The (not) SHOCKING Truth of Our First Week of Homeownership!

We closed on our house, Tuesday, May 29th of 2012. We had been married seven months. On June first, a wave of storms crashed into D.C. Flooding, horrible winds, lightning and thunder. It was a mess.

A mess that Mrs. Duesel and myself ignored as we loaded into our friends car and headed to Ocean City, New Jersey. What, these crazy storms? [pointing out window] Ahh, those will just keep the traffic at bay!

See that bare tree, to the right?

On the 4, turned 8, hour drive, conversation about the weather turned to asking our friends, who were driving, if their new condo was in a place that floods. We were riding high on new-homeownership, and wanted to learn as much as possible since we couldn't be at our new home. Mina turned to Mark and with a little worry in her eyes, carefully said, "We haven't had any problems, yet..."

Mark reassured her, "There is a hill behind us, and while we wouldn't flood, the water could conceivably come in the back door, but it's a big step in, and rain drains around the building really well."

Reassured, Mina turned to us in the back seat, "Do you think your house could flood?"Her face was lit up by a strike of lightening behind us, I remember it became clear as day in and around the car, right at that very moment.


The answer is no. We have a side hill, but it is gentle, and the house is at enough of an angle that the rain will run around it and down to the road. Unless waterlevels rise quite a few feet, we're fine. 

But we need to tell a little back story:

For Mother's Day, two weeks before closing, we had lunch with Katie's parents on Saturday, and our beloved real estate agent, Jean Matich, met us to show off the new house. Wide eyes explored the vacant corners, and steamy attic. Katie's dad crouched down and peered into the cobwebs of the crawl space. Everyone balked at the horrid red paint of the kitchen, where we explained the whole plan about toning down the colors and taking out the funky multi-level countertops. It was here that we hatched the whole plan for the butcher-block topped cart that is in the corner today.

A day or so later, my own mother was talking with Katie's, and she relayed all that she saw. The two undoubtedly hemmed and hawed about the that while we had a lot of work ahead of us, there was definitely a wonderful home in the making. Potential abounded, and there was flooring arguments on the horizon, "but that wonderful boy you raised, Jeff, is already squashing those fears with promises of hardwood!"


Their conversation of the house ended with, my mother asking, "Are you sure it's a good house?"


"It's a great house," Katie's mother promised her, "My only worry, is the neighbors have a dead tree in their yard, and I worry it could fall and hit the house."

End chilling backstory.

Right about the moment, Mina, asked Katie about our house flooding, and that bolt of lightening lit up the world inside and around the car, that bolt of lightening was striking the tree in our neighbors yard. Struck once before, the uppermost limbs of a hundred and twelve year old tree, a limb that itself had been sprouting for near seventy years, was released from its position, and it fell, ripping down the power line to both theirs and our house, and any other wire on the power line pole at the corner of both our properties.

A minivan was damaged too.

It was getting cloudy, when I rolled up to the house after school, the following Monday, I was floored. Across the lawn was a limb as big around as my torso. Our electrical service line was under the branches and leaves, the service box had been ripped from the wall, it was laying face down on the ground like a drive-by victim. Tucked in the door was a scrawled note from Dominion Power, "Tree damaged line. You must have your electrician reattach the service box before we can restore power. My new home had been violated, and left for dead.

There was no one home next door. I was alone in a new place, and I wasn't happy. I called my dad and expressed my anger, and then politely contacted my insurance company. Next, I found an electrician who said he would be over shortly.

I started to cool down, but I wasn't happy, and it was drizzling.

There was work to be done. Sanding, screws from the ugly lattice work, paint to then be slung. I was a waste without electricity right now. I tried removing some of the lattice screws, whoever lived here before me was a maniac for long screws. My wrist cartilage was near worn out after two of the things. 

I decided to demolish the funky counter in the kitchen. A little destruction can make the soul feel less wronged, right? You can guess what I found, the same long screws as the porch! The premise of destruction still had me feeling better; so I continued. All those screws were, three and a half inches long. Whoever owned this house really didn't want their screws coming out!

Trauma

An hour later, and much released frustration in paint scraping, my new electrician friend showed up and  looked things over. He couldn't just reconnect my electrical service. Not after the trauma caused to my house, he wouldn't feel right doing that! He wanted to replace the service, put a proper breaker on the outside of the house, run a new line inside, and install a new breaker box. I had an estimate for several thousand dollars!

This made the space feel MUCH bigger. And me better!

The insurance company said to just have it connected if it was a couple hundred bucks, but I needed approval for anything really pricy. I could have had my service set up the next day, but this wasn't a few hundred bucks. I went and scraped some more paint.

Let's fast forward, to Wednesday. I finally got "approval" from the insurance companies higher ups, I even price checked the work with some other electricians, and finally told my electrician to go forth and do the work. He kept trying to sell me upgrades, and I kept refusing. He definitely gets credit for being persistent, also, he would get to work the following day.

Again, on my way home, I stopped at the house. The neighbors who owned the house next door were not only home, they were in the yard. I got a little nervous, who wants to meet their neighbors with, "Hi, I'm Jeff, your tree cost me a TON of money!" As I got out of the Jeep, I considered how I would handle the situation. Play it cool, Jeff, just meet them first. "Good afternoon!" I called to the wife who was with her daughter, I told her who I was, met their daughter, they were lovely. Her husband came over, introduced himself and after his name, the very next word out of his mouth was "Last Friday, our tree fell on your electrical wire. I've talked to my insurance company, and have a claim number..." The sun came out, and I started to think everything was going to be okay!

The next afternoon, when my kids were at lunch, (you know I'm a teacher, right?) I ran over to the house. There were three men, hard at work. The electrician I hired, he was 6 feet plus, and shirtless. As I parked, I spotted a yellow lab tied to the fence post. What the heck was going on here? I had a chat with everyone, they were hard at work cutting big holes in the wall and generally making a mess that I wasn't excited to clean up - but definitely wanted the end product - so I kept my mouth shut. 

When I came back after school let out, they were finished. The inspector was coming at 9am the next day (no big deal, I was taking the day off because I had a flight at noon) and our electricity could be reconnected that day. The sun was definitely out, the electrician was sunburnt on his moobs.

So that's how it happened, the first home-owning catastrophe was over. Our electricity was restored the next evening; and by that time, I was in Las Vegas with 3 stitches in my hand.

That's right, stitches, and another story for another day! 

-Jeff