Ok-structure good, contents no good.

What has Chris said about the discrepancies? You would think MFC would care if half the house wasn’t inventoried… that’s tens of thousands not going in their pocket.

Ughhh… document everything you do to that house including hours worked.

I had the same problem with formatting that you do, ultimately it didn’t matter because I forced the third party appraisal but it was really frustrating trying to square one with the other and see where the differences were in what they thought things should cost.

You are certainly grabbing the bull by the horns!  I think Dave's advice to document ALL the work you do to the house is very sound. That said, I definitely have seen that the insurance company is just giddy to pay contractors whatever the hell they want, but if you want to do any of the work, well, they don't like writing any checks for that. So weird.  That carries over to content too. They want their preferred contractors to do all the content work, and anything you want to do yourself gets blamed for anything that goes wrong in the count. If I had $1 for every time I've heard "This isn't how we normally do things" as an excuse for shortcomings, I'd GIVE them the house.

I'm going to be very interested to see how you fare in your rebuild endeavors. Just for the sake of being able to advise anyone I know or who asks, who goes through this in the future. I'm hoping you have a great outcome but I fear you aren't going to feel well treated for it.

I offered to do some of the things that insurance usually gets raped for, like putting the shoring wall in the garage and some other stuff. They know I'm capable, they've seen the cellar I built. Fireplace mantle and bookshelves I built. Porch I built. My tools, etc.
Homeowner effort is like kryptonite to them.

Whatever on payment, it has to feel awesome seeing progress at least. I'm looking forward to the experience.

Enzo you mention having to be done in 8 months-I can’t speak for farmers or your adjuster, but when it was clear that I was not going to be back in my house before ALE was exhausted I forced the conversation with my adjuster and got him to agree that as long as progress was being made on the structure he would continue to authorize payment.

Stick to your guns on this-if their preferred vendors can’t get their work done in a timely manner, it shouldn’t come out of your pocket.

Chris said something about reaching out to OnSite again (the guys who really f'd up the count) but more than a week passed from the first time I alerted him, to the time I got the loss inventory, and nothing had been done. I haven't heard from him since his response to my letter to all regarding missing inventory and insufficient data on the loss reports. I have now gone over a lot more of the loss report, and it's pretty clear who was and who wasn't doing their job well. I had ONE guy from the adjusters loss rep who was awesome. Really knew his stuff and I can see his work on the report because I know what rooms he did. Fabulous information.

I don't fault Chris at all. He got handed this when Peg got pulled off, and he apparently assumed that she had handled contents up to that point correctly. I don't think he knew that cleanables inventory had never been given to me, and probably didn't know it hadn't even been looked over.

That's the whole crap shoot in this. Every single company involved is like a box of chocolates. No idea what you are going to get.  A few amazing people, a lot amazing in a different way.

What's sad is that every single problem, I had anticipated. Warned about, suggested remedies and was completely ignored. Textiles didn't list their stuff by room, and they, electronics, and content all ignored my suggestion to make separate piles of loss vs. cleanables. They just tossed shit wherever, often on top of things that hadn't even been counted yet. When called out on that jackassery, all we heard was "oh that was counted" and we can see in the reports that usually, it was not.

I'ma get through this. Just finished printing 357 pages of loss, and it doesn't include most of the garage bonus room yet which is thousands more items. Time to start aging everything. What a grind. lol.

I just want to see the house emptied, and some construction people on site fixing things. I'm a ways away still. I suspect I'm going to be on the hook for at least a few months rent here. Is what it is for now. I'm trying to keep my outraged outbursts down to a minimum, this was only the 2nd one outside of just venting here. The first was Peg and that sure got sorted.  And it seems her ghost continues to haunt.

That is EXACTLY why I went ballistic and included the insurer in the conversation. So that they could start to think about their position on this considering all of the delays have been theirs, and I had been begging them for the first two months to please get the inventory going and done. And that there is STILL ongoing content delays which are wholly out of my hands.  Everyone is happy to wait until the SHTF but I want answers and resolutions now. Chris was pretty much resigned that it's just 12 months and that's it, no matter what. Yeah, that's not something I'm going to just "oh well" about.

Sounds like you and Chris need a (recorded) conference call  with your adjuster and demand that contents be redone my MFC’s people because their inventory is not complete.

I’m going to reiterate again the trouble I had dealing with every company involved with this process because they are all very comfortable and familiar with each other. The inventory company has a natural bias toward the insurance company because they throw work their way. Maybe it’s above board, but the results are pretty clear on your contents claim.

Oh, my sweet summer child…..  Do. Not. Rush. This. Process.

You should not be thinking anything about the house AT ALL until contents are settled. One has to be done before the other. And the money is in your contents.

My insurance company stepped over a whole lot (many thousands) of dollars picking up dimes…. They will gladly overpay in one area if it means doing things on their time. It sucks, just ride it out.

If they fail to pay your ALE past 12 month and the delays were theirs, you can sue them later I would imagine. I suspect that the only claims that don’t go over the 12 month mark are the ones that Restoration companies handle because they do a cradle to grave “service”. I also suspect most people don’t sue because they have a fat wad in their pocket and they feel ghetto rich-this is part of the scam where they pay you for contents early on and then you have money to complete your reconstruction despite the shortfall they cause wot low reconstruction estimates.

Enzo-my reconstruction didn’t start until 10 months after loss with ALE being exhausted at month 15. Was back in the house at month 17. Construction might have been a month or two shorter if State Farm had paid in a timely manner on contents-I was self-funding reconstruction for a bit there until contents money came along and it held construction up. There was also a huge delay of several months where the mortgage company sat on my money without releasing funds over a paperwork redo they wanted but not enough to tell me about. I figure between the slow payment from these two, I lost 3 months so the original 12 month ALE coverage would have been sufficient in my case had they not fucked around.

Had a thought-if the cleanables have been mixed up with all that other sooty garbage in the house, this might be your time to strike and have them declare the whole house’s worth of contents totaled. They have been sitting in an un-temerature controlled environment for a long time now and the mold and mildew will certainly be an issue as well as staining from being tossed on other contents. In my claim, time alone was enough to do it and the adjuster took it at my word-he only came to the house once. In fairness, most of it was trash, but it also could have been saved had they not dicked around on getting contents done in a timely manner.

I’m hoping that at a minimum you can get the inventory redone with MFC handing it.

What’s going on with the Proof of Loss statement? Are they being reasonable or talking about it at all? Expect them to limit loss by demanding it during inventory like they did with me.

Nobody has mentioned the proof of loss since it got waived early on.
Going through the 357 page, 8000 line loss items list is a trip. Half of my life of minutiae is in there. Remembering when I bought those mitts and bats to play ball with the boys. Things like that. Memories I might never have recalled if not for seeing them unearthed or on the list. Aging them forces you to at least think about when and how you got these things. Kinda neat really.

I'm getting a good feel for where the last loss team missed items. My whole side of the MB sink cabinets missing. Expensive straight razors, many $50 jars of Xpec and other shave creams, pricy badger shaving brushes. That shit adds up! Garage items I'm looking for like the 4' 3/4 drive torque wrench I use for my rear tire nut on the X, not on it. And it is toast. Haven't seen my kennedy boxes yet, and those contents should be a few pages on their own. So we're keeping track of what we KNOW is missing and we'll see what they have to say about all that. Obviously, if so many of the items I know should be there and are not, how many do I not remember that are missing? I may still find those things as I complete the line by line aging, but a good scan hasn't turned them up. They did do a good job on the basement for losses. That's the only area I am sure of so far and a lot of high value.

They're not going to loss my clean-ables. We've taken good care of the stuff we want to keep. House has been at 55 minimum all but the first 3 weeks, and dry. We've aired it out on every nice day. Boxed up a lot of the cleanables already, but they'll just have to unbox em and rebox them back up to count them. IDGAF, or repay us for boxing. Cleaned a lot of the cleanables and brought them to the rental. It's a clusterfuss.

I take heart though that I do have the receipts for all the delays, and my many unaddressed concerns documenting the delays. I imagine that will be enough for FB to get reasonable on extending ALE. As long as they're paying the rent, I don't care HOW long it takes for them to get their acts together and make my count right. Like they say in Louisiana, that's money dude! And I kinda like this house we're in. Certainly good enough to wait things out. Thanks for the advice.

On communicating, I've been radio silent since the last exchange. I am waiting for some kind of response addressing the issues from any of the parties notified, and the lack of it and delay in it is just more damning evidence that it's a poor job, adding delays, and I'm doing all my due dillies in requesting clarity and action.

Just posting to update

The proof of loss on contents is a royal PITA. 99% of my tools/equipment we're a total loss since it was in the garage. Trying to remember when purchased, how much, cumbersome and time consuming.
Like the example below, reimbursement is the same thing.
Regarding structure,  I have a binder with every receipt done on the house since purchase two years ago.
I thought this would have helped, because every paint code, brand of paint, tooling, window mfg, siding, tile, flooring, etc,  in a three ring binder.  
But no, and I'll give an example.
Vinyl siding, the ACV was evaluated at an 8/50 yr age with a depreciation of 16%.
It was purchased and installed on 7/2023, which is a "little" newer than 8 y/o.
I understand that we have a full replacement policy, and have been told it doesn't matter.
However, the initial distribution check is short on funds due to wrong depreciation values, and now need to, (after siding is replaced) submit receipts to get reimbursed for the difference.



The whole process is not streamlined to help the homeowner, don't even get me started on communication.
Regardless, and despite the aforementioned, the restoration company has the house empty, burned building materials removed, and basic interior cleaning done. I talked to my project mgr, and he hopes to get us back in before the middle of May. There is a lot of work that needs to be done yet, so we'll see. Did get the HVAC inspected, and it's being replaced. Initial rewiring figure is 25K, not the $3600 that insurance estimated.

Couple of progress pics, and do not believe we have the extent of damage TOD and Enzo have.

Kitchen/garage wall.


Wiring into house from panel:


Bedroom above garage/kitchen.

Yes-the whole process is designed to frustrate the insured-I don’t know if I ever mentioned it in either thread, but before I brought the PA in, State Farm wanted me to input everything I lost into a clunky-assed web portal that was about as unintuitive as could be designed in software. Even when we provided them with the excel spreadsheet we were lied to about not being able to open it for months and then they didn’t like the formatting….. as if a multi-billion dollar a year corporation doesn’t have anyone capable of opening a fucking Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or has any office nerd who can’t rearrange columns so they can cut and paste into their software….

Sorry about the depreciation on the new materials in your house, time to just take a bite of the shit sandwich. It won’t be worth suing over.

Thinking about it, you may have been smart to do the demolition yourself-that was a big chunk of the rebuild cost for the sheister restoration company’s quote and it avoided them claiming there was asbestos like they did me.

Any Updates guys? Give us some good news!

Bit of news from my fire- I requested a payout from GiveSendGo today for the money that ARFCOM and an ex-fiance sent me after I started these threads. It will be interesting to see how big of a bite they and their payment processor charge, but the total was a little over $2.5k donated from you guys.

It meant a lot then and it still does. I had been slow to request the funds because I wanted to make sure they went to something important and not just get lumped in with the 50,000 checks I wrote and purchases I made to get us back in the house and furnish it, money I reimbursed my wife for things she bought for the house etc. What I ended up deciding to do with the money is help pay the house off. With the dust settling on our contents, we had roughly 65K left in the bank after a large chunk went to rebuilding the house above and beyond what State Farm paid. I need $77k to do it, so I’ll just spend the rest out of my personal money (wife and I have separate finances) along with the money from ARFCOM to pay my house off and mostly close this chapter of my life. Things are definitely different now and my outlook on a lot of things has changed, mostly for the better. I have a clearer mental path to retirement-that came with a decluttering of my life and a harsh look at what was not worth replacing due to just having to get rid of it when I retire and move to my rural cabin.

Our house is pretty much fully furnished, basically we just need to set up a spare bedroom for the grandkids and to set up my shop-I’ve had 2 3D printers sitting in their boxes since Black Friday for lack of a place to put them, LOL. We just had our first gathering at the house this weekend, 3 couples and 2 kids came over for a turkey I smoked, and the weather was beautiful. It feels like things are finally turning around-my wife and I are still not 100% but it is getting better. The trailer a friend loaned us to store our sooty/nasty stuff is 90% empty, getting that back to him will be a huge relief to me and a load off my mind as every time I see it I think about house fires and fights with my wife over it.

I had mentioned my ammo stash and the potential for high losses earlier in the threads and have since gone thru and inventoried/dispositioned all of it. I would estimate that 10% of the centerfire ammo was corroded/damaged and roughly 30% of the rimfire ammo was lost. Now, when I say lost, I mean I wouldn’t put it thru any gun I cared about…. But I do have guns I don’t care about-especially after the fire. I have fired some of the clean rimfire ammo and it all went bang, we’ll see about the corroded stuff-there’s a lot of it, probably 12-13k rounds.

Almost back to normal.

Dang, what a long and arduous process. We're still pretty much where we were the day after the fire. The inventory is a joke. I haven't heard from anyone since I received the "loss" list to age. So much stuff not on there. So much stuff described absolutely vague when brand name, size, color, etc. was all clear to see. Still haven't heard what the plan is for the 8 or 9 rooms of cleanables that were left out of the inventory. I just don't even know where to go from here to get something close to an accurate inventory so I can get the shit out of the house and get someone working on it. This doesn't seem like it is going to end well at all. Nobody is answering any of the many questions I have put forth about inventory, the 12 months of rent, etc. I really don't want to get lawyers involved, but I'm not seeing a whole lot of other options.

I'm glad you didn't lose all of your ammo! And very happy to hear that your home life is getting back to where you want it to be. At the end of the day, it's just about happiness and trying to find that again. There are times when I miss my home pretty bad, and want to see it fixed and be living there again.

So the PA has gone incommunicado? Sounds like they are no longer representing you then, right? Might be time for a consumer protection lawyer if everyone is just blowing you off.

What would happen if you emailed your insurance adjuster and the PA and asked for a conference call a week out to sort these issues? That should give you a direction on where to go from here.

You know what’s funny (sort of) I was thinking about your fire yesterday when I was at my model airplane club. We started seeing black smoke to the south (it’s in your area) and I took off to go see what was happening. Turned out to be a garage fire and a total loss/burned to the ground. I can’t believe how many fires have happened in my area since I had mine. Maybe I just never paid attention, maybe it’s just dumb luck…. This shit is for real though.


ETA:detached garage

Lol. Yeah, having a fire is like buying a specific type of car. Until you have one, you didn't notice all the other ones around.

To try to summarize the whole current problem;
The electronics and contents people that the insurance company hired to itemize my belongings still have not submitted complete lists.
The hard surfaces people left out half of the rooms, the busiest ones, and electronics people have not given us a single thing yet.
We are 5 months in, and the PA is saying there is no way that my insurer will cover more than 12 months of ALE. 5 months and I STILL don't have an inventory, and I've got 7 left to verify a final inventory, pack it all out, and get someone to rebuild. PA says there is no compromise on that.

Now how the hell can they take at least 6 months of my 12 just to inventory contents, and leave me 6 to do ALL the rest of the work? How is that legal?
Yeah, I'm not sure what kind of lawyer I need, but it is getting pretty evident that I need one.

There are a handful of consumer protection attorneys in the area, I contacted one of them with the clothes cleaning assholes-they didn’t make their phone interview with me to even hear what I had to say, lol. I had relief from the AG around the same time so it wasn’t a big deal but that’s exactly the kind of attorney you would call.

I find it ironic, when your first going through this shit, both the insurance company and resto company, blows shit up your ass about having your back.They have cameras, clipboards and communication about how their here to help. It's all a load of shit.
I don't need patience, I need progress.
Insurance is trying to save a buck, resto is trying to spend every dime of it, and you're getting the no lube drilling treatment.

My first email from the restoration company on the structure side, asking me if I had my kitchen cabinet layout for the installers, who were the ones who removed them.


Now I'm no Einstein, but know there's an entire catalog of pictures of every aspect of this house. This is the first contact regarding structure to date, yet there is still more tear out that needs to be done
It does not instill much confidence from me with the restoration company. If I had to do this over again, I would be the GC, since I have to babysit all this shit.  Honestly, I could've had 65% of the work done already, and would be back into the house by now, if only I had tools.

The most annoying thing is not being next door to the folks. My dad and I knocked out mowing both properties with the push mowers last Tuesday, little did I know his knee "popped" that evening. Normally I'd mow everything with the John Deere, but that got cooked.
So I ended up buying an X350, mowed everything with the rider, which is now in Dad's garage. He's wobbling around with a knee the size of a cantaloupe, pending MRI results. We're finally managed to get a majority of the swelling down, so we'll see what we're dealing with.

I'm trying to be patient, picked up the fishing rod, and made some trips. All bandaids, and honestly all I want is to get back into my house.

The Mrs is holding up pretty good, it's a lot, but her patients is wearing thin as well. I'm about to release her on everyone, and believe me, it's not in their best interest if that happens.

I don't know what or who we pissed off, but 2024 hit us like a bullet. Started with the Mrs cancer scare, house fire, dog died, her vehicle, then my truck, and then Sunday, when arriving home to the rental, find the neighbors 40' pine tree fell across the front yard blocking the entrance of the house. I'm amazed it just knocked a gutter off the property, versus going right through the house. Crazy!
Not sure what's next, it's going to be interesting.
Regardless, I'm going to the property in WV. to get away from nothing being done. It's a weak attempt to get my mind off of this shit,

Anyhow, that's a slice of the BS, and know you're both familiar. I really don't like my mindset at the moment, so fuckin negative.
I know people have good intentions when trying to be supportive, but one really has no clue unless you have to deal with this shit personally.
We've been told how we'll be laughing about this in a year, how lucky we are to have a roof over our heads, how we're going to "make out" with the insurance company, blah blah blah. Most have no clue, though I have met a few that have gone though it, and you see it in them when they find out. They immediately posture, sigh, then say, "I'm so sorry", and that's just about all they have besides that deflated memory. I wish I didn't get it.

The coup de grâce, we get a check from the insurance company for structure. Since there's a mortgage, the bank is the third party. No big deal, we send the check off and we inform them we would like to deposit it into a money market. Their supposed to let us know, we take a trip
We get home from Nashville, and roll by the house to see nothing happening, but find laying on our porch, an envelope slid under the corner of the welcome mat. Bank sent us a check for forty thousand dollars, which is substantially less than the monies from the insurance company.
I deposited it into a MMA, and then inquired about the rest of the money. To date, the bank has not given me a valid answer regarding the remaining monies. I was there earlier today, and will be dealing with this BS today, while attempting to get away from this BS.

Leaving this on a somewhat positive note, the HVAC inspection (insurance approved a cleaning) will have it replaced, and the electrical estimate is complete. I believe the permit is done for electrical and the HVAC is pending.

Damn. It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on the level of suck of this whole thing. Some of the things you lay out really resonates with my own experience. No tools. That one for sure. My garage was full of tools and I used many of them a lot. Every time I have anything to do, the lack of tools despite owning shitloads of them is really frustrating. Storms have brought trees down, but no chainsaws. Grrrrrr...  

I have 700' of driveway to keep plowed and my quad with plow blade was under piles of burnt crap. I dug that sucker out, and for the 3 snows this year that required plowing, I was out there on the ash and fire retardant covered quad pushing it. I'm sure I looked post apocalyptic riding that poor thing but at least it worked.

I should get an HVAC guy out to inspect my furnace. They expect me to have it cleaned, but it was running during the fire and the inside of the ducts are just super nasty. A thick brown film on everything. The electronic filters I washed out at a car wash, and they were full of greasy black goo. If the furnace  needs to be replaced, I probably want to get that on the scope BEFORE the work starts.

Yeah, sitting around waiting on all the idiots in the process to finally do something is definitely one of the more frustrating parts of this. I'd love to just go somewhere else and enjoy the having nothing I can do, but with the delays threatening eventual homelessness in 6 months already, I want to make sure nobody can point a finger at me for the delays, and thus avoid the legal wrath I'm considering.

Good luck to us! lol.

Boy, a lot to unpack here on a cell phone at work-I’ll do my best but might have to come back to it later.

Yeah, it’s frustrating to have tons of people with clipboards and hard hats running around taking pictures and looking official amd then offering no accountability. It gets worse when you understand that the whole purpose of the exercise is to start generating Billables as soon as possible to get you on the hook in case you decide to bail like I did. Do you have a porta potty on your property yet? I paid for 3 months of that and I was the only person to ever use it.

You won’t see any of those people again. A construction supervisor will be assigned to you and you’ll start seeing crews of Mexicans come in to do the work. It will look like any other residential construction site from them on, with the added “structure” and cost of the project management side of the restoration company.

So, as I understand it, you have what you considered an acceptable, reasonable structure payment from the insurance company, the money was sent to your mortgage company, and you received a check for some of that money back, correct? That’s how it is supposed to work. The check they cut you should have been what was in excess for the amount owed on your mortgage. The mortgage company will send people out (you will have to stay on them about this) to inspect the construction in stages and they will pay out draws as project milestones are met. This could work in your favor because it acts as a firewall between you and the builder who has to keep moving to get paid. I did have a lot of trouble with my mortgage company in terms of document requests that cost me a few months of lost time, so stay on top of them if they aren’t sending money as expected.

As for putting the money you got in an MMA, I wouldn’t. When the time comes, you’ll be writing large checks so fast your head will spin-and many things you need in the house are going to be things you want to buy. Anything the resto assholes bring in will net them 18% typically, so you don’t want them buying your appliances, lighting, fixtures etc. you might even want to buy your own tile and paint so there aren’t color screw ups like we had. Keep your money loose, it won’t be around long enough to make you any appreciable interest-my wife and I fought like cats and dogs over this…. She thinks she invented the dollar and browbeat me to death over just having the money sitting in my bank, but it was only a month or two and it was gone in three months over three payments-and it was a lot more than you got refunded.

Yes, a huge part of the ball ache is having to deal with seat moisteners you are depending on to just do their fucking job to help you. They don’t answer to you, and being persistent just seems to slow them down. It’s worse when they are an affirmative action hire at a large company and you have to make repeated calls to get results.


You’re right-when it rains, it pours. Look at it this way, about the only thing worse that can happen to you now is that you kick the bucket and get off this ride! There were definitely days I wanted to suck start a 12 gage, but I had work to take my focus off of things for a few hours a day.

If you can get away, do it now. Once construction starts, you will need to be there every day to keep things from getting out of control in terms of bad work done on the house. That, and you will go thru periods where all of the parties you deal with will come at you with “we need this document signed in X days or we are going to fuck you over” threat.

It’s gonna get worse. Take the time away, get your head right. Find a hobby, or join a few clubs that have monthly meetings. Take up bowling-anything to get you out of your routine.

Since you didn’t go with a PA, I’m going to strongly reiterate that you need to watch the resto company like a Hawk and know your consumer protection laws. Keep you contract copies in a safe place-you’re going to get properly Rogered by these people, it’s just a question of degree.

I’m surprised that the HVAC in your house wasn’t just scrapped out of hand in the estimate…. It ran for hours after the fire recirculating that smoke.


If I had a dollar for every time I have though “no problem, I can fix that” after my fire and then realized I I lost what I needed to fix something, I’d be living in Mar A Lago. Problems don’t stop when you have a fire, you still need to fix cars, wife still comes to you with honey do’s, it’s fucked up.

Aw heck, your post just reminded me that the Mrs. summer tires are in the garage, and need getting put on.
They were in plastic bags, on the concrete floor under the boat. I'm hoping they're not compromised and I can get a summer out of them but I definitely will be replacing those once we get inventory resolved. I did find my brand new bulldog paddock. I KNOW I'll be needing that this summer. Oh, and that 4' long 3/4" drive torque wrench I need for the back tire? Yeah, they missed it on the inventory just like I thought they did. Azzholes every one.

I would think that now is the time for an attorney. If you have demanded a re-inventory and they are refusing, you have a right to ensure a proper inventory to be compensated properly.
I would tell MFC and the adjuster that you are giving them one week to decide on who (not the original inventory company) is going to to the job or you are getting an attorney on it.

I feel like they are going to try throwing money at you and hoping you are happy. Get ahead of it.

ETA: it’s one thing to contest contents on rooms that are Destroyed And Out Of Sight, it’s another to have the items physically in hand and not have them present in the inventory. This is a failure on your insurance company’s part if they specified who does the inventory. You really want MFC to do it.

And sooner than later-hold construction up until you get a satisfactory contents list. It’s the only power you have in your claim.

Just getting back from huntcamp, I needed a break from this shit.
Was good getting out with the fellas, put some miles on the machines, and get caught up on some work that needed to be done.

Zero done on the house while gone, not out of the ordinary, however I do believe progress is coming. The electrical contractor's a friend of mine, and he received the call to rewire.

Glad you were able o get away for a bit-we spent a lot more time at our cabin during the time we were staying with her son and getting the house rebuilt than normal. Just being in your own space, even if only for a night or so an be worth the $100 in gas to get there.


My experience in the rebuild portion was that things would move very quickly and then stop for a day or three depending on how busy the crews were with other work, weather, timing on payments etc. Anytime they were there, shit got done in a day, maybe 2-3 depending on how big the job was. Sanding and painting were probably the longest along with framing, I think both took 3 days each.

Hang in there man, things are starting to move for you. Everyone told me that I’d be having a laugh about it after it was all done and behind me, I’m still not there yet-the whole experience just sucked the life out of me and I don’t envy you and Enzo one bit.

ETA: If zero got done on the house, then it will make leaving the next time you need a break just that much easier.

Enzo, I can't even imagine that level of absolute fuckin frustration, I'm so sorry you have to deal with that bullshit. It's amazing the stones on these people/companies, zero compassion and it's obvious 99% of them haven't dealt with a personal loss like this.
It's staggering the content items that pop in your head out of nowhere, I already have three more pages of shit that hit me when looking at construction photos. Trying to date some of this shit is almost impossible. I haven't opened the spreadsheet recently, last time I looked we we're over 12,000 line items.

Try to leave on a positive...
Temp power drop did get done yesterday, as stated my electrical contractor is awesome.
Mrs starts a new job tomorrow, JD mower is great, and saves me worrying about dad using his push mower on 3/4 acre.
Dad's knee has taken very well to treatment, and he's moving great again. For 85, he's doing pretty damn good, and he makes keeping an eye on mom, for the moment, effortless.

NBT-I’m glad your dad is doing ok and that you can help him. At the end of the day, a house is just a box to keep your shot dry so you can sleep with it and not worry about your stuff getting ruined..kinda small peanuts in the scheme of family and health.

It’s easy for the people you interact with after a fire to be flippant and nonchalant - if they aren’t salivating over how they are about to victimize you further, this is just a day job for them and you’r just a sad sack story like the guy yesterday was and the guy tomorrow will be…

Who did you inventory, the insurance company’s contents subcontractor?

Permits…. Waiting on permits…. Yeah, that’s a thing, especially if your city/township/village has part time people for that who work at other municipalities on different days of the week. You definitely want to make sure the builder and his subs are pulling permits-I had to get one for plumbing and electrical a couple of days before inspection because the builder left it to the subs and they finished the job and then fucked off to Poland on vacation.

A big challenge for you and Enzo will be to not spend more than you need to in refitting your lifestyle because of your age. You’ll need a critical eye to not end up with a house full of stufff you don’t use much and bought again “because we had it before the fire”…. I’m 11 years from retirement and won’t be able to take most of what is in the house with me to my rural cabin, so everything I buy is scrutinized that way. That, and I’m getting to an age where I don’t want to lay on cold concrete in December and work on cars-do I really need all my old tools back?

I already know what the argument for your $500 electric bill is: “this is an industry established amount for emergency services”… all I can tell you is that it’s easier to question that and fight it sooner than later after the job is done and billed. This is YOUR money they are spending, you get a say so.

NBT-thanks for mentioning the construction photos. I was able to identify a lot of items from old-old photos that were just laying around in rooms, some from a previous residence that I still owned but were in an end table shelf that was a total loss etc. This would have been worth many tens of thousands of dollars to me as the garage is the most expensive room in the house and I was already at double my contents limit in inventory before we even started on that and the other room that was “destroyed and out of sight”.

Oh yeah, I do mental gymnastics over that stuff daily. Yesterday I found my 18" Starrett vernier height gage. Whoever did my toolbox threw it on the floor. Big rust blooms on the ways, heartbreaking. Not that I will ever really need a vernier height gage for anything again, but you know what I'm saying.
Other things, like compound miter saws? That's tough. Priceless when doing molding work, etc. but how much more of that stuff will I ever do? Taking the heavy DCV discount to not have to lug it to the next place is a tough and bitter pill.

This would all be a lot easier if the plan was still to move to Italy. F it all, off to new adventures and all. But if I gotta sit around this legacy property the next 25 years just waiting to die, then I definitely want more of my former life back. All I was going to need where I was going was a motorcycle, a zodiac, and a spear gun. phuck.

Oh-I forgot to mention: I don’t have answers yet, but my tax guy is going to look into what I can claim from my losses. I know there was a change in law just prior to my fire and thought I was SOL for being able to claim on my taxes, but he seems adamant that I should be able to go after some of my lost money. He’s dealing with a loss in the family, so it might be a bit before I find out but I wanted to let you guys know so you can discuss it and potentially amend your filings.

You don't leave any bases uncovered! Yeah, I already talked to my tax guy about it. When they passed the new high standard deduction ($29,200 for married 2024) they kinda screwed folks with big losses. You can still claim them, but now you will have to itemize your deductions and you will only benefit from the amount over the $29,200. The basis of loss is also problematic. Your insurance company has ostensibly compensated you for the current value of items (ACV) and you therefore have no loss on those items.

YOU may be in a different boat, because you maxed your coverage and so by definition had losses exceeding coverage, but again, benefit will only apply if you have enough over the $29200 automatic deduction to justify the cost and time to fully document the losses you are claiming. As I didn't max (so far as I know), there is nothing there for me.

Of your numbers are correct, I could claim $155k in uncovered loss on contents, maybe another 40k in structure…

Damn. Sorry, man. That's a LOT of actual loss.
That's almost $170K over the standard deduction. If you have any capital gains in securities, etc., this might be the year to "realize" them, effectively "paying" the taxes on them with loss and resetting your tax liability on them to zero. Not sure how long loss carry forward works anymore. You used to be able to carry them forward and apply them to gains for up to 5 years. I stopped reading my tax returns long ago.

Thanks, Dad is doing much better, and no tear, damn arthritis. Double strength Voltaren has helped a lot.

Yep, your 100% correct, you have been since we talked. You just get hit from both angles, everyone just trying to get every penny out of you.
The zero communication is maddening, is it really that unreasonable to get a progress report, maybe once a month? Not returning an email or phone call is horseshit, I've already been told an email went to spam.
I know, we have the answer to all that.
Funny, I don't recall anyone paying /waiving my premiums the past 40 years. 30 of those years I was in FL, and until the fire, never used insurance, despite having an opportunity to do so. I find it ironic the employees of these companies, act like it's coming out of their pockets.

Enzo, the pics we have saved our ass regarding contents. Structure I have every receipt since the day we purchased Now the Mrs and I are (probably) in a completely different position than you two. We both divorced after 24yrs/me & 30yrs/ her, and started over. I'm on the third house up here since 2016, and flipped a few houses in FL, so I've kept things pretty simple, and mobile. I actually should have been better prepared, and got complacent, since moving away from hurricane country.
The jump bag was a huge asset, and the new one will have a thumb drive with everything on it after this. (Should've been there already)

Trying not to duplicate contents is interesting, and I will not be replacing a lot of acquired tools. I'm not working/racing/ maintaining vehicles anymore, so that's a lot there. Will be keeping it simple for sure.

I had a reply typed up earlier, and one wrong swipe on this tablet, page refreshed, gone.

Anyhow, it's a brief update. Hanging in there.

I hope that both of your losses are less of a ball-ache than mine, but for both of your mental well-being I would recommend finding some way to both be vigilant and “go with the flow” at the same time. My ordeal was 16 months and I’m still chasing after the builder for little things, I doubt either of you will be done sooner than that-especially Enzo based on how things have gone so far. Sometimes life hands you a big shit sandwich, grabs you by the hand and takes you places you don’t want to go for longer than you wanted to be there…. It will get better, just not on your time schedules or to your sensibilities….

I’ve been thinking all weekend about how to reply to the last post because I can feel what you are going thru and going back to how it went for me… When my fire happened, we were getting ballpark ideas of how long it would be to get our life back and I (knowingly) threw out “a year?” At the restoration company to set the expectation and I got a “ehhhhhrr”, so to me that meant more than a year and a month for sure, and probably more than a year and a month or two.. That turned out to be mostly accurate, but my mortgage company and SF dicked me over with delays handing me money they knew they had to.

I know it’s hard and easy to say when looking from the outside, but to some degree you guys are just going to have to take the ride-believe me, I had to go thru it. Life will not be like it was before. But, it is both better and worse, and being honest about it I don’t find myself pining for my pre-life fire at all now. I do miss some of the possessions I lost, but my life is simpler now and having a paid off house with the contents money feels a lot better than a house full of shit I wasn’t really playing with anyway.


What I experienced was about 8 months of run around and bullshit before things broke loose and all parties did the best they could to protect themselves. Once that happened, things moved pretty quickly and it was a lot less painful to deal with as progress could pretty much be seen daily.

Find distractions, find a way to compartmentalize the loss until those moments you have to deal with it. At your ages, you don’t have a year and a half to throw away to misery and unhappiness.

ETA: you might get your dad’s testosterone checked. My arthritis goes from an 8-9 out of 10 to about a 1.5 when I am current on my dose. 40% of men over 40 have low T….. it might not stop the arthritis from being present or stop the disease from getting worse, but it will control the joint swelling that goes along with it and that’s worth a lot to me.