When "Charity" Runs Out...

#sandy #fraud #sandyvictim It’s been 3 months… and today I’ve hit my bullsh!t limit.

If you are easily offended, please do not read on.

Here are some stories that everyone in their cushy homes and their comfortable situations can ooohh and ahhh about and say “I’m sorry” and “this is terrible” and “this isn’t right” and then go on their merry way.

Yes, this is a bit of bitter mixed with a dash of hostile served up in a cocktail of frustration for your reading pleasure!

Three months into this Sandy saga and we are no further along than we were the day after the storm. No insurance response, no place to live close by, no money in hand, no building permit, no architects plans, no regular schedule… (shall I go on or do you get my drift?)

Every few days we still go to our oil flooded home and pick up the mail… I haven’t changed our mailing address for two reasons; (1) it is added confusion and we simply aren’t permanent at any other location and (2) my sense of pride and my arrogance (two things no one can take away from me) refuses to receive mail at another other location but my HOME.

Well, I picked up the mail this Saturday afternoon and saw 2 letters from FEMA. When I opened them I realized they were from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) which is the insurance company I pay to insure my home from Flood. Yes, the same insurance company (government funded) that has NOT responded to my requests for information on my claim.

Guess what they sent me? I’ll give you a hint… what do you think they should be sending me at this point 3 months down the road? Ok… now you have that in your head, flip it 180 degrees… what is it now?



Yes, you got it! THEY SENT ME A BILL!


They want to collect my next year’s insurance payment at $700 more than last year’s payment. Yep… they want to collect that money and they STILL haven’t given me my money that they owe me or any indication of what I should expect to receive for my claim.
All of this after:
- J was in the hospital Saturday morning due to cutting his hand on a broken dish and needing stitches
- I fell down the stairs and literally broke my butt on Monday; and on Sunday limped 5 miles of a ½ marathon due to a foot injury
- My daughter hasn’t slept a full night since we moved into J’s Uncles house; so I’m on 3-4 hours of sleep a night
- I have a tearing pain in my shoulder and a never-ending stiff neck from sleeping in a 50 year old bed
- Another cold shower because the place we’re staying has a problem with letting me ever have a hot shower (J gets in the shower and it works… I get in.. it’s cold)
- The DVD player broke just as we were attempting to watch a movie as a family for the first time since the storm (well at least we finagled the computer and a makeshift indoor campsite to get it working)
- None of the people offering apartments for rent have called me back; they are not wanting to rent to people with kids (yea sure it’s illegal but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen)

OH and don’t forget that the next few weeks are going to be absolute hell because J is traveling and I’ll be dealing with the kids, the 2hrX2hr commute and the job all on my own.

Seriously people, I CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!

Back to the bill from NFIP - So what do I do with this bill? What do you think I should do with it… maybe I should have a vote on this… burning paper airplane? return to sender with a nice “F YOU” message on the front? Scan a copy and send it to my adjuster as a claim?

Well at the time all were possibilities but instead, I did the semi-sane thing and shook my head and pulled out of my oil ridden driveway to drive to my cousins house so I could attempt to forget the ridiculousness for a few hours.

And now for... "this is what made me go insane":

NFIP stands for “No Fing Info People”?
Monday morning hits an I’m on a new path to fixing all my problems. I have phone numbers, fax numbers, paperwork, the works in my bag and I’m headed off to work. I make my first phone call just to find the fax number to NFIP (my insurance company) and this is where everything goes terribly wrong (dun dun dunnnn)…

A lovely lady by the name of Porsha (I swear… not making this up) verifies my information and I ask her for the fax number and she says, “Mam, is your husband there? I need to confirm with him that I can speak with you about your account.” WHAT?!?!?! I have called over 30 times to this call center in the past 3 months and they have NEVER said I couldn’t talk to them because I wasn’t on the account. So, 4 people later, being hung up on 3 times by the manager (Barbara), by the employee, etc. and I’m nowhere. I can’t even get the damn fax number!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!! I call back and speak with a nice gentleman and I don’t give him my account info… instead, I ask him for the fax number and guess what? He gives it to me! Is that crazy or what? I proceed to find out that my adjuster has finally submitted his paperwork to NFIP and they can’t give me any information for 7 days. Don’t ask me why it will take 7 days or how they determined 7 days was a good time to add to the 3 months I’ve already been waiting but they said 7 days so I’m sticking with it. J proceeded to call the adjuster and tell him he is out of compliance for not sharing the info with us directly and scared him into the sending the information to us via email. All that and all we had to do was have J call the adjuster and threaten to tell on him. REALLY PEOPLE?!??! CAN THIS GET ANY MORE DIFFICULT?!
Oh… BTW, we still have to pay the bill or it will go against our credit. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Ok… on to the next one

Apartment Mess: I receive a phone call from the apartment complex that we are applying to so we can move back into the area and reduce my 2 hour each way commute down to 30 minutes a day. The woman Karen tells me that they’ve increased the price of the apartment. When did this happen? On Saturday, the day before I handed in my application. Why didn’t they tell me this on Sunday? They didn’t understand the terms so they were unable to communicate this then. So now they want to charge a sur-charge for the lease being less than 1 year. All this from an apartment complex that is advertising “Help for Sandy Victims” and they even had an article written up in the local Patch stating that they were the only place in my area that were helping people by modifying lease terms and reducing the security payments. At first I complained to her. How could she change the terms 1 day after I handed in my application!?!

Then I literally BEGGED this lady to fix this problem. She wouldn’t give me the contact information for the landlord but called me back an hour later and stated that she can give me the lowered security fee but will still have to charge me the surcharge. This is how “charity” runs out. My recourse, nada… I need a place to live. I can’t complain, report them, etc. because then I’d have nowhere to go!

Building Permit: We can’t get a building permit to raise our home until we have an architect’s drawing. We can’t start work on the house at all until we have a building permit. The architect said he’d be done in 2 weeks, it’s been 4 and yes, we’ve already paid him the first payment.
Rock. Me. Hard place.

AT&T Service is Down:
We are living in another town at J’s uncles house. We don’t have internet access at said house. Instead, I worked with my company to purchase a wireless 4g hotspot so that I can connect to the internet at “home”. I also signed up for AT&T service through my iPad and guess what? My phone service is also AT&T. On Friday a problem began with the cell tower in our area. All 4g/3g service is down until February 10th. There is nothing they can do to help me.

I can’t make this stuff up.

Ok so my Monday absolutely made my head spin. I’m done… reached my limit in being nice to people on the phone, and following the godforsaken process and still being hit with a NO WIN, YOU LOSE situation.

What recourse do I have in any of these situations? Nothing. Absolutely nothing can be done other than write a letter and hope your local officials look into it. These places should be fined for the way they’ve done business and the money should go to the people effected!

But no, our officials are focused on “ousting LIPA” to blame them for not restoring power in time and passing laws about gas stations having enough gas during a storm. Seriously? What about the people that are still suffering? What are you doing for them? Answer is… NOTHING (oh but the Patch will write an article if you want.)

Shall I come back in another month and tell you that nothing has changed or is this story getting old?

-s

Sandy on Green (part 3)

Tourists and Vultures In the Aftermath of Sandy
We took what we could by hand that morning (Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012).  We returned later in the day to find that we weren't allowed to drive down there anymore even though the water had receded to about 1 foot in the street.  The police were blocking people from driving down as there were too many tourists and vultures (i.e. people who want to see and people who want to take).  My wish of the tide taking the debris out was not granted.  We had even more now... hey check out that jeep in the driveway!

We had taken a few plastic bags and bins so that we could take some stuff with us but walking a mile back and forth with heavy items wasn't really working for us.  We had to wait until the water receded fully and we could see the debris in the road before driving a truck down there.

We went back to my parents house to start making phone calls; insurance company - their phones were out. FEMA, DEC and Waste Oil removal services - no one was ready to help yet.  They all took my information and told me they'd get back to me.  We had no internet access, cell service or cable at my parents house but we did have electricity and heat... unlike most of Long Island.  To get internet access from our iPods, we had to drive up a few blocks into a supermarket parking lot... it was like a haven for access.  Cell service, 4g card, everything worked there.  I don't have a clue why but I wasn't complaining... cell service and internet access were like gold at that time.

Although none of the other service providers (that I actually pay for) were available, we were able to get a POD scheduled to be delivered the next morning at my parents house (at a pretty penny might I add).  The guy on the phone said it was the last one he had on the island and with none of the bridges and tunnels open, it would be a while before another would be available.  Not sure if that was his sales tactic (I was buying anyway) but I did hear later on that people were waiting a month for a POD.

With the oil saturating our house, we needed to do everything we could to salvage what we had upstairs.  The smell was terrible and everything inside and out was being damaged by the minute.  I did what I could at the time, make phone calls and try to save what was left.

On Wednesday we returned to find more debris but less water. Not sure what to do first, we started cleaning outside.  Moving the debris away.  Here's an interesting picture of the flood level in our garage (42").  The lines you see there are markers from previous storms.  The dirt/water line is from Sandy.  The other picture is of the pile of debris we had outside of our driveway.  We just kept on dragging stuff over, hoping someone would pick it up.  The Village of Babylon did, using a big backhoe a few days later.

J went to find a truck to rent to bring our stuff to the POD.  After 2 hours of searching, he found one and we started to vacate the premises.  Family came out to help (my sister, his brother, both sets of parents).  My mom watched the kids for us, everyone else started packing and cleaning; we ate halloween candy and pretzels for lunch as it was the only thing that was available.  We wore masks so that we could breathe and booties so that we wouldn't ruin the upstairs carpet... what good that did as the smell of the oil alone has saturated everything now.

I posted for help on Facebook to see if anyone had any boxes or bins we could use to get everything out of the house but most people didn't have internet access so it was a futile attempt at first.  In two days we removed all of our "stuff" furniture and all from upstairs and then we started the demo.

All I could think about was where were we going to put our stuff and where were we going to live?  My parents had one bedroom open for us.  All of our stuff that couldn't fit in the POD was in their already packed garage.  Our clothes were in their dining room, our electronics in their living room, OH and we had tons of other people living there too because everyone was displaced due to the storm.  My brother-in-law with his dialysis machine, my aunt, my cousins would stop by from time-to-time as they were hopping from house as well.

I can't even begin to tell you the devastation I felt and saw.  I don't think I slept those first two weeks just trying to get organized.  This wasn't going to be a 1 month thing, not even 2 or 3.  This was 8 to 10 months of hell we were facing and I didn't know the half of it.

To be continued...

Sandy on Green (part 2)

Somewhere in the middle of the night between Monday and Tuesday I was woken up by the phone in our borrowed room buzzing. We must have lost power and now the hardwired phone was buzzing on battery; it's amazing the things you hear when you're in a dead sleep! That was the last of my sleep for the night. I jump right on facebook on my phone and realize that there has not be any updates from my neighbors in hours... I think "How could they not be posting at 2am?!?!". Frustrated, I get out of bed, shower, get dressed and proceed to pace around the house until the transportation woke up (my dad with his truck). I literally was pacing the house while they all slowly woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast. I was almost ready to walk to my house. It was only 3 miles away, hell, I could run that in under 30 minutes. Anyway, my dad was finally ready to go around 9am so he drove J and I over to our cars (that we had evacuated to higher ground) and we then proceeded to take the high roads down to our house. We were stopped about 5 blocks away as the flooding hadn't subsided and the police were not allowing people to attempt to drive down. We began walking the rest of the way down in waist high water. I'm not sure if I was shaking due to the cold or due to the shock. It was a mess. Fences were floating down the block and you could see the water line on houses that have never even seen water on their grass before. As we waded down the road, a man ran out of his devastated home to ask for help. "Can you help me pull out my generator?" J ran to his aid while I rudely commented to myself "what the f are you going to do with a generator? You don't even have dry ground to put it on!" But I was happy that J went to help the man. At least he was trying to do something to save what was left of his home. I walked on... the water was getting deep and I was nervous about stepping on something. A dead fish floated by. Then a fence. Then there was a car.. yep, it was crazy... and this was at low tide the day AFTER the storm!

My head was going two ways... on one hand, my rational self was telling me that our house got hit hard. "Expect water in the house" she said. "It's going to be bad" she yelled while my irrational, luck driven, praying self was trying to out do her with "It can't be that bad." "You're a good person and good things happen to good people." I think this is why it wasn't until I approached the back gate of my house and saw the water line around chest high that my rational self won. I took a picture... what else could I do. I turned into the action driven person that I always am. I tried to tell myself to just be there to take pictures, to show what we've lost and later, I could be sad.

But as I pushed in the back gate, and wasn't able to get it to go more than a foot because it was blocked by debris, I broke down. Yep, crazy me came out (much more fun than rational and irrational me). I was screaming at the top of my lungs, crying and pushing the gate.  Then I pulled it the opposite way and was able to get in and see that the thing that was blocking the gate was my daughters swing set. It had floated about 20 feet to end up where it was. To think, it took 3 people to put the thing together and move it in place and now it was just upside down, broken and mangled. I walked onto my back deck and saw the first of the real mess.  The water line was scary.  About knee high in the main house and waist to chest high in the utility room.

I started looking at the debris and trying to figure out what it all was.  Where did it come from?  This stuff wasn't mine.  No, all of the stuff in the driveway and even on my back deck had floated there from other yards down the canal.  I guess we were the storms dumping ground.  Maybe when the water recedes it would clean up after itself. hahahaha, yeah right.

There was something else that I couldn't figure out.  The smell.  It didn't smell like seawater or sewage.  It was worse than that.  It smelt like gasoline or OIL!  Yes, it was oil.  I ran to the side of my house to see if my oil tank was okay.  The one that I could see had shifted about 5 feet over but it didn't look like it was leaking.

I couldn't see the front oil tank so I decided to enter the house first and try to get a view around the front of the house.  This is where I cried.  No more screaming in anger.  No, this was real, full blown hysterics.  I tried to take pictures.  Focus on the pictures. 

Our house was destroyed.  The new room, the new appliances in the kitchen, all of my donations (kids clothes, toys, etc. ) ready to be donated were soaked.  The wainscoting that took J 2 full days of work to get done for Liv's bedroom, destroyed.  But then, I didn't know the half of it.  The smell of oil was intense.  I was feeling sick inside so I opened the front door and saw the front yard.  Oil, everywhere.  Propane tanks and tons of random junk floating in the thigh-high water.  Oh, and a nice huge piece of fencing on my front stoop.  I didn't walk out into it.  I didn't have waders, just my work out clothes and a pair of five-fingers so I wasn't going to try to injure myself but the red tinge in the water told me that our oil tank was leaking, a lot.

J finally arrived then and he waded out in his waders to see the damage.  Surreal.  He took pictures from the front of the house... and the oil tank...

To be continued...