BeckaSutton wrote:Yikes! Hope you get your barn sorted soon. :/
Becka
Heh.. you and me both, hon...
Thing is, the damage was done 5 months ago. I didn't even know it happened since the damage done was on the side of the barn facing away from the house... first I knew something went wrong was when my neighbor called me up and said "Hey, you're barn is in my driveway"... Erm.. okay?
Me, the insurance field adjuster and a contractor all stood in the barn, on the same day at the same time and all of us were in agreement as to what needed to be done. I thought things were going smoothly. Mr. Murphy had other ideas.
Though a very long and sordid series of events, which I will not go into because of my blood pressure, the work was not done. It was like watching a slow-motion tennis match between the contractor (who was being difficult) and the insurance company (who was being more difficult). After 3 months, I finally got fed up and called my insurance agent and told him in so many words: "In every organization, if you go high enough, you get to one man who makes the decisions. I pay my premiums on time and to the penny. If my barn isn't fixed within the next 4 weeks, I will make it my mission in life to find that one man and make sure he knows what my problem is. More importantly, I will make him very aware of who YOU are, who the other players in this sad little play are, and then I will find another insurance company."
The next day, someone was banging on my front door at 9AM, wanting to know if they could go measure my barn for repairs.
It's a shame that it has to come to this just to get a contract fulfilled. For it is a contract, agreed upon by gentlemen. I pay you X dollars in case something bad happens to my property. You take my money and agree to fix my property in a timely manner if something bad happens. I fulfilled my end of the contract. They have not. I should not have to threaten anyone just to get someone to fulfill their end of an agreement.
Meanwhile, the barn is not structurally sound enough to actually put anything inside, except at the far end (it's 80 feet long). The barn is easily a hundred years old and the timbers inside are actually whole trees. The land was cleared and the cedar trees had their limbs removed, then those trees went to make up the main columns and beams of the barn itself. It's pretty cool walking into a barn and seeing whole trees holding up the roof. Still, I cannot put livestock into it until the roof is repaired. So, we've had to lease out our land to a neighbor and have him run livestock on our land until next year. We make a few dollars in the process, and he gets access to improved pastures and an uninterruptible source of fresh water (large pond fed by an underground stream. It's drought-proof), so we both benefit. Plus, I don't have to mow the fields and the cow droppings will help fertilize the land further...
Still... was looking forward to having our own livestock this year. Cotswold sheep. I'm sure you're familiar with them, being as y'all Brits started the breed in the first place. They're a heritage breed over here and their wool brings good money. Plus, I'm a sucker for grilled lamb.