04/15/2022 – Finally Friday

“I can still hear it and I don’t like it. It’s driving me bonkers, Mom.”

Drip, drip, drip. The sound of water dripping from the living room ceiling into the orange 5-gallon bucket on the floor provided by the plumber counts out the seconds of everyone’s life here. There’s no escaping it, except for going outside where, when it’s not raining, it’s snowing and hailing. It’s been an odd, weather record-breaking April here. It’s been our usual, run-of-the-mill time-for-something-to-break season and this one’s going to cost us.

Back in March, Mom spotted a faint yellowed line on the living room ceiling and instantly, she knew we had a problem. By the end of the day, the spot had darkened. By the end of the week, another larger spot spread and our insurance company told us not to use the shower (we hadn’t since first discovery). By the end of the following week, they sent out a leak detection team who, in a round-about sort of way, determined where the leak was coming from using heat detection equipment and . . . by turning on all the faucets and showers upstairs and letting them run.

The water damage spread, considerably, and by the time Mom got home from work that day, a large bubble of water had also formed under her fresh paint finished just three weeks before, on the underside of a kitchen-to-living room pass-thru, running inside the wall, across, and down the main structural beam holding up the second floor. The water bubble grew and grew but was gracious enough to wait to burst until the plumber came out a second time and relieved the pressure.

With our approval, he proceeded to cut through the ceiling drywall the leak detection team had marked as the spot most likely the leak was coming from and as the plumber suspected, our 22 year old main shower valve was failing.

In between the initial damage discovery and the leak detection team making things a whole lot worse, our claims agent told Mom our homeowners insurance would not pay for the damage. Cut and dried. Nope, no way, no how. They wouldn’t pay for the leak detection team’s worsened damage and in fact, we would have to pay for their “service.” They said we had neglected to fix a leak that had been going on for, perhaps, ten years or more. They said it was Mom’s word against theirs that some water damage stain hadn’t been there for a decade, and further, they questioned why Mom would have just painted that room top-to-bottom if she hadn’t been trying to cover up an existing stain.

Please do not get Mom this mad. The word “mad” doesn’t quite fit the anger she felt. The fury of a thousand exploding suns “might” be somewhere in the general ballpark. You’d probably still be off by a few degrees. Mom doesn’t throw stuff around or stomp about. She internalizes anger, analyzes it, and plots some future course of action. And she went out and bought herself a big bag of potato chips. Later, she mentioned that wasn’t all she’d hoped it would be. But, we learn.

We’re in the pre-coordination phase right now, trying to get the plumber/restoration company out to clarify somewhat sketchy items on an initial bid when Dad has a day off work. Mom, who works every day Dad doesn’t, claims to have washed her hands of the whole mess; then again, she had two major certifications to get through at her new-ish job last week and says she didn’t have the brain cells to waste on continuing to be angry over this. Plus, she knew she would ugly-cry in front of the plumber.

And then, a little good news. More on that next week when we get some answers. An apology would also be nice. Mom doesn’t expect one but that would go a long way!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A Colehaus Cats flashback:

2021 – No post
2020 – Wordless Wednesday
2019 – MultiCat Monday
2018 – No post
2017 – No post
2016 – Foster Friday with Miss Itty
2015 – Tax Day Hideouts
2014 – No post
2013 – Oh, Bugs
2012 – No post