Now that I have sufficiently “cooled off” on the subject, I’d like to tell you a little story about, as Nanny would say, hateful people.

Last Friday, I was happy to be off work early and heading to Greensboro to see my husband (who I hadn’t seen in a few days) and celebrate his graduation.  It was a beautiful day, all of the traffic was going in the opposite direction, and I had chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes in tow.  Needless to say, it was a good day.  Unfortunately, the excitement ended quite abruptly when I got to our apartment and learned that our Park Avenue house had been robbed….again.

The first time, our basement was broken into (doors and windows broken) and our copper pipes were stolen.  The basement flooded and our sump pump was destroyed.  Luckily, the bank still owned the house at this point, so besides the hassle of having to arrange with the plumber, we were in the clear.  And the first thing we did after closing on the house was install an alarm system.

This time, we owned the house.  Our house, our problem.  Charles got a call late Friday afternoon from our neighbor (a retired NC judge)…he had heard something going on over at the house and walked over to discover a man removing the copper piping that runs from the HVAC units into the house.  When Judge questioned the man, he made up a very shady story about doing some work for his uncle, who was a subcontractor on the project.  Not at all believing this, Judge went back to his house to call the police and the thief hit the road with his new-found copper.  A police report was filed, exterior motion lights were installed, but the damage was done.  Our contractor estimates it will be about $3,000 to replace the copper.  The worst part is that our HVAC units were working prior to the event (not in great condition, but band-aid-able).  Now we are almost guaranteed to have to replace both units.  My dreams of one updated bathroom in the house are slowly slipping away…

A good friend and HVAC specialist came by the house to assess the damage yesterday and is preparing a report for us.  We will have to look at the numbers to see if it’s even worth it to file an insurance claim.  [If you are not in the mood for an insurance rant, stop reading here.]

So this is absurd to me….we bought a very expensive 3-month builders risk policy.  Unfortunately we could not get a homeowner’s policy because we will not be living in the house for the next 3 months.  So on top of paying a premium for insurance, we will have to pay the deductible to file the claim.  Then, when we go to secure a homeowner’s policy in a few months, our rate will likely be increased because we filed a claim.  Let me get this straight–we did the responsible thing and insured the house and even set up an alarm system.  Through no fault of our own, we were robbed, and now because we have insurance, we have to pay more?  Am I missing something?  As a first-time homeowner, I’ve never dealt with home insurance before. How is this ok?  How do people just accept that this is the way it is?  I know my sad little story isn’t going to change anything, and I know the person who stole the copper could not care less, but this experience has certainly opened my eyes to the total racket that is home insurance.

Ok, enough complaining/venting/ranting.  It’s FRIDAY!  We are hitting the road for a weekend of wedding festivities for some of our best friends.  We are so excited for them and can’t wait to celebrate!

Although this “incident” was a blow (probably to our spirits more than anything), we have so  much to be excited about and thankful for.  Lots of major progress going on at the house.  You’d be amazed at how much has already been done!  More updates and lots of pictures coming soon…