2/11/10

[yagathai]

Work on my apartment has been moving ahead of schedule. The structure has been repaired and remediated (nominally, at least -- it still reeks of smoke, but the insurance company won't pay for refinishing the floors or replacing the ductwork, and there's only so much ozone generators can do), and the property, ie my stuff, has either been written off or repaired. I'm expecting that a lot of it will be technically "repaired" but still unusable, but it wouldn't be an insurance company if it didn't try to screw me at least a little bit, right? I know they didn't do a full restoration process on any of my books, so even though some of them might still be readable, their resale value will be destroyed.

What's holding us back right now are the dry cleaners, who are technically part of the property claim but for byzantine bureaucratic reasons treated as entirely separate thing. Today I got the news that they are billing the insurance company $7000 -- yes, with three zeroes -- for dry-cleaning all of the salvageable clothes. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK? That's almost half our maximum claim allowance. Hell, I could have easily replaced my entire wardrobe for a fraction of half of that amount. I am dead certain that between the two of us (remember, that includes my roommate's stuff too) we didn't have $7K in clothing, and that counts a *mumble*hundred dollar Brooks Brothers dinner jacket and my roomie's shoe collection. How much did they charge us per piece, I wonder?

Also, the small "emergency" job they did so we had clothes to wear immediately after the fire did not fill me with confidence, as they mangled, tore or burned at least 20% of what they were supposed to clean.

The claim manager lady was also unhappy with their bill, so we're wrangling that back and forth now, but if we can resolve that portion of the claim, we might be able to move back in by next week!

Comments

[alanashinean.livejournal.com]

Seven... thousand?! Insane. Good luck with the insurance wrangling, and with your move back in.

[xraytheenforcer.livejournal.com]

holy shit. They better have sprinkled your clothes with unicorn horn or something equally magical to justify that price. O_o

[racebannon42.livejournal.com]

Baby steps.

[marchoops.livejournal.com]

Hooray for being able to move back in soonish!

They better have sprinkled your clothes with unicorn horn

[regina-of-york.livejournal.com]

Agreed. That is INSANE. I hope the insurance wrangler gets that adjusted for you asap.



*is baffled to be on the side of an insurance company*

[arya.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha, what X said.

Also, good luck.

[lawbabeak.livejournal.com]

Soot is ridiculously hard to wash out of anything, and your stuff is probably permeated with a fine mess of it. But $7K is steep - I'm wondering if they saw some of your choicer pieces and thought you had money because you have taste.

[glamour-junkie.livejournal.com]

the 7K is ridiculous, and I'm sure that'll be a battle that will drag on and on (did you get your clothes back from them yet?)... I don't know who to root for in this situation, other than you.
At least the "moving home" thing is going faster that expected. I hope everything else ends up being in better condition than you expect. Crossing my fingers!

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't gotten the clothes back yet. The dry cleaners doesn't want to return them until they've been paid, and the adjuster doesn't want to pay them until a) they come down on price and b) we can figure out what is and isn't destroyed.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

But it's the insurance company paying them, not me, so I dunno.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

Agh. Good luck on things...glad to hear that the schedule for moving back in, at least, is moving toward your favor.