The Squirrels Are Back... and yes it's personal this time

Just a quick update on the house.

Here is the start of the snowball, turns out there are snowballs in hell because that is right where this one came from.

We received a water bill for the house in CO on Grand.  Most of our water bills are $45.... $130 tops.  When we opened this one up it showed that the month of May the total was over $400!!  I remember that last month noticing that the sprinklers between the street and the sidewalk were going a lot and called Aaron our sprinkler guy out to take a look at it.  This was the cause of the $400 bill. 

Wanting to make sure that this still wasn't going on I asked Mom and Dad to swing by the house and make sure there wasn't a sprinkler head going and to see if they could just shut it off for us.  When they got to the house they found a FedEx letter from Tesla, the company that put in our Solar Panels. Dad scanned it in and emailed it to us.  It seems upon the routine Tesla inspection they found a bunch of damage, sing it with me, "The squirrels are back again and your father won't call an exterminator"  Yes those G.D. squirrels set up another nest under the panels and started chewing away at the wires.  Because of this being known before the closing of the house it is on us to fix it, to the tune of $2100.

A small gust of wind has given a gentle push to our snowball and it is now begun descending down the mountain.

If anyone has ever dealt with a VA loan you know the horror show.  It is great for the buyer, but for the seller it's a nightmare.  When you are dealing with the VA your house has to be in perfect working order or they will not approve the loan.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that there are these protections out there for our vets.  I'm unhappy with the order that this all went down in. 

The order that is supposed to happen is that the inspector comes out, you fix whatever the inspection says you have to.  Then the appraiser comes out, signs off and you get your loan.  This seems like such a simple 3 step process to me, and yet here we are.  When we had the inspection done they came back with nothing to fix.  We were pleasantly shocked, that includes our realtor, that nothing had to be fixed.  Next we are on to appraisal.  The appraiser visits the house and informs Catherine that we need to fix 3 things before they will sign off on the loan for the buyer.  The window in the office that is cracked, the trim on the house in the backyard (again squirrel damage) and the sagging deck.  Catherine has checked in with her handymen and no one can get out there to fix these things until after the 1st.  This was this past Weds. July 24th, 5 days before closing.  Had we known about these things 3 weeks ago when the inspection took place we could've had them fixed.

Our snowball is now cresting the summit and has grown to the size of a pumpkin.

On Thursday I started going through Google trying to find some kind of handyman to go fix these things on short notice.  I found a company in Ft. Collins and told the owner, Gabe, about our situation.  This was my big mistake, I'm sure that antenna went up tuning into my desperate need for a contractor. 

Thursday was also the kids new school open house event and the girl wanted to get her hair cut before the first day of school.  Of course momma treated herself to a manicure while I waited for her.  While getting my nails done Gabe calls me to let me know that he just finished summing up what needs to be done at the house.  He tells me that if this were his place he would rip the entire deck out and replace it.  I told him, look I just need the sagging part fixed.  He sends me pictures of rotted wood, because why in the world would those builders use treated wood that won't rot???  I swear they made all of those houses so aesthetically pleasing, but then didn't give a second thought to functionality or construction.  But I digress.

I'm fearing how much this is going to cost so I ask, under $10,000?  He chuckles and says yes, I say under $5,000 he says he thinks it will be around $3,100.  Alright, it sucks, but what choice do we have at this point?

Driving back from Discovery Bay I talk to Gabe once again and now the price is $5,100.  I can only assume that it jumped by 2 grand due to the sense of urgency in my voice as well as my asking the pricing question.  "If she thought it might be 10 grand I bet I can get more out of her."  We arrange to meet Ed for dinner at Applebee's where I completely throw my children under the bus by asking them to deliver the news of how much it will cost to Ed.  I highly recommend this tactic for all bad news delivery.  How can you get mad at that sweet little face?

While at dinner Catherine calls and I tell her what all has transpired, she is aghast at the price of that deck repair.  I told her that I thought it was really high too, but not dealing with this on a daily basis, how do I know if that is a correct price or not?  So we decided to do a 3 way conference call with Gabe.  Some things didn't add up after talking to him.  For instance, Catherine asked him how much of that was materials, he said $550.  She asked the rest of that is all labor then?  He says well yes because it's a weekend job.  She asks how much would it be if it wasn't a weekend job and he tells us it would cost the same.  ~red flag~  She tells him the same thing, look we are not looking to have the deck rebuilt, we just need it to pass the appraiser.  His argument is that he's been in business for 20 years and he doesn't want to put his name on something that is done half arsed.  We hang up with Gabe and Catherine calls me back.  She picked up on the weekend labor thing as well.  Then I told her that on top of this he wanted all this money up front, which I wasn't comfortable with at all.

Our snowball is blasting down toward the base of the mountain, it is the size of a Volkswagen and it is mowing down everything in it's path.

Catherine and I decide the best thing to do is to just use her guy and wait until the 1st when he can get out there.  I send a text message to Gabe thanking him for his time, but tell him that we can save about $2,500 if we just wait until the 1st to have Catherine's guy do the work.  I get an immediate text message back asking for me to call him.  All of a sudden Gabe can do the work for $2,500 less than he was asking.  He starts into the bit again about his name being on this work, pride, insurance, yada yada yada.  I tell him, "Look, it's not like your name is going to be on a plaque underneath our deck, no one is going to know who did that work.  I just need it done to pass an appraisal, she isn't going to be crawling through lattice to look under the deck."  I also told him that I would give him 1/2 upfront and the balance upon completion, which he agreed to and says that the work will be completed by Sat. evening.  I have Catherine schedule a new appraisal walk through for Monday and I think we are back on track.  There will be no way to close on the 29th now, it is looking more like this coming Friday.

Friday, (yesterday), I tried to reach Gabe all day and played phone tag with him.  I was trying to get the 1/2 down payment to him because I was afraid that without that he wouldn't start the work.  We went back and forth texting payment options, Venmo, Pay Pal, Apple Pay and never did get it resolved by that night.  One of our former neighbors, Danielle, was kind enough to walk by our house last night for me and told me that it didn't look like any work had been done at all on the deck.  This was my big fear.

This morning, (Saturday), first thing I did was call Gabe and got his voicemail box.  The recording was a guy with this Brooklyn accent asking you to leave a message for Chilly Willy's air conditioning.  This was a real WTF moment.  I called back and got the same thing.  Who is this guy???

Danielle's daughter has been cutting our grass for us and was over there this morning and informed me that still there are no materials at the house and there are no workers at the house.  My last text message from Gabe was that I was to call his wife Lauren to arrange payment.  Not being successful in reaching Gabe I call her.  Again telling her that I'm not giving any money when no one is at the house working.  She has Gabe call me and he informs me that he is on the way over to the house at that moment to take out the office window for replacement.  When he gets there he calls me to say that his workers wife was in an accident and had to leave the job site abruptly, but he would be staying there to work on it himself. 

I start to question his voice mail message, he tells me that he's an actor on the side and he did it as a joke/audition for a commercial for some lady.  ~red flag~  At this time he tells me that he's been doing this for 15 years.  (Hmmm didn't he say 20 before?  But I don't call him out on it).  He says that the work will be completed by tomorrow.  He also tells me that him and Catherine are actually in some of the same social real estate circles.  Later Catherine texts me that she does know some of the people in Gabe's circles and he seems ok to go ahead and pay.  So I sent the payment to him.

This is where our snowball lay at the moment.  It is at the base of the mountain, it is the size of a Suburban.  In it there is rotten wood, house trim, a window, some solar panels, wires sticking out and in the very center of it is a squirrel.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that little bastard was the one that pushed it off the top of the mountain to begin with.