Flood Damage And More

I have to admit that it is still very difficult for me not to think about the damage done, or that could be done again to my house in the future, because of the big rainstorm that took place here. It just seems that storms are getting so much bigger these days and happening more often and in so many places. By that I mean not just at my house, but at anyone's home in my area and in other areas of the region.  Just so you know, dear reader, I was told recently that we have never had such a bad storm in the place I moved to that anyone can ever remember. Now we have!

What I am really talking about is some kind of event that happens because of Mother Nature causing a problem which is outside of anyone's control. As I am sure you understand, I just went through a relatively minor flooding incident in my home and suffered some damage. In my case, the amount of water that entered into my basement was relatively low. It was a maximum of about 4 inches. Yet even this relatively small amount of water can cause a huge amount of damage as happened in other nearby  residences.

Moreover, my cost to repair this damage was relatively small compared with the cost to replace the damage in many other homes in this area where their basements were completely furnished and their costs to fix it up were in the many tens of thousands of dollars.

My basement was not completed and furnished as so many of the basements in other premises were. Therefore, that is why residents will have to spend so much more money to repair their basement, recover damage costs and then re-furnish it. I hope for their sake that their insurance policy covered these losses because many policies these days have a very limited insurance coverage where the total amount payable in damages is very low. Costs can be very high, as an example, just thinking about the cost to replace a few pieces of furniture only nevermind the additional cost to repair a floor.

I am writing this article because of a story that I saw in the Windsor Star. Here is what was said about the damages suffered that is just so horrific to think about:

"Swamped homes, stalled vehicles and soaked industrial properties affected by September’s flooding in Windsor and Tecumseh resulted in almost $108 million worth of damage, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

The IBC confirmed Wednesday more than 6,000 claims — for home, auto and business — were filed with insurers after record levels of rain ruined hundreds of basements in Windsor and Tecumseh." (Dan Taekema, Windsor Star, November 2, 2016)

If you do the math, you will see that the average claim is $18,000! Mine was substantially lower and others I know are substantially higher.

I have no idea how much of this is split between Windsor and Tecumseh. All that I know from walking around in my area in Tecumseh is how many homes here had huge piles of damaged materials waiting to be collected by the garbage trucks. Undoubtedly, this was the material removed because of the water damage to the house.

There is no doubt in my mind from talking to people that even the relatively small amount of flooding in a basement caused huge amounts of damage to the flooring and furniture there that necessitated immediate replacement. Everything that was all thrown out was done so quickly right after the flooding so that further damage could not go on and so that repairs could be started right away.  Just to give you a recent example that I knew about, one person that I talked to very recently before the storm had told me that the cost to make his basement quite livable and to furnish it as desired when it was done a number of years ago was close to $100,000!

To be honest, I think that the various local Governments need to meet with their residents to discuss what action needs to be taken if something like this ever happens again. Notwithstanding this kind of flooding has not happened before, no one can claim that it will never happen again for many years. The suspicion is being circulated that our weather conditions are changing rather dramatically.

I believe that Government meetings should take place sooner rather than later so the local Governments can also talk to its residents about what really happened and why there was so much flooding and damage. If there were faults, what were they and what is being done to make sure that they never happen again.  Future actions for dealing with these claims need to be discussed and also what needs to be done now to deal with future claims similar to these. More importantly, what needs to be done to  prevent them happening  again.  Everyone needs to agree with what needs to be done.

The actions that need to be taken at those meetings I think depend as well on what the Insurance Companies may decide to do with respect to any future similar claims. Will the Insurers, because of the huge claims, delete this kind of coverage from residential insurance policies and if so, for how many years? Alternatively, will they just put a limit on how much can be claimed under the policies and if so, how much will that amount be? Will the premiums stay the same or will they increase and if so by how much and for how many years?  I would think that the Governments will not act until they find out what the Insurers will do first.

There are many things that need to be resolved as quickly as possible. I don't intend talking about it in this article because frankly, I don't know what they all are. If there are Council/citizen meetings set up in Tecumseh to discuss what happened, I expect that my wife and I will attend to find out what is going on here and what may happen and then what needs to be done. As far as I am concerned, I believe that it must happen as soon as possible and not ignore it and not talk about it at all as seems to be happening now. 

I just have a feeling that our weather will be changing rather dramatically for whatever reason and that such a change will impact people the way it has never impacted us before. In my opinion, we need to decide quickly what we need to do to minimize or even to prevent damage such as the damage that just impacted so many people so badly from happening here again.

The Border File Again [SIGH]

It seems almost like an eternity. That is the time that I have put off writing for my Blogsite because of the horrific tragedy that we had in Tecumseh as a result of the giant rainstorm and the flooding of homes that we had here just a little while ago.

I have to admit as I have said before that this tragedy that happened to me and my wife was the first time that this has happened to us ever in the past. It meant that everything just stopped. It had to. To be realistic, I could not do anything else until all of the problems in the house caused by the flooding were solved. Not only completely but properly as well. Thank heavens though, through the actions of people acting for us--both our family and friend and representatives of the insurance company--that this was accomplished properly and very quickly as well.  We are pretty much back now to where we were before almost without realizing that anything bad had happened to us. How fortunate that has been.

I really did not write anything significant on my Blogsite for quite a period of time, other than stories about the storm itself, because of the mess under which my family was living.  That was just the reality. However, now that normalcy is coming back, I have taken it upon myself to go back to writing articles on my Blogsite again. This function really is that important to me because it makes me do some work to keep my mind operating. 

It was my intention to make this article go back and check out some of the interesting stories that had taken place over the last few weeks and then to write about them. I still hope that is going to get done soon. However, I decided that I would write about this story because it was so bizarre to me:

"Behind the Bridge: Clock ticking on the new Windsor-Detroit crossing

Anne Jarvis, Windsor Star October 28, 2016"

It was a very long story that she wrote, very detailed as well. It just went on and on and on and on. I must admit that I only saw it online and on the pages of the Internet Windsor Star. I just assumed that it could be a good part of a complete page in the normal Star on the Friday when it was published.  It was just such a huge story that she wrote.  Unfortunately, I don't know where it was published in the newspaper and how much space it took up. Oh well, that was just a mere journalistic issue I was looking at discovering.

I read it. The whole story by Anne. I read it again just before I published this story so that I could remember it. It was a very well-written article with lots of information. Primarily about the past. Unfortunately, it really did not tell us very much about the future. All it did do was make it clear that everything was still in the middle of a mess as far as new construction went in our area. It made it clear that the starting of the construction of the Government bridge hasn't really happened yet and who knows when it may get started or even if it ever gets started.

To be frank about it, I really have no intention of going through her article in detail and commenting on it all. Why bother since it is really historical in some aspects and in others just setting out what the issues are that have to be dealt with now. Unfortunately for her, she is in no position to say exactly what should be expected because frankly nobody knows.

It is not just a mess in the Windsor area as far as border crossings. It is just as bad in the Niagara area. What is even more interesting is that no one is suggesting that a new bridge be built as was proposed at one time in the past. Here is the latest verbiage there about some difficulties that they are having and what they are proposing to solve them:

"Wait times at Canada’s second-busiest border crossing can stretch to hours, according to mayors and bridge authorities in Ontario’s Niagara Region who are pleading with Ottawa to boost staffing levels to ease the congestion, especially as the busy Peace Bridge prepares to reduce its operating lanes next month.

The Peace Bridge between Fort Erie, Ont., and Buffalo is one of three border crossings in the Niagara Region where wait times skyrocketed this summer. Some travellers waited for more than two hours to cross the Peace, Rainbow and Lewiston-Queenston Bridges while processing booths sat empty, bridge authorities said. The long wait times are a far cry from the Canada Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) service standard: 10 minutes from Monday to Thursday, and 20 minutes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and holidays.

“The fact is people can wait for hours – plural – in line to cross the bridge. These are people that are hungry, they have to go to the bathroom, they’ve got screaming kids and they just want to get in,” said Jim Diodati, mayor of Niagara Falls, Ont. “We need them [the federal government] to hire more border guards. That’s all there is to it...

Niagara-area mayors on both sides of the border asked the government to immediately address the situation by hiring more CBSA officers to work at the bridges.

“We implore you and the federal government to act immediately to allocate the necessary human resources to the international bridges along the Niagara River to ensure the safe and timely movement of people and goods across our border,” the letter read. “This is a situation that can no longer be ignored and one that our communities should no longer be expected to endure.” (Michelle Zilio, Globe and Mail, Oct. 26, 2016)

Isn't that rather interesting? No discussion about a new bridge being built there but just staffing up the existing bridge. Doesn't that suggest to you as well, dear reader, that the new bridge is not going to be built by the Government in our area considering this comment in the Jarvis article:

"the number of trucks crossing the Ambassador Bridge dropped almost 30 per cent in the last decade, following the recession and the shift in manufacturing to the south"

Seriously, can anyone invest billions in a new Government bridge that might cost $4 billion to build and still compete against the Ambassador Bridge? Don't be silly.

So let's get back to reality and figure out what's going to happen. Forget about a new bridge to be built by the Government. If that process goes on, it will be in front of litigation in both Canada and the United States for at least a decade or more. Even then, I expect that the Ambassador Bridge Company will be the ultimate winner or else the Governments would have done something by now. They just have not.

Accordingly, there really is only one way that this matter can move forward in a realistic manner now and get all problems solved immediately. The Governments must partner with the Ambassador Bridge Company to resolve this matter. The Ambassador Bridge Company people must think of a new way in which to act with the Governments if they want this process to start advance now. I see two alternatives which I have discussed before:

1) the Governments give the Ambassador Bridge Company permission to build its new bridge now, on its own. It will now have a 2nd crossing across the river between Canada and United States to operate traffic, or

2) the Governments become partners of the Ambassador Bridge Company by receiving say, 10% of the shares of the Border Company by paying around $500 million or perhaps a bit more to cover the cost of building the new bridge and repairing the old one.

It would not surprise me, to be direct about it, to see the Governments buy the entire Ambassador Bridge Company many years down the road depending on whether the Moroun's son wishes to sell out all of his interests in it.  That would not surprise me if only his family still has the main ownership of the Bridge. Surely the Governments must think about that as a very serious consideration of what they should be doing.

That's all I want to say about the Jarvis article.  To be direct, what I set out makes the most sense to me and should get done already!

Winter Is Coming

Brrrr. It is starting to get cold outside these days. I have to admit that cold weather is not exactly my big favourite time of year and I know we are getting this kind of weather starting now for many months to come. I guess that we are going to lose out on the rather nice winter weather that we had last year when the weather seemed to be a lot better than what is being proposed for this year.

And yes, you, dear reader, are going to read about our big mess at least one more time. After all, I do need to get it out of my system by showing how well everything has been accomplished and that, in fact, we still have a good and calm future in our lives.

One huge advantage for my wife and me now is that the work that had to be done on our house after the big storm that we suffered here has pretty much been completed.  We were relatively fortunate in that we did not suffer any huge disasters as a result of the flooding waters that entered into our house. Oh we had a fair bit that covered the floor of our basement quite completely and for many hours. In one sense, we were quite lucky that the basement was not finished the way all the basements in all of our other homes that we owned before were completed. While we had some damage that was done, it was not a horrific job that had to be completed nor was it outrageously expensive to do so. Moreover, it could be accomplished relatively quickly which it was.

The outside contractors who had to do the work fixing up our place did so quite quickly. In addition, our insurance company paid the fees right away that allowed us to replace all of the parts that were damaged. We had no disagreements whatsoever as to what had to be done or what the costs were.

To be honest, I am quite pleased at what was accomplished so well. It meant that our house was brought back to "normal" in a relatively quick period of time. That made the life of my wife and myself so much easier and so much better. Moreover, we were able to go out and buy the replacement parts for our house that were destroyed pretty quickly. The items we found were at a very good price and we were able to get them delivered to our house and the parts were put in so easily. As an example, just the other day we received our new elliptical trainer that we put into our basement where our old one was located before (it was so much bigger than I thought it was even after Marsha and I had seen it in the Department store where we bought it). The fellow who put it all together did it so wonderfully in just over one hour. Heck, if I was doing that task, I expect it would have taken me days to do so if I could ever have done it properly in the first place!

I know that a lot of my neighbours are having work done in their premises probably because the damage there was much more extensive because many homes had a completely furnished basement. In fact, I heard that one place paid out many tens of thousands of dollars for putting in their basement when it was first built! Remarkably, I saw that wonderful premises about a week or so before the storm hit.  I was just shocked at what I heard happened there.  I saw all the pieces of the basements of so many homes that were taken outside after the storms hit. It just made me feel so tense about it all. Hopefully, with all the work being done around here everything will come back to "normal" as quickly as possible for everyone.

There lots of items that I want to write about in my Blogsite as soon as I can with my life coming back to normalcy I am hoping.  Obviously, one of the biggest subjects that I will be talking about are the articles in the Windsor Star on Friday dealing with the border file. I have to admit that I have no real understanding about why they were written in the first place since they did not accomplish very much at all as far as I am concerned. The total amount written by the various reporters was enormous.  Yet, I am not sure what the purpose of the articles was supposed to be. I do have an explanation for what is going on so you will have to come back shortly after I finished my article, dear reader, to read it.

I am sure that I will be writing eventually about the automobile industry once the relationship between the auto companies and the unions are all resolved. I am hoping that everything gets finished without a strike but who knows what will happen with Ford.  The number of people who have been added to the worker files have made our unemployment rates drop so significantly. Presumably, it should mean that our economy improves around our area. All that should help out everyone who is working and those that are looking for a job as well.

Speaking of employment, or rather unemployment, I will probably do an article dealing with the terrible situation in my area and the rest of the County dealing with the libraries. How long has the strike been going on now--- about 4 months I think. I still cannot figure out the reason why it had to be done in the first place. I must admit that I do not think that the Union is doing a very aggressive job of ending the strike and I think that Union members need to figure out what they have to do next if they want to get back to work before the end of the year. 

Of course, I might have something to say once the US elections are completed in November. Probably not a lot to be honest because that election I found pretty disgusting in the way that it is being handled and who is running for the senior Position. I have to admit that all I personally am interested in right now is who the next US President will be and what will happen in the State of Michigan.  It should be interesting as well to see what happens with the Governor of Michigan in the future.

Speaking of elections, while one is not going to happen next year in our area locally, it should be interesting to see how the members of the various Councils operate. Didn't you find it interesting reading the CBC News article recently talking about the City of Windsor Council after 2 years of it being in service.  What I am going to find fascinating is which individuals will start taking action to improve their position so that they can get more senior election positions. As an example, will the present Mayor of Windsor run again and, whether he does or not, who might decide to run against him?

I have saved a lot of newspaper articles over the last several weeks since the time of the huge storm here. I kept track of them and saved them because I expected that I would be unable to do much writing given everything that had to be accomplished from a personal perspective for my wife and me after all that had to be done because of storm that hit here. Even though I think I knew how to handle this matter because of my personal background in the legal business, nevertheless, probably because of my age and the state of health that I am in after my horrific medical situation, it was a very difficult period of time.

Anyway, dear reader, I trust that my life is coming back to normal now and that I will not have to worry so much about all the damage that was done around here that impacted us so much. There are lots of things I can write about as I have pointed out and I better start working on it as soon as possible.

Back To Normal Life

I hope so anyway.

Unfortunately, and I hope you forgive me, I just have a bit more that I want to write about considering what has been going on after the big rainstorm here so I am writing this article. It is in a sense a postscript to what I have just written before in the 5 articles concerning the flooding and what happened afterwards.

I must admit that over the last couple of weeks I dealt with major in-house flooding for the very first time in my life. It was major for me anyway even though I only had a relatively few inches of water in my basement while a number of people I heard had several feet of contaminated water and sewage! Moreover, unlike all of my other homes that we owned, we did not have a basement that was "finished" that would have required a major and expensive cleaning and update. Accordingly, our family personally was able to finish the initial cleaning of our basement quickly and then the contractors came in and did a professional job to ensure that the complete mess was removed. As well, our Insurer handled our losses in a very positive manner so that we could resolve the financial issues quite quickly and beneficially and replace all of the items that we had to throw out.

While the damage to the house was not catastrophic and was solvable and while the costs to fix everything up was within our insurance policy limits and affordable, what happened was to me very stressful, tiring and even expensive monetarily but for the insurance. It was necessary to let those on the other side know quite quickly that we could not be easily pushed around and that they had to deal with us professionally and within the terms of our relationship. Or else! Fortunately for us, that was achieved quickly and quite well notwithstanding a few difficult issues that could have caused major problems that we were able to solve right away by talking to some senior-level people.

Believe it or not, and notwithstanding my previous professional life which dealt with matters like this all the time, personally it was very difficult for me to do when it is one's own private life and family that are at stake.  Moreover, I am a lot older in age and I think that it makes situations like this much more difficult to handle as well notwithstanding my experience and knowledge.

To be direct, we solved all of our issues very quickly because of the relationships we were able to establish so soon. Yet, even now, when everything is just about finalized very well, I'm still quite tired and worn out from all of this.  I must admit that, when my wife and I walk around our neighbourhood and see our new friends who had tremendous damage in their homes because their basements were well furnished, we go up to them and comfort them as best we can to give them the support that we hope we can provide so they will be able to recover from the losses they suffered. Not just monetary losses either but personal ones.

It really is amazing looking at what is going on while we were going around to different sections of the area to see what was happening. The better weather has made this easier to do and we have been able to see a lot of damaged homes as we walk around the different sections. I have never seen anything like this before in my life with my own eyes and it has stunned me often. So many homes, especially the very large ones, have many huge mounds of bags of garbage that the owners have thrown out along with piles of damaged furniture and appliances. I just find it completely unbelievable.

However, the more interesting scene is walking around now in such a short time after the story first hit and seeing everything, at least on the outside, back to normal as best as can be and so quickly.  It is almost as if nothing had happened at all.

I am less tired than I was before and a bit more confident that everything will be brought back to "normal" at least with respect to the furnishings in my house that will be finished completely very shortly. There are no big pools of water on the ground anymore and all of the destruction to the homes that was set out in giant piles of scrap have all been removed. From the neighbourhood friends with whom I'm speaking, it seems that they too are doing well with their insurance companies and the people who are in their homes to fix up the mess.

Thank you for reading this article. Unfortunately for me at least, as much as I don't like it, it will take a bit longer for me personally to forget all of these miseries and to start over again. Also at least we know for any future problems that may arise, as stressful as it may be, it can be handled.

FLOODING PART FIVE----THE LAST CHAPTER

<SIGH> As I am sure that you understand from reading the previous sections, it was one mess after another. What else can I say?  I am truly hopeful that this is my LAST Blog on this subject.  For now anyway! 

I have never been involved in all my years of life in a flooding incident this bad personally. But here it was, in my new home that I have lived in for about 1 1/2 years. It did not seem that it was going to be a disastrous situation even though our basement had been flooded. I thought that everything would work out fine. As I am sure that you have read from previous sections of this story, was I ever wrong about that! One problem after another in such a short time. It literally wore me out.  

Let me continue telling you what happened.  I'm going to deal with this in a different way. I will tell you about each area in which we had difficulties and what has happened since the time we have tried to solve the problems of the incidents that I have described so far. 

First, what has happened in the basement to clear up the flooding. As you will recall, the representatives of the Insurer came into our house to clean up the floor after we solved what their role was to be and for whom they were acting. They did a very good job of what they did. The floors were wiped clean with one of their liquid solutions used as a cleansing agent and then four fans were put in to dry the area. That dryness operation lasted about 2 1/2 days. Naturally, the floor was somewhat dirty with all of the dirt that remained and so the representatives from the restoration company washed it all down to remove the dirt. They did a very nice job of that as well.  In the end then, what they did worked out very well for us and we were pleased to see their efforts that accomplished so much. 

Next matter: the 2nd visit to our hot water heater for repairs by the Reliance person accomplished a terrific job didn't it. Nope! The system again made horrific sounds for reasons that we did not know.  Again, without going into all the newly arrived misery, I called up the Technical Services Department and arranged for a technician, hopefully the one who had come before, to come in and finally fix up the disaster that we were suffering for the 3rd time! It just did not make sense anymore for this kind of nonsense to happen and it is something that I was not going to let happen again. I was sick and tired of the mess. 

Fortunately, the person who did come in was the Reliance repair person that I wanted. He was quite familiar with the mess happening in my basement because he had just come in before. His examination took all of about 5 minutes. What he said to me immediately after he was able to get the water heating up again was that he was going to arrange to have our complete hot water tank replaced immediately. Something he thought was clearly wrong with the entire system and needed to be changed. 

The next day another Reliance employee came in and removed the old hot water tank and installed a complete new one. That work took about an hour to accomplish. Fortunately, it has worked fine since that time producing very hot water and I hope it continues for a very long time in the future without any more problems! It had better. 

The third  matter: of course, we did have a minor little issue after the new hot water tank was installed. Much of the water was removed from the water system in the house and naturally water filled in the pipes when the system was turned on again. If you have ever had that happen, you know I'm sure, dear reader, that the pipes have air in them and they create some "bubbling" when the water is first turned on. Well, that happened in the kitchen except the "bubble" in the water tap there was so powerful that it caused the faucet aerator to completely blow out. Of course, I did not know this at the time because I had never seen such a problem come in play.  Naturally, I turned on my computer and did some investigation to try to figure out what happened and then discovered what I thought the problem was. 

Naturally, I thought I could fix it myself. It did not seem that it was a major action. The only problem was where I could find a replacement part that I needed. The solution to that was that I went to a local hardware store to get it all done. Whether it was due to so many people having to accomplish this in our area or not, the store did not have the exact part that I wanted. Fortunately, the sales rep took me to a different part of the store for a more advanced part that was available and I purchased it hoping that it would work. 

The luck was with me. I have tried to fix up the system using the old parts but they did not work. The new one worked so quickly. Its installation was amazingly simple. I accomplish that so easily. Of course, it leaked like crazy when I first put it in. Accordingly I had to add the extra part in what I purchased that the hardware representative had told me that I probably did not need. So far, so good. It works beautifully! 

Number four.  Marsha and I have had a remarkable relationship with our home Insurer. Just so you know, that Company is Aviva Canada.  I have not told you who that Company was before because our relationship was not a very good one at the start. Our horrific business relationship transformed into a fabulous one when our contact was transferred from the person with whom we had a terrible relationship at first very quickly.  After leaving that woman, we started speaking to a senior Ontario claims person who was a fine gentleman with whom we started dealing.  We spoke several times about outstanding matters and resolved them all very quickly. 

Our insurance policy presumably gave us a maximum claim of a rather limited sum of money for the type of loss that took place this time around. Fortunately, the amount that my wife and I were seeking after the flooding was below the maximum amount. I did not have to try and figure out how else there would be coverage if the amount exceeded the policy's maximum. 

Our conversations were quite direct. I had done some research into what the costs would be to fix up our basement from the flooding and to replace some of our personal property that was destroyed by the water. What I found quite remarkable was that I had no argument at all from the Insurer's representative and we worked out quite quickly what had to be done and the amount of insurance money that could be used. 

I do not intend to go into discussion about the insurance amounts but do want to say how good our telephone conversations were so that we were able to get agreement as quickly as possible and we had no disputes at all. Moreover, we had some interesting conversations about other topics that were more personally oriented because our relationship worked out so well in a very friendly manner and so promptly. In addition, we may not have to complete all of the forms we thought were necessary to finalize this matter. My wife told me that the Insurance representative told her that some of the documents were no longer necessary. 

When all of this started with the Insurer as you may recall, I was so upset about it that I seriously thought about going to a new insurer as soon as possible. After my relationship with the senior Insurance Company representative, I intend to stay with Aviva because he treated us so well! 

There may be some other matters that we resolved in this flooding mess but frankly, that's enough to talk about for now.  We were fortunate that we found some fine people to deal with and so were able quickly to bring our lives back to normal. 

Now to get back to my "every day" writing.

Our New Councillor

It is quite something when a new person had to be elected for the Council seat for your Ward. That is exactly what happened for me and my wife. 

William (Bill) Altenhof was elected for the Council position in Ward 2 in Tecumseh. His vote results in the voting were frankly unbelievable. He ran against 5 other people and overwhelmingly received the most votes. He received 676 votes just slightly less than 50% of the total  number of votes. 

I met him the first time when he was campaigning in our area. My wife and I were out for a walk when we saw him as he was canvassing on our Street. All 3 of us met and just started talking about the election. Very soon, I mentioned to him about my experience with his friend, Mike Rohrer, our Ward Councillor, who had just passed away shockingly, whom I had dealt with so many years before. I also mentioned to him that his friend as our Councillor had carried out a task for us. He literally had passed away right after he quickly looked after solving our issue. We had just agreed to meet the day before he died but unfortunately he had called me and said that he was so busy and asked if we could meet early the next week and I had agreed to do so. 

Very quickly, our talking stopped for a short time as Bill got so emotional about his friend dying. Our conversation changed very quickly into personal matters that each of us experienced and shared them with each other. It was so unbelievable how our relationship changed as if we were friends for a very long time. It was such a pleasure meeting this man and deciding instantaneously that he was going to get our votes. 

We met one more time before the election at the candidates' meeting. He saw us and came right up to my wife and me and shook our hands to say hello. I was so impressed by this gesture on his part. I was so glad that he remembered us from before. 

I am so pleased that so many other people in our Ward also were impressed with Bill and voted for him. I'm sure that they too liked this man and his potential that he offered to us. 

My wife and I wish him the best and are so hopeful that he will be a fabulous Councillor for our Ward!

FLOODING PART FOUR

As you will recall, we were waiting to meet some "unknown" representative from a Company that was supposed to now come to our house and figure out what had to be done under our Insurance Policy because of the flooding that had taken place. 

It was not the original company that supposedly had been appointed by the Insurance Company but some unknown company about which we had never heard about. To be direct about the call, I was quite surprised about it and not sure that it had really happened as disclosed because I had received no call from the Insurance Company representative that I had spoken with before.   

Just to shorten matters, I eventually got ahold of the Company that was supposed to come here originally and the lady that I spoke with had no idea about what I said because she told me that her Company was still scheduled to come to our house. She was supposed to contact the Insurance Company to find out what was going on. That was the last time I ever heard from someone from her Company. 

We finally did get an email from the Insurer's representative telling us that the new Company was supposed to come after this rather odd event took place in the manner that it did.  I just found this was a rather surprising way to act by our Insurer. 

At 9 o'clock in the morning, a representative from the repair company came to our house and examined what had gone wrong.  What he suggested needed to be done was not a huge function. After all, our basement was not decorated to be an area where people would come down either to use as a "sleeping" or "entertaining" area. Basements in our other homes had all been finished to make them look quite attractive. In this home, the basement had not been finished at all. My wife and I had decided that we were not going to fix it up and we were just going to leave it unfinished. Accordingly, all that needed to be done was to clean it up by removing the water and any dirt and germs, possessions that  had been damaged by the flooding and to put in new anti-germ chemicals in a floor cleaning. 

Simple, right? I sure thought so. All of that had taken about 15 minutes to resolve.  Then came the big mess! The gentleman from the repair company presented us with a contract to sign. I read the first couple of paragraphs on the first page and stopped reading it. I had a very simple question to ask. Under this contract, his firm was now going to be our cleaning agent and not the cleaning agent of the Insurer i.e. the representative of Marsha and me only now. I could not believe this. It made no sense whatsoever. I had no idea who this company was, never phoned them in the first place to come over and visit with us to figure out what had to be done, was certainly not going to pay them anything or be responsible for payments to them yet now we were supposed to appoint them as our representative to fix up our house.  This was absolutely unbelievable to me and something I would refuse to do. I could not figure out why this was being proposed. 

Again, the long and short of it was that I told representative that we were not prepared at all to act this way and that he would have to have the appointment from the Insurer to do the work and act on their behalf or we would go out to find someone else to do the job. This was just completely unbelievable and unacceptable to me and I refused to do what he wanted.   

All of this discussion took about an hour and a half and at the same time that he was talking with us, the representative from Reliance came here to take a look at the new problems that we were having with the hot water tank. We were asked by the repair company gentleman not to refuse to deal with his firm and that he would talk to someone senior from his Company to find out what they wanted to do and that he would get back to me later on in the day. 

To be direct about it, I was upset. This was a bizarre way for a company that our Insurer brought in to try to act now. Accordingly, I called our employee of the Insurance Company who had been brought in to handle this matter to discuss. That did not turn out very well at all either. Within a very few short minutes, and during our discussion, she unbelievably hung up the telephone rather than answering some of my questions that I was posing. I was furious! 

That was it as far as I was concerned. I immediately contacted her company, our Insurer, and demanded to speak to someone in a senior position immediately. Fortunately, one of the senior Ontario representatives was around and we spoke on the telephone. I explained to him how angry I was and how disturbed about what was happening and how I was treated. I asked for a new Company employee to be appointed for our home because I was not going to talk to the person who was supposed to be my representative again. Regretfully he told me that they had no employees available to contact me because they were so busy so he would have to be my contact with the Company. 

Our conversation started off in a very direct manner. However, as time went on, our conversation became much more casual and on a much more friendly basis.  I hoped for the best in the future in my relationship with the Insurer after dealing with this gentleman. 

I heard from the repair person later on in the day and he agreed that his firm would come in and do the work required and that we would not have to appoint that firm as our client and sign a contract with them. I was satisfied now that the relationship that we were establishing was the only one that I was prepared to enter into to resolve our flooding problems. 

Eventually, representatives from that repair company came in and started doing the work. One of the first things that they did do was remove our huge elliptical machine that we had in the basement and which I used now so often because of the concerns that they had as to its fitness because of the water in the basement that covered some of its parts. They also removed many other articles that had gotten so wet and set some of them to dry out as well. Once all of that was done they were in a position to clean up the floor.  It was completely cleaned up and fans were put in to dry it. That drying process was supposed to take several days. The noise level to be honest was high and a bit disturbing especially in night time so sleeping was a little more difficult.  Nevertheless, it had to be done. 

Of course, there is more to talk about concerning some additional troubling matters. You can read about that in our next posting and what had to be done next.