I am very happy to say that we’ve been back in our house one day less than two weeks, and things are almost all back to order. Just a few stickies up in the kitchen to remind my contractor and his crew that they still have a little bit of work to do.
A preview of our new kitchen
My main concern since Servpro, the water and fire cleanup and restoration company, brought back our furniture and boxes of our possessions that they moved out while the demolition and restoration was going on, are the broken items and those pieces that at this point seem to be hopelessly lost.
Right now as I sit at my desk in my writing room, the file folder stand that used to sit to my right is not there, the black scotch tape and stapler set that used to be on my left is missing, and the Relax the Back foot rest that was under my desk does not make sitting here more comfortable, since my feet don’t touch the floor without it.
One of the broken items is a silver floor lamp that had been in my family for at least seventy-five years. It stood in my parents’ den when I was a little girl. Now I’ve had to take the Servpro guy’s word for it that he took it to a real antique place to get it fixed. Since I haven’t seen it in two weeks, I’m beginning to have my doubts.
A few other missing things are also priceless: a red cut crystal vase – also a family heirloom, several boxes of family photos – who would want to steal family photos??? – a large stack of sheet music that I and my now dead son Paul used to help us learn to play the piano, and a collection of shells that we gathered when we lived on the Kwajalein Marshall Island back in the 1970s. How does one put a price tag on those things, which is what the Servpro rep asked us to do.
The other items, don’t mean as much. They don’t have a lot of value. However, it makes me angry that they are missing at all and that no matter how many dollars Servpro gives us to replace them, I still need to go out and purchase the items again – e.g., a dust buster, plastic food storage containers, candles that also used to be in my office, incense, an electric air dryer, and some fancy soap and a couple of decorative items for the counter of our guest bathroom. And as I sat down at my desk again just now with a glass of water in my hand, I realized that the orange and white cloth coasters that we were a wedding favor are no longer here either. I suppose I’ll be remembering other things in the days and weeks to come.
So I question what kind of business is this Servpro anyway, that its reps can just shrug their shoulders and say I don’t know, when I ask over and over where my things are? How does it stay in business with such irresponsible behavior? One of my friends said this morning that the man who was in charge of our belongings and who is also in charge of the Servpro warehouse where they stored everything they packed out of our house, should be fired. And I am beginning to agree with her.
The water disaster in our house was bad enough. I didn’t need this second annoying and stressful situation as well.
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Oh, I know, they are just things. We are still well and alive.
Just let me rant about it for a while anyway.
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