Moving: the bad

Yesterday we talked about the good parts of the move to Angelborough. There were, of course, bad parts.

The bad was the stress. It was difficult beyond belief to get people to do their damn job. The new house doesn’t have a gas hookup, so we decided to upgrade to one of those washer-dryer combinations that does eighty pounds of clothing with only six ounces of water, costing about seventeen dollars a year to run. No problem, right? We’ll give away the old ones.

After I called several charities, we found one that was thrilled: Catholic Charities told me a family had just called asking for exactly that. They were refugees who had fled their native country with only the clothes on their back. I was delighted: now those would be clean clothes! And would they like a queen size bed too? Yes, I was told, they would. Perfect.

I spoke to the coordinator, who told me in two days I would be in contact with the person who did the pickup.

Nine days and five phone calls later, with only 12 hours left before we moved, I was finally given an answer: they could not take the washer-dryer set. So we moved them with us, and I’ll either give them away here or else I’ll craigslist the entire lot. This is me not caring.

The flood insurance saga dragged on until the Tuesday before closing. We’d been trying for four weeks to get flood insurance, although we were told by two surveyors we didn’t need it at all, and no one could get us the magical “certificate of elevation” that was required. Eventually we paid our own surveyor, who filled out the certificate (also saying not in a flood zone) and the insurance company told us he’d used the wrong form. We got the right form. He couldn’t fax it to them. Eventually he faxed it to them…and had left off one number in one box. 

The attorney who insisted she couldn’t leave her home town and HAD to have the closing in her own office…48 hours before the closing, it took one email from our buyers’ realtor to get her to agree to come closer to us so eight people wouldn’t have to drive sixty miles to be in her presence.

And the rain. The apocalyptic rain. On Monday, we had a 3pm appointment with our attorney to get him to go to the closing for us (and it’s a good thing we did — you’ll have to read the ugly for that). At 2:45 we got into the car, and the sky opened up. It had been gorgeous up to that point, but right then, the rain came as if it were blowing in a new era. The screen in Kiddo#2’s bedroom got blown in by the force of the water. Lightning was striking immediately overhead with a simultaneous flash-boom. When I opened the garage door, water rushed in. There were eight inches of water down main street. We passed a floating manhole cover, just bobbing along like a cork. The next day, we found a drowned frog on our driveway. That kind of rain. I haven’t witnessed anything like that since we were in Florida for a couple of days.

After we signed the paperwork? Nothing. It stopped. 

Well, I told someone afterward, if this is the enemy trying to stop us, then clearly the move is going to be good, right? Right?

Tomorrow, come back for the ugly.