Memorial Day Mess

Memorial Day of 2020. The middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. On a normal year we would have opened our vacation place for the season by now and been spending weekends at the Lake Of The Ozarks.  But with COVID things were different that year.  The long Memorial Day weekend was just over a week away.  We live 325 miles away. We called our guy and asked if he’d get the place ready.  Specifically to please turn on the water, check for leaks etc… The day we were going to leave for the lake, we called a lake neighbor to ask if she’d just double-check to make sure we had water.

That afternoon she called us in a panic  “You guys… there’s water EVERYWHERE inside. I’m so sorry!  We can’t figure out where the main shut off is!”.  She was in tears.  The guy we had hired showed up and shut off the water.

As it turned out, he had indeed turned the water on two days prior, checked for leaks and everything looked good.  One of the last tests that he did was to start the washing machine to make sure it had water.  It started to run and he closed the doors, locked up and left.

He had no way of knowing that the washing machine had broke.  After a normal fill it is supposed to shut off. But that part had broke over the winter and the water just kept running.  For two days.

Well versed with the process by now, we called the insurance company,  They sent an adjuster. The adjuster massively under estimated the damage.  We called several contractors to get bids and went back and forth with the insurance company. Eventually we reached a settlement of $20,000.  

We spent a good deal of our summer weekends repairing and remodeling.

Soon after we settled with the insurance company they dropped us.

Another painful experience that I would not wish upon anyone.