The 13th Apostol

Creepy Crawlies

Sooo..."Why yes Ms. Snuffaluffagus, we'd love to replace your damaged property. Just fax us an itemized list (with digital images) and we'll get right on it." just happened.

As in,  I just got off the phone with Mr. Adjuster guy fifteen minutes ago. The catch is there's no way I can accomplish this feat alone, which means I have to do that thing that makes my skin crawl...

Ask for help.

Size Matters

The adjuster, you know...the FARMERS INSURANCE adjuster who came out yesterday morning to assess the storm damage to my roof from the December 12, ice storm? The first adjuster failed to acknowledge said roof damage, while agreeing only to pay for damage INSIDE the sieve-like leaking roof...cutting me a whimperingly disgusting $432.00 check, and wishing me a good day.

Really? Hmm, I thought this was a catastrophic event, even that moron in the White house agreed. Catastrophic event. Send aid. Oklahoma. Next?

While I knew ahead of time my coverage never under any circumstances included mold and or fungi, apparently Mr. Adjuster guy was having a human feeling day today.
Because at 9:00 this morning Mr. Adjuster guy returned to my property to meet Mr. Roofer guy. There were loud thumping noises as if Santa and all eight ten twelve a lot of his reindeer were traipsing about, followed my a giant THUD, then expletives, silence, and eventually a knock on my front door.

Where Mr. Adjuster guy, looking disheveled and out of sorts, announced he was working up an estimate in his car and would be just a moment longer if I could wait.
An estimate? Wait? Lets see, I've been waiting three months almost, I guess I can make it another ten minutes for another crappy $400.00 check.

This is where I get all menopausal and shit.
I waited, then decided my meeting was a little more important than another crappy check. So I grabbed my fake Louis (it's such a good knock off I have to treat it like it's real...shame really) and headed to the car, at which point Mr. Adjuster guy comes limping my direction from his car.

"Ms. Snuffaluffagus Apostolopoulos I'm almost finished, I'm printing your check right now." He grimaced.
"Well", I lied "I have a very important business meeting I need to be at. Can you mail me the crappy check?"
"No I really can't due to the size of the check, if you can wait I'm almost done."

OK, here comes the menopausal shit. I literally had to come back in the house to keep from doing the cry-scream thing. sizE? siZE?! SIZE?!!!

Not only are they paying to replace the roof, they are paying to have the DAMAGE from the water repaired in the kitchen. i.e. they can't cover the mold, but they can cover the damage from the water which resulted in mold...go figure.

All I know is were half way there.
Now all I have to do is convince them that - "Why yes Ms. Snuffaluffagus, we'd love to replace all your damaged property as the result of the leaking roof we are replacing...just LOVE to"

I'm not greedy.
I'm just right.

...and grateful OK? I'm grateful too. Damn Humility.

In the Words of Shawn Colvin "Get Out of This House"

Last night I unearthed active black mold in the house from Hell, the home that once held so many dreams seems to be slipping from my grasp. Just another kick to my gut that would not listen when it screamed at me last summer "DO NOT DO THIS WOMAN"

Yet like a good addict I chose to ignore my voice of God, for fear I would never buy if I didn't buy THIS house, at THAT moment, in THIS neighborhood. Now I'm financially wrecked due to "He who shall not be named's" lack of ANY financial support of our son in the last four months.

This morning I awoke to a friend request from a guy named K.
K. is homeless on the streets of L.A. somehow with a laptop and a digital camera, but that's the suspicious addict in me rearing it's ugly head. I was homeless and none of the folks I new had either, but then this is OKC, not L.A. County.
Maybe even the homeless in Beverly Hills have more, but my gut says something just isn't right about the dudes story. If we DID know someone on the street with electronics equipment, they wouldn't have had it long.

Not if I'd had anything to say about it...that's all I'm sayin y'all. But reading his profile, which I will not link to since he may be a Journalist and need his story to hold.

Sad he doesn't realize true homeless people can and do get off the streets and work their way up to owning electronic equipment of their own.

Of course because their geniuses like myself they also buy adobe homes while residing in the midwest...the very damp midwest. Where they and their son successfully raise mold spore farms.

Google "Exposure Asbestos Lead Paint"...I Dare You

I realize how sick you all are of hearing about my pathetic home purchase, but between fighting off the advances of contractors who want to "Help" me, and discovering the Seller had previously tried to contain the asbestos and peeling lead paint...I think I will start drinking again.

Ok, maybe I'll just do a bump...Ok, maybe I'll just blog about it...see it really is best to just put up with me. Blogging does the least amount of damage.

Here's what I know: The Seller LIED LIKE A FLIPPIN RUG on the disclosure, leaving me a toxic wasteland to clean up. How do I know this? I found proof of attempted containment. Such shoddy work, the PARTICLE BOARD that was my wall bowed out from the moisture of having all the windows open for two weeks straight. I could pull it off with one peripheral neuropathy crippled hand.

So pissed, so pissed.

Every night when The Mer and I get in bed, we go through my decorating magazines. He's placed sticky notes just so, keeping track of how he will decorate his new bedroom, the one no one was ever going to take away from him again...kids don't quit dreaming, hoping, believing things will get better.

I love my son more than life.
I will not place him in harms way, he has enough medical challenges without being exposed to fucking asbestos and lead paint. Jesus Christ, how could someone knowingly sell something like this to a woman and small child?

In an email to my Lender cc my Realtor, I wrote

"I should have been warned not to remove the carpet. I initially requested it be replaced with new carpet and was turned down by the Seller. I should have been told what was underneath the carpet and in the walls. I should have been told the house I was buying had problems that could be hazardous to my son's and my heath. I had a right to know they had previously tried to contain the asbestos and peeling lead based paint problem.

I am not a stupid woman, but I had no experience with the home buying process, so I trusted those who did.
Here's the gist of it:
Had I not removed the carpet, Al would have been sick from the carpet dust, and padding, the dirt that settles underneath the carpet that no amount of cleaning can get out. The glues used in older carpets, the glues used to hold the padding to the sub floor.
Had I not removed the carpet the asbestos and lead dust would still be in the house, crumbling behind the walls, in smaller amounts, but my son would be sick with constant flu-like symptoms from the carpet...we've been there before.

I would not have bought the house with a full disclosure, no sane parent would have. I was mislead, the truth was omitted, and I've been trying to fix someone else's problem that, as kind David from Community Action said "I inherited". I love the neighborhood, I love the house, but not more than my son's health. I will now be responsible for a nearly $800 mortgage on a home I cannot live in, afford to make safe, nor sell."

Internet, there's no way to describe what I'm feeling...dealing primarily with individuals ignorant or in denial about the consequences of exposure to these toxins.

The solution is money and reliable skilled contractors, both of which do not exist in my immediate future. "I", as they say in France, "am fucked".

The Sea Monster Attacks in The Aftermath of Hurricane Apostol

I have less than two weeks to get the house livable or I am responsible for the entire ball of wax...no wait, ball game...

One of the Lowe's employees responsible for signing the restraining order, felt so badly for me, he turned me on to a friend of his who's a general contractor type individual.

We'll call this man "Tom" because that's how it's entered in my phone.

Tom seems to be of overall good character, not telling me during our first visit about his stint in the super max in Florence...which on my check list of contractors is now a plus!
Tom is just an old hippy/carpenter/tile-layer/kind-of-dude...who smokes menthol kings, walks with a limp, and calls me "Darlin". As in "Darlin, we gotta get this house fixed so you and that boy of yours can move on in", NOT "Darlin, that sure is some nice asbestos you got there"

The first night Tom came to asses the damage from hurricane Apostol, he helped me load the 876 lb. floor machine I had rented the day before from Crosslands, (yes they also rent giant balloon bounce things) into the back of the Pathfinder...effortlessly I might add. We both turn around to see The Sea Monster approaching, apparently to lend some sort of non-financial hand to the drama that is my life.

First he wanted to bum a cigarette, to which I replied, um "no". Then when I asked him where The Mer's child support was, ten days late at this time, he replied "It's in the mail"...I walked away, so as not to give Tom the impression I was somehow an unstable, emotionally volatile woman of Hellenic decent.

As I was moving in the opposite direction, I hear "Hey man, can I buy a cigarette from you for a quarter"...that was all I could muster, so I went inside my broken house and cried. (just for a second though since Mer-Boy was somewhere about.)

Yesterday morning I checked the balance on my Oklahoma Debit card Visa...the one child support payments are made through...you know where this is going don't you?

Last month we had this to deal with, well the bastard did it again. Failing to provide documentation to child support enforcement of the current order. He paid the $238, but this time we only got $109...not even $127 from the old order.

Once again he used this as an opportunity to get caught up on his back child support, at the cost of his son. Now I've been understanding as hell the last few months, they've been doing the Cub Scout thing together, Chess Tournaments, etc. and while I don't like the sonofabitch, he's still The Mer's father, and he truly has been trying (for TSM trying) but that's $240 his self-centered shit has cost Mer.

Why The Mer got no new school clothes, or violin for strings. I bust my ass to be the best mom/dad/grandma/grandpa/aunt/uncle I can be, however I cannot do it all Internet.

I promise you though, I surely will keep trying.

Abatement Isn't What's Downstairs or Apostol Breaks Her House

I Broke my house.
Why did I take off the only thing holding the house together! WHY?
I will be penniless, living in a shelter somewhere on skid row by the time I make this mother inhabitable. I don't want to even read my favorite blogs...everyone is normal, not obsessed, exhausted, and now utterly at a loss as to how I will get this place livable in 20 days.

I broke my asbestos filled house because I am an idiot, a horrible mother, (but excellent demo diva) and wish I had all the money back I've given to St. Lowe's charity for mentally ill Greek women.

I-broke-my-house.
See the base-board looking thing around the parameter of the room? It's called cove molding, it's the ugly-assed crap you see at your Psychiatrists office.
It used to go all the way down to the carpet, sort of decorative like, in a sick industrialist way. Now, it just hangs there, letting the asbestos infested WALL behind the GLUED on FAUX wood paneling crumble to the freakin ground.

No, I'm not kidding.
Would I kid about something as serious as having my first house payment in twenty days, and not being able to LIVE in the damn thing? Noooo, I wouldn't kid abo...oh shut up. I broke my house.

The Mer is so disappointed, and I can't fix this problem, these multiple problems I've just tried harder and harder to fix on my own.

I have no recourse with the seller, and even if I did, I love the little house. I want to keep it and fix the immediate problems if I can We didn't have an asbestos test done, because I didn't have assistance from a community agency on my down payment, otherwise it would have been mandatory with a house this age.

It's time to take a few steps back and get a better perspective, clear my head, play a little, go for a run in the crisp mornings...there is a solution, there always is, don't I know that by now?

Bean-E-Doo: Mastic Removal for Dummies

I now have severe carpol tunnel again. Carpool? Carpal...there we go, and the numbness in my hands is wrecking me bad.
I keep forgetting to take pictures of the progress I'm making (you seriously wouldn't believe one woman has done all this in one week.) Ok, minus the four hours Talal helped on Tuesday, err...Monday.
What day IS it?
I seriously can't believe I've done this much work. WHY don't I have a picture to show you?? This sucks. You'd be all "OMG Apostol is AMAZING!"

Maybe not, but you'd really be impressed, and extremely glad it was I and not yourself doing the work. Extremely glad.
Like it goes with projects such as these, just about the time your nearing the end of one portion of the job, you/I critique a removal system fit for Royalty.
Perhaps I'll patent it, call it "Apostol's Patented Mastic Removal System"
Or even better..."Mastic Removal for Dummies"

Or even better..."Mastic Removal for Dummies"

Or even better..."Mastic Removal  for Dummies"

Although the solvent "Bean-e-Doo" is made from soy beans, and has little to no odor at all...maybe even a slight vanilla scent, very odd.

Even though, the Mastic it's self emits an odor as the soy is breaking it down to liquid. All I have to say, is it's a damn good thing I'm through having children.

Or even better..."Mastic Removal for Dummies"   

 

That Time of Year Again...

Sure beats the Grim Reaper.
I'll miss that guy this year.

Houston, We Have Concrete!

It's not much, but by God I hit pay dirt...just KNOWING there's actually concrete underneath all that, that, that stuff...gives me strength to continue.

Here's some better shots of the outside, and no...this isn't all I'm going to write about.

I'm still homesick as hell, I want to touch my things, smell my things, nest for Autumn, buy pumpkins...I doubt at the rate I'm going, we'll be in by Halloween. Missing the old house, all it held in my heart.

The kids running through, the Holidays, the bickering, the mess!
This is still so hard some days, letting go. All the neighbors in the immediate vicinity of  the new place are good neighbors, but their kids are all my age for the love of Mike...

Mike. Who is this Mike guy I speak of?
No toxic fumes to blame this state of mind on.
Too bad.

Ran into that flame at HD today.
I looked like an menopausal dyke covered in black mastic.

He on the other hand, looked hot.
Sickeningly hot.

Why Yes, I Have a Vagina...Why Do You Ask?

Once again I have abandoned my writing, friends, self...all in what feels like a feeble attempt at renovating a 1947 "safe house", still stuck in the Kennedy administration.
I have hit an impasse, a point of no return, or so it seems. In over my head, running on empty, and feeling so overwhelmed with these floors I can't think straight enough to make good choices.

If I continue the way I planned, with acid staining the concrete slab hidden under the tar from Dante's hell, it could very well turn out to be the most beautiful art I've done in years.
I can't figure out how to get the tar off the slab,  I can't THINK correctly because I'm too close to the remodel emotionally.
Every person I talk to says something different, I have come to loathe the employees at HD and Lowe's...although they mean well, they are essentially idiots. (such as myself)

One contractor came saw the disaster in front of him, and failed to reply with a bid...nice guy though. Another contractor I believe may have inhaled far too many  solvents over the course of his career, but his bid was for an overlay.
A flippin overlay ON TOP of mastik...yeah right, oh and here's a grand up front...I have a vagina, therefore I have no clue what I'm doing? I have a vagina, therefore  I have less upper body strength...that's about it dude.

Today, I am renting a machine. Do not ask me what KIND of machine I am renting, because  I do not KNOW...but there must exist a machine, that can scrape this crud off concrete, while exposing the layer suitable for acid staining...there must be.

I can do this.
I CAN DO THIS!

Spinning My Wheels it Feels

At  least  Mesta Festa was a success...

That black gook was underneath the 60 year-old tiles...my only option is to buy some knee pads,  solvents similar to gases used  in Auschwitz, and find some day labor on the cheap:)...and yes, I've done all this by my damn self.