Soaked

Okay so January 15th, my domesticated husband started the dishwasher and then went down to the family room to play with the kids. Lucky for us we went downstairs that night! We have a bar in our family room with a small hand sink. There was water overflowing out of the sink all over the carpet from the dishwasher up in the kitchen. We quickly got everything shut off but the carpet was ruined. We tried to snake the pipe but Aaron just kept getting black gunk and the pipe would not clear. Of course he blamed it all on me for putting coffee grounds down the garbage disposal....ooops...but to think, I had been putting coffee grounds down the garbage disposal for months and nothing happened? I was so ticked at myself thinking I had caused all this damage for doing something I knew was wrong to begin with.

We called roto rooter the next day and they came out and said the black gunk was not coffee grounds and it would probably be much better for us if it was. That didn't sound good. He told me he was hitting mud about 15 feet out. He said the pipe was broken underneath the house and we would need to jackhammer up the entire basement floor to fix the pipe. Ugh! Of course we went round and round with the insurance company. First they were covering everything except the $80 broken pipe then the next day they were not going to cover anything. I found their next rebuttal quite interesting, they told me that because it was an act of nature and probably a result of the home getting older they would not cover it. However, if I accidentally drove my car into my yard and caused the pipe to break they would cover all of it. Hmmm, I would think I have some sort of responsibility to be a better driver than that but since you can obviously view my car insurance claim from exactly one month prior, I guess you know better - BASTARD! I was raging mad at this point.

Lucky for me, the lawyer that works with me, overheard my predicament and asked me to call back and have a copy of the home owner's policy faxed to her...oh what a novel idea Kelly, why not read the black and white policy before you die of high blood pressure! The insurance company complied with my request asking if there was some kind of problem...oh I don't know dumb ass? What do you think?

Not knowing about my day, Aaron called the claims department that evening to see what the status of our claim was. The operator that answered said just a minute I need to put you in to a manager. Apparently they flagged our account "wife is a psycho, lunatic b#@%&!, get the big guns"

The "manager" picked up the phone and said, "let me just start off by apologizing to you Mr. A______ I think your wife was given wrong information earlier this afternoon. We will pay for everything except the broken pipe"

Amazing what those lawyer types can accomplish...love you Cole!

Anyway, we packed up our entire basement so everything wouldn't be covered in cement dust. We did dishes in the bathtub for a week since it was the only thing we could use that would not cause more water damage. The plumbers jackhammered up the basement and fixed the pipe. Of course it was another two weeks until the insurance company told us how much we could spend on new carpet. Everything is all put back together, the new carpet has been laid and we even received a free Dyson vacuum out of the deal (it was an add on when we purchased the carpet!) Yippee. All I can say is that I am so so very thankful for home owner's insurance. But I hate crooked people!