Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge This Past 30 Days...

May 11th, I woke up planning to head to the Georgia Rally, having reservations in Birmingham, Al., and Dahlonega. Instead, due to a chronic, increasingly uncomfortable "cramp" in my right calf, I cancelled reservations and made doctors appointments instead, fairly certain this was heading towards another back surgery similar to the one I had last Summer for a similar symptom in the left calf - that one causing me to loose feeling in the three big toes of the left foot to which I have yet to regain.

I was to have returned to work on May 22, but by the time I could get imaging and a diagnoses, we could not schedule the surgery until the 26th.

6 hours before I was to check for the surgery, Houston was inundated with 8" of rain and my home took in 7" of flood water. What a pain!!!

The surgery was rescheduled for a week later, June 2, so I spent a week cleaning out garage and wet closets, and filing insurance claims, etc...

The surgery was a success. Outpatient. The morning after, I woke up and walked 4 miles around my neighborhood before a crew should up and tore the drywall out if my home. All furniture pushed the the room centers, wrapped in plastic, and the destruction began.

I spent last Wednesday - Saturday morning in a Red Roof Inn holed up with my two dogs while my wife worked her regular job. Saturday, she brought the dogs and I up to Livingston, Tx, (90 miles north), to my parents home. Their a/c went out last Friday, though, so it was Tuesday before we got a/c back on up here. Hot, but still better than cooped up in the hotel room, and at least the dogs can go out without being leashed, as we are in the country here.

Monday, my wife goes by the house to check on things after work. She's moved in with her mother, in the same neighborhood as our home. The house she grew up in. So she gets to our house, and the a/c is off there. Shouldn't be - the whole system was just replaced last summer. So she goes to the breaker box the check the breakers, and gets stung four times by 3 different wasps before she can retreat to the wasp spray and knock them down. She retrieves our mail, goes home to her mother's, and finds we have a letter from the City of Houston - telling us we can NOT proceed with the repair of our home without special permitting, and that's not likely to happen now without us having to first raise the foundation of our home at least 17.6" to get it over the base flood line of the 100 year flood plain.

Not a good Monday for her, to be sure. I'm just sitting up here sweating out the heat with no a/c.

Lots of questions about the house, and how we're going to pull this off, but get this now.

Yesterday, I called my office to check in, as I do weekly. Our Service Director, whom I've known for 20+ years, and worked for for the last 16 years, informs me that due to all the time off, going back to last summer, (which had me out 3 months and a week), he's given my position to another person, and I'm no longer employed there. I talked to Human Resources today, and it will be effective next Tuesday, the 16th, and I'll be paid another week and a half vacation I have coming to me, which technically they don't have to do as they changed company policy early this year.

I'm excited, change is definitely in the air. Don't know what I'm going to do next, or when, but my resume looks pretty damn good, so I'm not worried. Might try something other than writing service for a while - it would be hard to find anything that could come close to the fine position I've been in the last 16 years. I feel really bad for my customers, though. This hurts them far worse than its going to hurt me, and the dealership is going to feel a backlash if some magnitude, and for some time, I can assure you. They won't forget about me anytime soon!

I'll be back in Houston this weekend, living with the mother-in-law, trying to get my home back together again.

This last 30 days has been a real doozie.....

RAISE YOUR HOUSE 18" ??? What tha hell ? It's YOUR house, you should be able to lower it 18 " if you want to. Dang government, I HATE big government. Tell them to get off your lawn.

If you weren't such a good employee you might have taken the list of customers but that doesn't sound like your style. I suspect many will seek you out if you are in the same business.

About the house, what are you just supposed to let it fall down and rot in the hole if you are not allowed to repair it?

Well just dang man...

Since I worked so hard at earning my customers trust, and making myself available to them 24/7 by giving EVERYONE my cell phone number, I do have a sizable contact list of old customers phone numbers. Problem is, several years ago, since I refused to stop giving my customers my personal phone #, the dealership service manager offered to pick up my phone bill - they just took over the phone number - so I have not paid for a cell phone the last 5-6 years.

When I told him I was going to be out another two weeks for the surgery, he demanded that I turn in the phone, as "it's against company policy" for me to be conducting business while I'm on short-term disability. (It wasn't last year, for 14 weeks!)

(I knew then, something might be up. HR had already told me my job could no longer be protected under the FMLA, as that is a rolling calendar year, and it has not been a year since I was out last summer.)

Anyway, I wiped that phone of all contact and personal data before I turned it in, and only after I had secured my own new phone and backed it up with all of my contacts from the old one.

I smelled a rat coming on, but I still can't believe it. All I ever did was make them money, and, more importantly, even though I was just one of 15 Service Consultants there (when I started in 1999, I started the 7th service team there then), I considered my primary responsibility was to sell cars. That's what dealerships do. Sell cars. So I sniffed out referrals and sold 12-15 cars a year by advising my customers honestly and fairly, and treating them all as I would a family member. I scrutinized their service invoices, and kept their bills low, and told them what their priorities were and what we could see coming from a maintenance or repair standpoint down the road. I earned their trust.

What sucks the most is I had accrued 20 weeks vacation a year, and I may never see that again in this lifetime.

DAMN!!! That sucks. Let me know if I can do anything.

Hell, and I thought getting up and going to work was a bad day..... I feel for you mate..

And this song goes out to you, Keith : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbZtuS2HBA4

I'm sorry Keith. I admire your optimism though. Like you said your resume is good and so I bet you will land another job probably even better than the last one. That's just crazy about the house though. I agree with Wade, it's your house to repair the way you want.

About the home repair:

Under the Federal Flood Insurance program, administered by FEMA, it's the new rules.

Having a mortgage, and living in a designated floodway, the flood insurance is not optional. We purchased the home we had been renting, at a very favorable price from the owner back at the end of 2000, and when TS Allison invaded in June of 2001, we were swamped with 24 1/2" of water in the home. I have a large backyard, which we dearly love, but it backs up to a large concrete-lined, box-bottomed gulley, that normally carries only a trickle of water about 2-3' wide and maybe an inch deep.

We learned that time, to our dismay and disappointment, that when Liberty Mutual, whom we were referred to by the mortgage lender, wrote the flood policy for our home, they did not ever mention that we might want to consider a content policy to go with it. Everything in the home was lost, and we had no insurance coverage but for the repair of the structure alone. We did qualify for a Small Business Administration low-interest loan that we used to replace clothing and furniture and the like.

A year and a half later, another freak weather event brought in 1 and 1/2 " of water, and we had secured content coverage by then, so we were fully covered.

FEMA has since amended rules and guidelines to its Flood Insurance Program. The City of Houston, in order to qualify for federal disaster assistance in class of hurricanes, Floods, Tropical Storms, etc., had to conform to these new rules.

The rules require that: In a repetitive loss claim, deemed to be a substantial loss claim (over 50% of the appraised value of the structure) required to bring it back to its pre-disaster condition, steps must be taken to lessen or reduce the likelihood that such an event would cause another similar loss to said property. (Definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?)

So the city adopted what they call Chapter 19, which in a situation like mine, repetitive loss, substantial claim, I have to take action to try to reduce or eliminate FEMA's exposure to another claim.

Being in the 100 year flood plain, this requires I raise the foundation to at least 18" over the baseline flood level. As I am, I am currently only .6" over that baseline now.

The Federal Flood Insurance Program affords all new and repetitive loss policies with what they call Increased Cost of Compliance Coverage.
Qualified properties owners and businesses can get up to $30,000 in federal funds to go towards measures to make the property compliant.

I suspect I'm qualified for that, will know for sure hopefully today or early next week. Next step is applying for that ICOC money, and getting bids from contractors and deciding who, how, and when this can be done.

There are several hundred other homes in the arrester Houston area that are all in the same exact boat I'm in. It's a real boon for these contractors, but I'm afraid waiting lists are going to be long. In the meantime, what to do, where to live?

Come live near me, it would take a Tsunami 1206 feet high for me to get wet. 1207 feet and I would have to wear rubber boots. I am not making fun of your situation, I would move the heck out of there, as soon as convenient. Enough is enough.

Sounds like a run of bad luck.
In times like these, its good to know, that there has always been times like these.
I hope things smooth out for ya and get better.

What s summer.

My home is still not ready. Still waiting on kitchen cabinets and countertop. Cabinets came in last week, and when hung, they weren't what we had ordered, so now reordered.

Contractor acting like he's never run a job before. Communicates with me, but doesn't seem to be able to communicate with the insurance adjuster.

We should have been back in the house a month ago. We plan to move in next week, despite not having a complete kitchen.

I've spent the summer in Livingston, 80 miles north, coming in on the weekends to check progress and spend some time with my wife.

I've got another job lined up, writing service at an Audi dealership. They know my situation, and they're not pressing me, but want me to start asap. They're moving into a big new store in November, adding people accordingly, and I do need to get in the door and start learning a knew language.

It's been a great summer for me, retired, spending good quality time with my aging parents. Country living. Wild birds everywhere. We've had everything but rain here.

Both Speedmasters have been parked in mother-in-law's garage since the 4th of July. All of my riding gear, boots, helmet, jackets scattered and packed away in various places - I don't even have keys where I can get to them!

This will be over soon. Back to the grindstone. I'll have to work a year to get a week's vacation. Just don't know anymore.

I'll never get in bed with another employer again to the extent I allowed myself to be engaged at the last. It was my life for 16 years. They dumped me like I hadn't worked there month. From now on, I'm maximizing a paycheck and it'll be all about me. Quitting time is quitting time. Go tell the manager.