People keep chuckling when I say the transaction is cursed. I wish you would believe me. Six weeks in this house and we’re back to the flood insurance saga.
On Saturday, we received a letter from the flood insurance people (remember when we had to get flood insurance for the flood zone we weren’t in?) and they said we don’t actually have the coverage we’re paying for because they need the dimensions of our crawl space.
Two surveyors so far have told them we don’t have a crawl space, and therefore we cannot provide the dimensions. My Patient Husband, after Patiently explaining this to the flood insurance people, provided them the phone, fax and email info for our surveyor to have them call and verify that no, we have no crawl space.
Clearly they did not do their jobs, because we received this letter.
It gets better. See, we’ve always gone with Geico insurance (they’ve been good to us) but apparently they don’t write their own flood, so they have us going to another agency for that. Passing the hassle along to us, so to speak. Because either they never got the information or else they didn’t pass it along. So for the first time, I spoke with the other agency.
The woman there mm-hmmed sagely when I explained that we were cursed, and she emailed me the forms I need to fill out to state the size of our non-existent crawl space and why the builders didn’t obtain a variance to build a house in a flood zone that didn’t exist. She wants me to fax them back.
A word about fax machines: does everyone in the United States have a fax machine except for us? Because every single person I’ve dealt with regarding this cursed transaction has requested that we fax something to them. And they were all surprised when I said we didn’t have one. Have I missed the memo (because it was faxed)? Is life without a fax machine akin to not having indoor plumbing?
At any rate, she assured me the curse on my transaction could be lifted if I fill out the form, scan and email it to her, and then mail in the real form afterward. Heaven only knows what they’ll do when I fill in that the crawl space is zero-point-zero-zero in size. I imagine we’ll wait another six weeks and find out that no, we’re still not covered for flood because they tried to divide by zero and had to close down operations until they could reboot all their computers.
Would anyone mind faxing the real estate industry a clue?
Oy vey! I’d tear my hairy-hairy hair out for you if it weren’t still falling out on its own at an alarming rate.
Tell them you can’t fax because apparently someone put the fax machine in your non-existent crawlspace!
It must be down there with my patience. 😉
I think they expect you to just have Staples or Kinko fax it.
They’re always surprised when I reply that I don’t have a fax machine. They’ve tried to fax things TO me too, and again, the surprise that the paper isn’t just going to come out of my phone.
We had a fax machine when we had a home phone line at the apartment (while being close enough to the apt office to use theirs or across the street from Kinkos). My husband insisted on getting this after I drove to my work office at 3 AM to turn in something due that morning (that I could have faxed).
When we moved, we opted to only have one cell # so we don’t have a fax machine and have to drive much farther to Kinkos.
No, you aren’t the only family without a fax machine and they just assume that everyone owns one because their office has one – just like everyone assumes that EVERYONE wants an iPhone. Arg.
Can’t the local post office fax it to you? Or receive a fax for you? Over here, for a not-too-expensive fee, you can use the post office’s fax.
Incoming fax is a lot easier. Check out k7.net for a free phone number where you can receive faxes that are sent right to your e-mail. Podcasters use this all the time for a voice line. It expires in 30 days if it isn’t used (I need to grab another one soon) but it’s a fabulous service.
We have a fax machine here, part of a three-in-one workstation (fax, scanner, printer). I rarely hook it up anymore.
There are other internet fax companies that you can send scans to, but that might convince them that you really do have a fax (meaning the rest of us are one more person behind the times).
Mom had one attached to the home line. I think at one time she even had a separate line and let clients use it as theirs, for a fee. She did typing and office things for small businesses, in the early days of computers. $15,000, took the entire desk, and only did word-processing. Some clients thought she had no sense of humour when she objected to rude jokes being faxed to them through her.
They still have a machine because a few of her old clients still send her rush jobs on it, but now it’s rarely used. Except for one little old lady, definitely getting elderly, who just can’t understand that she has to call first. Mom’s tempted to tell her she got rid of the fax machine, but the lady’s nice in other ways.
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