Let the Remediation Begin

We are very happy that the toxic black mold in our basement has not affected our air quality throughout the house. However, we don't want it to get to the point where the air quality is affected. For those that know me, I am an "act now" kind of person. If I could have had the company there yesterday to fix this situation, I would have. So, I spent roughly 3 hours on the phone Friday with our insurance company in order to see if they would be able to help us with the cost of the remediation. On a side note, the cost of this remediation is 2 1/2 times more than we had originally thought! I don't even want to think how much it would have been to wipe down every surface in our house and hepa vacuum our furniture, beds, etc. I am getting sick just thinking about it. Do you see why I want this taken care of now?!!

So, back to the insurance company. They offered me absolutely now help at all! My original call to the service center to make the claim was quite pleasant. The gentleman that I spoke with was quite concerned and sent me to the "Rush Department" to see if they could get an adjuster out yesterday. After 2 hours filled with frustration and being transferred here and there, the manager of the "home" department told me that I was basically getting all upset for nothing. To him, our situation didn't seem to be considered "dire." I told him that I thought he would feel quite differently if it were his house and he had two small children there. He told me he dealt with mold everyday and I then asked if he dealt with BLACK, TOXIC mold everyday and he went a different way with the conversation. The call ended with him telling me an adjuster would be in contact with me within 48 business hours and that the insurance company would not be able to help us because our coverage doesn't include that kind of water damage. Seriously!

I then took it upon myself (with Dustin being in agreement with me) to call and make an appointment to get this stuff out of our house. The very nice lady at the mold company, has become my best friend in the past week and a half, said that it was a good thing that I called because they had a cancellation and that we are on the books for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of next week. Whew!!! I asked her if this mold would just be contained and really never go away and her response was that the mold would be gone and should not come back as long as we fixed the down spouts from our gutters and make sure that rain or any kind of water doesn't leak into the foundation back there. Thank you Lord! This was a relief that I can't even begin to explain.

Because I am me and I freak out about everything (which is something I am not proud of and am currently trying to change!) I have convinced Dustin that we should not be staying at the house until after the remediation is done. I don't want to take any chances with the boys. So, right now I am typing this post from my parents living room where we are currently staying. We are going to go back and forth between both our parents houses this next week. Thank God our parents love us (they probably just love their grandsons and are allowing us to come along because we are the parents of their precious grandsons) and that they live nearby.

For now, we are all living out of suitcases for roughly the next week, but in the end it will all be worth it. Dustin and I were talking that after all of this we are going to have a nice and cleaned out basement. (We have to remove everything before they start the remediation process.) It feels good to get rid of all the stuff piling up down there. It sure is an expensive way to go about it though!

Have a blessed Sunday.