us good energy - we need it.

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For all the struggles that we have had, the progress on the house was continuous until 30ish days ago.  It's tough to even write this post - so many of the challenges in this process have been completely out of our hands (insurance / mortgage company), but the progress on the house is something that we can affect.  Right now things are at a stand-still, if not negative progress.  How did this happen?  My speculation is that our contractor started picking up other jobs hoping to do our house concurrently.  Unfortunately for us that translated to the install of the floor
1. taking more than 45 days
2. installed hastily and parts of it are now having to be re-done
Like so many times we have a promise of completion (this Saturday), but I think I will be more surprised if it were finished than not.

Run, Don't Walk

Maybe I should have titled this, Keeping Them Honest - 4th Edition.  Today I received a letter in the mail from the mortgage company informing us that, according to their records, we have let our Windstorm Insurance expire.  Furthermore, they will be purchasing a policy on our behalf that is  "significantly more expensive than insurance you can buy yourself" - word for word in the letter.  It should come as a surprise to no-one that our Windstorm Insurance did not expire; in fact, I went to the insurance agency in person to pay so that I would have all of my documentation just in case there were any issues.  So, what does the mortgage company have do gain (other than up-charging us on an insurance policy)?  They are still holding a chunk of our insurance money and one of their guidelines states that they will send us disbursements of insurance money as long as our account is in good standing.  Pretty convenient for them that they "don't have" our Windstorm renewal - sounds a lot like them trying to create an issue.
In case you have read every blog post, our mortgage company is Mr. Cooper (formerly NationStar).  I can't wait until the house is finished and we can get away from this mortgage company that owns both the loan for Rocky Creek and the loan for the house we live in.  If you have them too, run to your nearest credit union and re-finance!

Flip or Flop

While many families are working to get their house in a "livable" condition so they can work on repairing damage while living in the house, some houses are starting to enter the housing market as "investment opportunities".  By investment opportunities the seller means that the house was flooded, gutted, and now on the market. Now that "flipping" is a thing, I think that many of these houses will be picked up by investors.  Seems like a win-win; home owner is able to liquidate a house they can not repair and an investor has an opportunity to flip a house a good price.
My concern post-flood has always been houses that were not gutted / fully gutted because folks felt that some things were salvageable / would dry out / were not damaged.
When we gutted our house, just 6 days after the flood, mold had already begun to grow - under cabinets, on plywood behind walls.  When we cut open the walls the insulation was as wet as the day the house flooded.  Everything has to come out.  Cabinets, showers (drywall and insulation behind them is wet), doors (warped from the water).  Everything.

The picture below is of a house around the corner from ours currently listed for-sale. While the drywall has been cut out, cabinets still in, shower in place, appliances and doors, etc.  It makes for a scary housing market.  As a buyer folks may unknowingly purchase a house like this post-flip that has not be properly gutted.   I worry about the effects of this now and down the road - if houses in the neighborhood develop toxic mold surely that could impact property values and buyer confidence.

Keeping Them Honest - Edition 3

This past Saturday we had the first inspection as required by the mortgage company.  Leading up to the inspection I read up on what to expect:

• inspector will come with complete insurance adjuster's work sheet
• inspector will thoroughly examine the work done
• inspector will check off items completed from the insurance adjuster' work sheet and the completion rate will be determined by the items complete vs. items outstanding

Here is what actually happened:

• inspector was 30 minutes late arriving, Dave is convinced the inspector had forgotten about the  appointment
• inspector arrives without any paperwork specific to our house
• inspector asks me, and I quote, "what all has to be done when a house floods"  ~ that was a sincere question on his behalf
• inspector walks through the house snaps a handful of photos, asks me for my estimate (percentage) of how much of the work has been complete
• inspector fills out generic form, lets me take a picture of it and then leaves

I couldn't make up a stranger scenario if I wanted to.  These inspections determine how much money we have access to and when we have access to it.  My assumption, based on the experience, is that the inspector had never seen a flooded house before, ever.  He seemed to have no appreciation for the amount of work that had occurred - every person that has been through (companies providing work and estimates) are always fast to say that we are further along than any other house they have seen post flood.  While the inspector was there I asked him (multiple times) if he wanted to see photos  and/videos documenting the progression of work that has happened.  He was totally uninterested. At the end of the appointment has asks, "So if you had to estimate, how much of the work is complete?"  Well that seems accurate.?.?  Glad that the mortgage company charges us for the inspection - if they wanted my opinion on the percentage of work complete they could have just asked me over the phone.

77 days post flood

The saying, "it is a marathon not a sprint" is a perfect for the work that is happening at the house.  Although work is continuous, my heart sank a little bit this weekend because I realized that we are not as close to the home stretch as I had hoped / thought / wanted.  Dave and I are both off the week of Thanksgiving, so I saw that as a time we would come in and "finish up".  The reality is there are still big things to be done - for example: we don't have a working bathroom in the house yet.  And then there is the yard.  Insert cry face emoji here.
On a joyful note, really great things happened around us when we were there this weekend.  Next door neighbor was helping across the street neighbor change out a water pump on a truck, other next door neighbor was mowing his yard, and kids could be heard playing outside.  It was the first time things seemed "normal" since the flood.