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xiphiasLast night was perhaps a little bit more exciting than I tend to prefer.
Lis dropped me off at homeat about seven thirty or so, and went to the library. I smelled gas.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merkcomet, who had come home maybe ten minutes before, came up the stairs and asked me if I smelled something funny, and I agreed that I smelled gas. We checked out the basement, and found that all the pilot lights on everything were just fine.
Lis came home maybe around eight or so, and asked if we smelled gas. We acknowleged that we did, and Lis, being smarter than we are, asked if we'd called the gas company. So we called the gas company, and about half an hour later, a guy showed up to see if there was a gas leak. He had his little gas leak detector with him, and checked stuff out, but didn't find anything. He checked out the stove in Dave's kitchen, turned the stove on and off again, and the pilot lights all worked there. And we went back to the basement. Dave at this point had long before gone upstairs to the third floor to hang out withmarquisedea and her mother.
I went back upstairs to the first floor from the basement, and wondered why Dave had started a fire in the fireplace, because I could smell and hear it, and see the flickering lights of fire through the door. Then I realized that 1) Dave wasn't in the apartment, 2) Dave wouldn't start a fire in the fireplace when there was a gas leak, and 3) we don't HAVE a working fireplace. I opened the door, and the kitchen was on fire.
I ran upstairs and yelled to Lis to call 911, and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen. The guy from the gas company was also yelling to call the fire department. I sprayed the kitchen with the extinguisher, which knocked the flames back a little bit, Lis called the fire department, grabbed the cat, and headed out the door, and about this time, the smoke detectors went off.
Just so as not to keep anybody in too much suspense: all humans who live in the house are entirely fine. All felines who live in the house are entirely fine -- well, at least, as fine as they were before the fire. I can't say anything about squirrels, birds, or mice, but those aren't my problem.
Everyone in the house got out, and the fire department showed up in like two minutes flat. They knocked out a window in the first floor kitchen, got the fire out, and ripped out the wall to make sure that there wasn't any sneaky fire behind it. They also went upstairs into our apartment and ripped a hole in our bedroom wall to make sure that there wasn't a fire creeping up the walls.
A neighbor who owns a boardup service came by and told us a bit about what to expect: we should expect a horde of people to descend on us trying to get us to hire them -- boardup people like him, private insurance agents (who are people who negotiate with the insurance companies on your behalf) and the like. The horde wasn't so bad -- just him, one of his friends, and another private agent who really set off my "sleazeball" detectors. I like Andy and the non-sleazy private insurance agent -- partially because they ran interference and kept talking to the sleazeball, and kept him away from Lis and me.
The damage that I have seen so far: the first floor kitchen is an ex-kitchen. There is soot damage all over the first floor. Our floor, the second floor, smells like smoke and has a big hole ripped in the bedroom wall, but looks, for the moment, mostly otherwise okay. (Of course, I don't know that for certain -- there could be stuff I've just not noticed. But it doesn't look that bad, anyway. However, I'd hate to discover something damaged, and have the insurance company say something like ,"But you said on your Livejournal that everything looked fine." ) The third floor smells a bit like smoke, but less than our floor. The Health Department will be coming by today sometime and figuring out whether it's healthy to live in, or if stuff has to be done.
So far: Met Life has been around, and is being very helpful in trying to get things running again.
Anna andmarquisedea are probably just going to be able to go right back into their apartment with no problems: if ServiceMaster comes in, deoderizes the place with ozone, and that takes care of everything, then their life won't be disrupted any further.
Because we've got good homeowner's insurance, Met Life will do huge amounts of stuff for us to get Lis and my lives back together: they're paying to have all our clothes and linens washed and dry-cleaned, for instance, besides cleaning the whole place.
(For the record: I did NOT plan this. I KNOW I've been complaining about having to do Pesach cleaning, and I AM happy that the insurance company is, effectively, doing our Pesach cleaning for us, but it is not deliberate.)
merkcomet is in the worst shape, basically. First, it's his kitchen which melted. So he's the one without a kitchen. And all his personal stuff has smoke damage which our insurance WON'T pay for, because it's HIS stuff. Technically, people are supposed to have renter's insurance for things like this, but, let's face it, if Dave could afford insurance, he'd have gotten HEALTH insturance first. . .
But, even so, his situation isn't all that dire. To start with, all the furniture he uses is actually ours. His bed is the one that Great-Aunt Debbie left to us when she died, and therefore, since it's OURS, it IS going to be covered by insurance. Similarly, the sofas, coffee table, and so forth -- all the furniture that he uses that's nice is actually ours, and will stay with the apartment when he gets his own place someday, and therefore, is covered by the insurance.
We are covered for "loss of rent" and for "loss of use". Which means, if we can't rent Dave's place to Dave for a couple months -- and, let's face it, we really can't -- the insurance company will pay us for Dave's rent. Which means that Dave doesn't have to -- he can keep that money and use it for some other purpose -- if he lives with his parents, or with Anna for two months, he can use that two months' rent that he DOESN'T have to pay us to do the bits of the cleanup that our insurance won't cover.
It also means, if the health department decides that we'd be better off not being here for a couple months, we can figure out what the fair market value of OUR apartment is, and the insurance company will pay us that much money for a couple months, which we can use to find somewhere else to live short-term while our place is being fixed up.
And, as the insurance agent says, if the place we find to live is my parents' house, that's none of their business, and we would still get the money.
So: folks that have dropped by today:
1. The Melrose building inspector. Noted that we DO have fire alarms and enough fire exits. Yay us.
2. Neil from Met Life. Called lots of other people to get them to come by and look at stuff.
3. Andy from North Shore Emergency Board-Up. Gonna board up that window.
4. Val from Val's Dry Cleaning, Specializing in Fire and Water Damage.
5. Juan from ServiceMaster, Specializing in Fire and Water Damage.
Juan will by by tomorrow with a full crew fixing stuff up. Val will be by tomorrow to pick up clothes to wash and dry clean. I should point out the loose buttons that Lis wanted me to fix, and have HIM do them.
Life isn't bad.
Lis dropped me off at homeat about seven thirty or so, and went to the library. I smelled gas.
merkcomet, who had come home maybe ten minutes before, came up the stairs and asked me if I smelled something funny, and I agreed that I smelled gas. We checked out the basement, and found that all the pilot lights on everything were just fine.Lis came home maybe around eight or so, and asked if we smelled gas. We acknowleged that we did, and Lis, being smarter than we are, asked if we'd called the gas company. So we called the gas company, and about half an hour later, a guy showed up to see if there was a gas leak. He had his little gas leak detector with him, and checked stuff out, but didn't find anything. He checked out the stove in Dave's kitchen, turned the stove on and off again, and the pilot lights all worked there. And we went back to the basement. Dave at this point had long before gone upstairs to the third floor to hang out with
marquisedea and her mother.I went back upstairs to the first floor from the basement, and wondered why Dave had started a fire in the fireplace, because I could smell and hear it, and see the flickering lights of fire through the door. Then I realized that 1) Dave wasn't in the apartment, 2) Dave wouldn't start a fire in the fireplace when there was a gas leak, and 3) we don't HAVE a working fireplace. I opened the door, and the kitchen was on fire.
I ran upstairs and yelled to Lis to call 911, and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen. The guy from the gas company was also yelling to call the fire department. I sprayed the kitchen with the extinguisher, which knocked the flames back a little bit, Lis called the fire department, grabbed the cat, and headed out the door, and about this time, the smoke detectors went off.
Just so as not to keep anybody in too much suspense: all humans who live in the house are entirely fine. All felines who live in the house are entirely fine -- well, at least, as fine as they were before the fire. I can't say anything about squirrels, birds, or mice, but those aren't my problem.
Everyone in the house got out, and the fire department showed up in like two minutes flat. They knocked out a window in the first floor kitchen, got the fire out, and ripped out the wall to make sure that there wasn't any sneaky fire behind it. They also went upstairs into our apartment and ripped a hole in our bedroom wall to make sure that there wasn't a fire creeping up the walls.
A neighbor who owns a boardup service came by and told us a bit about what to expect: we should expect a horde of people to descend on us trying to get us to hire them -- boardup people like him, private insurance agents (who are people who negotiate with the insurance companies on your behalf) and the like. The horde wasn't so bad -- just him, one of his friends, and another private agent who really set off my "sleazeball" detectors. I like Andy and the non-sleazy private insurance agent -- partially because they ran interference and kept talking to the sleazeball, and kept him away from Lis and me.
The damage that I have seen so far: the first floor kitchen is an ex-kitchen. There is soot damage all over the first floor. Our floor, the second floor, smells like smoke and has a big hole ripped in the bedroom wall, but looks, for the moment, mostly otherwise okay. (Of course, I don't know that for certain -- there could be stuff I've just not noticed. But it doesn't look that bad, anyway. However, I'd hate to discover something damaged, and have the insurance company say something like ,"But you said on your Livejournal that everything looked fine." ) The third floor smells a bit like smoke, but less than our floor. The Health Department will be coming by today sometime and figuring out whether it's healthy to live in, or if stuff has to be done.
So far: Met Life has been around, and is being very helpful in trying to get things running again.
Anna and
marquisedea are probably just going to be able to go right back into their apartment with no problems: if ServiceMaster comes in, deoderizes the place with ozone, and that takes care of everything, then their life won't be disrupted any further.Because we've got good homeowner's insurance, Met Life will do huge amounts of stuff for us to get Lis and my lives back together: they're paying to have all our clothes and linens washed and dry-cleaned, for instance, besides cleaning the whole place.
(For the record: I did NOT plan this. I KNOW I've been complaining about having to do Pesach cleaning, and I AM happy that the insurance company is, effectively, doing our Pesach cleaning for us, but it is not deliberate.)
merkcomet is in the worst shape, basically. First, it's his kitchen which melted. So he's the one without a kitchen. And all his personal stuff has smoke damage which our insurance WON'T pay for, because it's HIS stuff. Technically, people are supposed to have renter's insurance for things like this, but, let's face it, if Dave could afford insurance, he'd have gotten HEALTH insturance first. . .But, even so, his situation isn't all that dire. To start with, all the furniture he uses is actually ours. His bed is the one that Great-Aunt Debbie left to us when she died, and therefore, since it's OURS, it IS going to be covered by insurance. Similarly, the sofas, coffee table, and so forth -- all the furniture that he uses that's nice is actually ours, and will stay with the apartment when he gets his own place someday, and therefore, is covered by the insurance.
We are covered for "loss of rent" and for "loss of use". Which means, if we can't rent Dave's place to Dave for a couple months -- and, let's face it, we really can't -- the insurance company will pay us for Dave's rent. Which means that Dave doesn't have to -- he can keep that money and use it for some other purpose -- if he lives with his parents, or with Anna for two months, he can use that two months' rent that he DOESN'T have to pay us to do the bits of the cleanup that our insurance won't cover.
It also means, if the health department decides that we'd be better off not being here for a couple months, we can figure out what the fair market value of OUR apartment is, and the insurance company will pay us that much money for a couple months, which we can use to find somewhere else to live short-term while our place is being fixed up.
And, as the insurance agent says, if the place we find to live is my parents' house, that's none of their business, and we would still get the money.
So: folks that have dropped by today:
1. The Melrose building inspector. Noted that we DO have fire alarms and enough fire exits. Yay us.
2. Neil from Met Life. Called lots of other people to get them to come by and look at stuff.
3. Andy from North Shore Emergency Board-Up. Gonna board up that window.
4. Val from Val's Dry Cleaning, Specializing in Fire and Water Damage.
5. Juan from ServiceMaster, Specializing in Fire and Water Damage.
Juan will by by tomorrow with a full crew fixing stuff up. Val will be by tomorrow to pick up clothes to wash and dry clean. I should point out the loose buttons that Lis wanted me to fix, and have HIM do them.
Life isn't bad.
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Yikes!!!
Date: 2005-04-15 05:25 pm (UTC)I'm glad all of you are okay and I'm giong to send you good thoughts.