Folks, this is a long update that will give you an understanding why there hasn’t been any activity on this site for quite some time. If you’re interested, please read on.
So here’s my story. Buckle up because it is long.
Lightning struck our house, at 5:45 am on the morning of June 29th, and we had a small electrical fire that put out a light haze of smoke. Thankfully, nothing remained on fire. The wall behind my dresser had a large hole where the electrical energy escaped. My dresser was annihilated due to the explosion. We were not harmed. It was weird and disorientating wading through a smoky house (using your phone as a flashlight) in the dark because most of the house was without power. We got out of the house quickly. The fire department arrived quickly, after we called 911. They brought fans and flushed out the remaining smoke. Suffice to say, we were without the remaining power after the fire department turned off our electricity. Coming back the next day, and looking at the house, we noticed a few damaged areas. Part of our wooden floor base exploded and left a shredded section. A door and frame were damaged. We had a hole in our foundation where we believed the lightning struck. Plus, a few electronic appliances were no longer working due to the huge surge in electricity. All in all, we were lucky.
State Farm placed us in a hotel from June 30th until August 8th. While we’re thankful that State Farm was covering our stay at the hotel, it was weird to live out of a hotel room for that long. We couldn’t really prepare meals due to a lack of a kitchen. We subsisted ourselves on eating out, take out, lunch meat, microwavable foods, and snacks. Nothing close to healthy because of the limited space in the mini fridge. We, also, snuck in an air fryer, which we used selectively. Thankfully, the hotel had free breakfast every morning. Plus, the staff were very nice. I appreciated them.
On July 5th, a State Farm field agent came out to survey the house.
My girlfriend and I had to clear out the two rooms affected which were the dining room and her room. Everything had to go into storage. It took us two days to clear everything out. On July 10th, the county building inspector came over to inspect the house. He gave us permission to get our belongings but we couldn’t stay there until the house was restored to livable conditions.
On July 11th, a restoration group came over to assess the house. They wanted to get started right away. More on them, later.
On July 12th, electricians came over to check out if there was any electrical damage. Thankfully, none of the wires were blown. Only three switches flipped on the electrical panel. Power was restored in the house but we had to turn it back off until the county electrical inspector came through.
The electrical inspector came through in early August and power was restored. We still were not allowed to live there until the house was restored. No progress was made on the restoration part. I spent time in the house cleaning electronics with 99% isopropyl alcohol and Q-tips to remove any dust/soot from the smoke filling the house. Thank goodness for Youtube, my friend Mark, and the internet for giving me knowledge on how to do that stuff.
Then, on August 8th, we moved into a short term lease apartment that was fully furnished and it had a kitchen with a full sized fridge. However, the apartment was not what I expected after looking at the website’s virtual tour. Uneven floors, barely hot temperature water from the faucets, constant smell of weed from the floor below going well into our living room. Loud ass next door neighbors. Slamming doors as they were going out of their apartment multiple times at all hours of the day. I really loved the occasional late night loud arguments that you could hear well throughout my apartment despite being behind closed doors. Very inconsiderate people.
During the week of August 20th-26th, my girlfriend “fired” the restoration group we were hoping to hire. Despite saying that they wanted to get started asap, back in July, it was nothing but radio silence from them. She attempted to contact them numerous times. No returned calls or messages. I don’t get it. We were issued a check to pay them and yet they made no effort. We think the contractor blew us off because they had bigger projects to work on, that would make them more money. They wasted a fucking month of our time. We heard back from them, after they were “fired”. They admitted that they dropped the ball but they were trying to slide back onto our good side. My girlfriend wasn’t having that bullshit. She told them that we would do the work ourselves and essentially told them to fuck off.
We had a foundation guy come over to inspect the damaged foundation. Outside of a cosmetic blemish, there was no structural damage to the foundation. We were told to patch the crack with hydraulic cement and paint over it.
We started working on the house during the week of August 20th. My girlfriend and her friend repainted the walls. He patched the hole in the floor and patched the foundation with the hydraulic cement. Her sister installed the drywall. My friend taught me how to install flooring. We installed 4 smoke detectors and 2 carbon monoxide detectors. We put in the fucking work and got shit done in THREE weeks. I’m very proud of the work we did to get back home.
On September 13th, we successfully passed the building inspection. I moved back home that same night. My girlfriend returned home on September 17th, after we got her room back online.
Before
After
So yeah, that’s my story. I spent my summer season, including my birthday being displaced for over 76 days from my home. It’s been a weird time of my life and year, to say the least. It’s going to take a bit for things to get back to “normal” for us.