Our living nightmare

No pretty images, or snarky remarks, just an update. 

If you are reading this, thanks, and sorry that this will lack the humor of my previous posts. Following the completion of my marathon, I was accepted to VCU for a PhD in Education. I only mention that to explain my absence from this platform and apologize for how long it has been. Over the course of my PhD my life changed a lot. I got divorced, because my husband at the time just did not share the same vision for our future and the future of our family. I met the love of my life, the geek I had always hoped for,  and we were married in one of my favorite places, the Stargate convention. And, just days after I defended my proposal, while my entire family was celebrating in Disneyworld and getting ready for Christmas, own home burned to the ground. 

We lost everything, including our rescue tortoises, cats, lizards, guinea pigs, ferrets, rats and my beloved dog Gaia, my best friend and companion for a decade. 

It's still hard to type that, as I still wake up every day hoping that it was all just a bad dream and it is over. 

I don't remember much of the aftermath. I remember being at the O'hana breakfast and getting the call from the Fire Marshall and falling to the floor of the Polynesian Hotel. I remember being numb the train ride home. I remember the firefighters and my husband pulling me from the ground as I sobbed into the ashes of my home. And, more than anything, I remember the outpouring of love from my friends and family. Meals, gift cards, things for the kids. It was completely amazing. 

So, moving forward we hit our first hiccup. My ex, money-hungry as he and his family have always been, saw my insurance payments as an opportunity to cash out. Planning to rebuild was halted, as I had to spend over $1500 of our meager savings to fight my ex to not force me to sell the land, the only place my children had ever known as a home, and instead allow me to buy him out. It took a number of legal calls, etc. but in the end, I owned the land with the destroyed house outright, and my ex was off of the land and house that I, AND I ALONE, had worked so hard to get. 

Finally, finally, we were free and clear to start. We found a plan that we loved as a family, and with a little tweaking would meet the guidelines as set forth with the insurance company (comparable size). We went with a builder, ACB Construction, who has worked with my mom (who is a realtor). He was very excited by our modern plans and industrial concept and assured us that we would be in by this summer to celebrate. 

Rain delayed the start of the build but finally (and I mean finally, because for some reason nothing could get done for a few weeks even after the rains stopped) we got started. From the very beginning there were problems (the lender, for one, was strongly recommended by the builder, was a commercial lender and not a residential one, and this caused a number of delays as he did not know how to set-up a residential construction loan...) but we had a contract and to break the contract would cost us $40,000...

So we persevered. We stayed on top of the contractor who continued to not give us items promised us on the contract: Draw Schedule? Nope. Selection Sheets? Allowances? Nope Nope NOPE. He grew angrier every time we found an error (incorrect showers installed, light fixtures in the wrong place, lack of insulation in specified areas). He even tried to convince us that we needed roof that cost an additional $7800, and tried to get us to agree to "help him with the cost" without a change order (a legal requirement in our state). The straw that broke the camel's back was our siding, what we had been promised would be Hardie Plank siding, was instead Hardie Board (the flat board used UNDER flooring) was used, with NO texture and the builder planning to just paint over it. My husband was LIVID and could not believe that was the siding. We met the builder, and talked out our issues, and everything seemed alright. 

So, last Friday, I ride out to the house to feed our livestock (which survived the blaze). I discover that the contractor has not only done NONE of the things we requested, but I found the sheetrock crew in the house, rocking over things that should have been insulated. We called the builder, and on a Friday, he didn't answer. (He had told us that he does not work weekends, but evidently Friday is a weekend as well). We left a message, trying to explain what was happening, and for him to call us. We heard nothing for all of Friday and Saturday. Sunday rolls around and he calls. We tried to explain our position and he became enraged, screaming and yelling. The entire call became a shouting match, with the builder insulting me and my husband. Everything we said he took as a personal insult and when I asked for invoices and the documents (listed above) we were promised, he quit and hung up the phone on us. 

That was yesterday. As of today he has contacted all sub contractors to cancel all work. The shady bank does not want to work with us at all to finish, even though we are in the trim out stage. We have called an attorney, but in the meantime my children will come home from camp this week only to discover that the house they has just picked fixtures for is now in limbo. 

I'm not sure why I wrote this post. Maybe I just needed to get it out. My life is a living nightmare and I am struggling to figure out why me, and more importantly my kids, deserve this.