This is kind of a long story so I'm going to skim a bit.
About a month ago my dad went out to the coast for a weekend to visit Jackie (my stepmom). When her mom's husband died they began making arrangements for her mom to come live with them so she wouldn't be all by herself. Dad came home to get the spare room set up for her, and Jackie stayed in Southern Oregon to help with the burial and property arrangements.
Then, Jackie's mom decided to stay where she was, and keep her house, and Jackie decided to stay there too. I can understand how she feels, it gets very dull living out in the middle of nowhere rather quickly. But this put my dad in a pinch, and he has to make a decision about keeping up his relationship with Jackie or staying out at our house.
So... as I was saying he went to the coast to visit her for a bit and discuss what was going to happen. While he was there a pipe in the upstairs bathroom broke and flooded the entire house. He came home to a huge mess, and was forced to call in an insurance claim for the first time ever.
The insurance company sent out a "good cop, bad cop" team to assess the damage and determine his claim amount. They completely screwed him over. They wouldn't pay for the plumbing repairs that had caused the damage, and sent out some people to dehumidify the house to keep the damage from getting worse (this cost $3000). They went through and looked at damaged sheetrock and talked about only replacing the
parts of it that were dmaged rather than the entire sheets. He called a local contractor and asked them to look it over and give him an estimate.. they said $35,000. The insurance company's contractor had suggested far more than that and was told to fuck off. In the end since he wouldn't go through their contractor it was assumed that we would do the work ourselves and he was awarded only $14,000.
So, after 14 years paying on home insurance without any claims, he got screwed over and was given less than enough to cover materials for the repairs. And his significant other was gone, and he was there to deal with this all on his own.
Needless to say, he is taking the insurance company to court. He also got very depressed very fast.
So he called on his kids and grandkids to come give him a hand.
I went down there, I tore out floors, and walls, and made dinner for all of us after we worked. The bottom storey of the house is completely stripped. There were termites, there was a black widow, I worried that after all that I'd never feel clean again. We got a lot done, but the house is at a standstill until he finds out if he has a court case, and if so can he still cash the $14,000 check to get started putting the house back together? or should he hold onto it until there is a settlement? I don't know these things. For the moment he is sitting in that empty house all alone, with no walls and no floors. Getting more depressed as time goes by. He has lost a lot of weight, and when I showed up he was limping around. When I asked why he was limping he said he fell down the stairs the other day, I think he broke his toe when he fell. I feel a horrible sense of dread thinking about him out there all by himself, what if next time he falls he breaks a leg? or his neck? I am okay with death, it's just a part of life. I am not okay with finding out that my dad died 6 weeks after the fact, when one of the distant neighbors finally smells his corpse and goes to see what happened. That scares me a lot.
I was very insistent with him that I don't really give a hoot what we do with the house, who lives in it, or if anyone lives in it, but he should not be out there alone anymore. It's not good for him, and it's not safe.
We have therefore been discussing our options in terms of the house. We won't sell it, at least I won't sell my half. Jackie is willing to let me buy her out of her half for $50,000. Yeah right, like I have that kind of money! Dad suggested we dig a well so it can be mortgaged, and I use the mortgage to buy out Jackie. Or we could just rent it out to someone until one of us kids wants to live in it.
It's a 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom country home on waterfront property. And after we put in the work on it it will have energy-efficient windows and insulation and a proper heat pump instead of the 1960s gas stove heater. Not a bad place really, it could rent for well over a thousand dollars a month.
I'm not sure what I want to do with it yet though. It's full of my parents's things, and has our family history held within it's 4 walls. It's rather hard to think of someone else living in there.
I wish one me or my siblings were in a position to live there. None of us is ready to relinquish our city lives though, or we are already tied up where we are and couldn't pay the bills if we moved out there.
It's a tough situation. I have considered asking my friend Gina about it, she has 3 kids, and works in Junction city which is not too far from the house, and she grew up out there, we went to high school together. I could rent it to her for less than she's paying in town, and she would take care of the place, and her kids could go to the same small school that we went to, I know she'd like that.
Honestly, I'd rather rent to someone I know for way less than market value than rent to someone I don't know for a lot more.
Anyway, that is the current predicament as far as the house goes. I also went to visit all my friends while I was in the area... but that's gonna have to be for another post.
