Hiya everybody!
So I've been gone for the last couple of months (not entirely, made the odd visit but never got past the first page) and it's been such a comedy (Shakespearean...everything is ****ed but nobody dies) it needs to be shared.
Let's start in July. We had been planing a large renovation on our house and we were finally ready to get it started. We formulated a plan which saw us buy a condo to live in (2bdrm...two adults & two kids (4&5)...tight squeeze) while the house was gutted and then we would keep the condo as a rental property to generate a little cash flow (Calgary rental market is ridiculous; lots of money to be made). We closed a deal on August 1 and brought the bare necessities while the rest went into storage (including my towers and some glasses).
Move to end of August. We took a family holiday down in Oregon; did the typical tourist thing. Ate a ton of excellent seafood, bummed around in the sand dunes, ate all the exotic fast food...it was a blast. On our second last day I get a phone call from my boss/partner (I have a minority share in a commercial glass & aluminum company), "big problems you need to get back". Don't rush back, take our time and get back on Sunday as planned.
By Monday afternoon the company has ceased operation. My share/partnership has evaporated thanks to a really ****ty chain of events (although not entirely unexpected, it was just very abrupt and spiraled out of control).
Alright, two mortgages no job. Luckily we have had some matters clear themselves up in the past six months which allowed us to do the reno and condo so it thankfully it isn't an emergency situation. It actually allowed us to expand the scope of the reno as I was now available to do some work too.
Excellent, things are going nicely. Until this happens.
The dishwasher in the condo decided to try and kill us.
Doesn't look like much but it completely filled the condo with horrible, acrid smoke and nearly took out all four of us. CHECK YOUR SMOKE DETECTORS PEOPLE! If it wasn't for my Nest which was in a box in the closet but detected the smoke before the hard wired, we would have all been goners. As it was we barely made it out.
Worst part? Everything we had in the condo is written off. Furniture, electronics, clothes...all of it gone. All except my three rubbermaid containers of glasses which I kept in the living room thinking they would be safer there than in storage. The tight fitting lids kept the smoke out, which is good because there is no way insurance would had covered all of them.
So at that point we have two properties and neither of them are in a livable state. This is what the house looked like at that time
Completely gutted, bearing walls removed etc. No chance we would be getting back in there anytime soon.
The one really good thing is that insurance has covered us big time. We found a great family suite at a hotel close to the kids school while we searched for short term, fully furnished rentals (which we found and are curretly still in because the god damned ******* reno is taking wayyyy longer than it was supposed to).
Oh and the bonus in all of this?
My wife was 35 weeks pregnant at the time of the fire and on October 29th we welcomed our gorgeous daughter into our laughably unstable lives!
So there you have it...I haven't been around much but I think I have good reason. Starting to replace all of my electronics now so I'll be back on a bit more. Still not working because working is for suckers. Both houses still unlivable. Still two mortgages. Three kids in a house that isn't our with none of our possessions.
But happy and healthy, so that's all that matters!
(Sorry for the long post, haven't vented in a while about any of this yet)
So I've been gone for the last couple of months (not entirely, made the odd visit but never got past the first page) and it's been such a comedy (Shakespearean...everything is ****ed but nobody dies) it needs to be shared.
Let's start in July. We had been planing a large renovation on our house and we were finally ready to get it started. We formulated a plan which saw us buy a condo to live in (2bdrm...two adults & two kids (4&5)...tight squeeze) while the house was gutted and then we would keep the condo as a rental property to generate a little cash flow (Calgary rental market is ridiculous; lots of money to be made). We closed a deal on August 1 and brought the bare necessities while the rest went into storage (including my towers and some glasses).
Move to end of August. We took a family holiday down in Oregon; did the typical tourist thing. Ate a ton of excellent seafood, bummed around in the sand dunes, ate all the exotic fast food...it was a blast. On our second last day I get a phone call from my boss/partner (I have a minority share in a commercial glass & aluminum company), "big problems you need to get back". Don't rush back, take our time and get back on Sunday as planned.
By Monday afternoon the company has ceased operation. My share/partnership has evaporated thanks to a really ****ty chain of events (although not entirely unexpected, it was just very abrupt and spiraled out of control).
Alright, two mortgages no job. Luckily we have had some matters clear themselves up in the past six months which allowed us to do the reno and condo so it thankfully it isn't an emergency situation. It actually allowed us to expand the scope of the reno as I was now available to do some work too.
Excellent, things are going nicely. Until this happens.
The dishwasher in the condo decided to try and kill us.
Doesn't look like much but it completely filled the condo with horrible, acrid smoke and nearly took out all four of us. CHECK YOUR SMOKE DETECTORS PEOPLE! If it wasn't for my Nest which was in a box in the closet but detected the smoke before the hard wired, we would have all been goners. As it was we barely made it out.
Worst part? Everything we had in the condo is written off. Furniture, electronics, clothes...all of it gone. All except my three rubbermaid containers of glasses which I kept in the living room thinking they would be safer there than in storage. The tight fitting lids kept the smoke out, which is good because there is no way insurance would had covered all of them.
So at that point we have two properties and neither of them are in a livable state. This is what the house looked like at that time
Completely gutted, bearing walls removed etc. No chance we would be getting back in there anytime soon.
The one really good thing is that insurance has covered us big time. We found a great family suite at a hotel close to the kids school while we searched for short term, fully furnished rentals (which we found and are curretly still in because the god damned ******* reno is taking wayyyy longer than it was supposed to).
Oh and the bonus in all of this?
My wife was 35 weeks pregnant at the time of the fire and on October 29th we welcomed our gorgeous daughter into our laughably unstable lives!
So there you have it...I haven't been around much but I think I have good reason. Starting to replace all of my electronics now so I'll be back on a bit more. Still not working because working is for suckers. Both houses still unlivable. Still two mortgages. Three kids in a house that isn't our with none of our possessions.
But happy and healthy, so that's all that matters!
(Sorry for the long post, haven't vented in a while about any of this yet)
