Thursday, October 16: Draft discovered from return duct in family room.
Friday: Serviceman comes to repair duct. I voice my discontent with prior workmanship -- our THIRD fallen duct in less than two years?! He goes under the house, discovers more extensive damage due to "chipmunks or squirrels". His boss agrees to cover the work under warranty, and will send an install crew Monday morning.
Monday, October 20: Install crew works under the house for a while, then comes sheepishly to the door and asks that I call someone to vet the crawl space to confirm that no animals are currently in residence -- they fear a raccoon was responsible for the damages, and that the damages were more extensive than initially thought.
I call several places, most of whom refuse to go into the crawl space. Finally, Critter Control comes and crawls underneath the house but there's so much damage and so many places to hide, that they can't verify that the raccoons have left. They set two traps in the crawl space, seal off the entrance, and everyone goes home. After three days, if they haven't caught anything, they'll declare the space free of raccoons. They tell me insurance will cover the work. I ask that they call me with updates.
Tuesday: I've got Alex on the potty at 8:15am when Paul comes, stricken, to find us. "Jess, there is a raccoon down there. I can hear it rusting around and grunting and it's creepy." I tell him I want to hear it and he says "No! It's too creepy!" I leave him with Alex to go call Critter Control. While I'm on the phone, leaving a message, I look out the window to see that the stuff previously blocking the entrance to the crawl space has been scattered aside. I hang up, and report to Paul that I've left a message. I look back out the window -- to see a man in a white suit crawling out of the crawl space. It was one of the Critter Control guys, but he didn't bother to knock on the door. :P We rush around to get ready for our trip. We leave Indy at 5, have a three-hour layover in Detroit. They have a fountain. Alex gets soaked and we change him into his PJs. We arrive in ALB at 11pm. Alex hasn't slept a wink. We pick up the car and drive to Saratoga Springs. Alex falls asleep, but wakes up when we stop the car at the hotel and is very disoriented and cranky. He refuses to be out of our sight and screams when we lay him in his crib -- this goes on until close to 2am when we all finally collapse, exhausted. I'm glad I'm not in a next-door room.
Wednesday: We sleep in and toodle around Saratoga. We all sleep on and off, are referred to a diner for breakfast -- that only takes cash and depletes our resources! If only we had thought to ask! We eat lunch at a great Irish pub that makes a kid-sized "bangers and mash" for Alex. We stop at the Farmer's Market and are only able to afford apples and a wonderful blueberry pastry for treats later on. (Alex LOVES eating apples out of hand.)
Thursday: Paul does conference things. Alex and I go to a little cafe for tea and bagels. They happen to roast their own coffee in the middle of the room and Alex is fascinated. (He helps Dada scoop coffee beans in the morning.) When I tire of ushering him back to the roaster, he befriends the female half of the couple sitting next to us, grabbing her finger to lead her on, and she happily follows. I have a nice chat with her boyf. We go the yarn store (exciting for me!) and Alex goes up the stairs and down the ramp over and over again, occasionally grabbing a store clerk to show her something, and giving everyone in the place hugs. He's a big hit. We head back to the hotel for a nap. We go back out on the town for a post-nap snack and discover the cutest little market -- like a hole-in-the-wall Whole Foods. Back at the hotel, we go for a family swim before meeting up with Marie and her boyf Steve at a Cajun place in town. They walk back to the hotel with us after dinner, Paul takes Alex up for bed and I visit with them a while longer in the hotel lobby. (The restaurant was very noisy -- not good for catching up.)
Friday: Paul does conference things in the morning. I touch base with Critter Control, since I hadn't heard from them. No news. Critter Control calls back 30 minutes later to report they've caught a burly male raccoon. They'll leave the other trap down there just in case.The three of us go back to the cafe for bagels and coffee before we hit the road. We also walk around Congress Park. We get bad directions back to the interstate, get stuck in traffic on i-90, take Route 5 a ways, and get to Rome four hours later than when we started. Paul's parents are driving to Rome to meet us and get there around 6pm.
Saturday: It's POURING. Paul and his parents go back to Syracuse to pick up Mark (who's now attending ESF) and bring him back to Rome. We just hang around the house and visit, which is exhausting in its own way, and all the in-laws leave that night.
Sunday: We go to church, visit Papa, and drive to ALB for our 4pm flight. Same layover in Detroit, arrive in Indy at 11pm. Shuttle back to pick up our car, and come home. Alex is the same kind of exhausted and disoriented, having not really slept at all on teh trip, and we all get to sleep around 1am.
This week has been one of insurance wrangling! The light's at the end of the tunnel, finally -- tomorrow morning they'll be reinstalling our ductwork and we'll be able to heat the downstairs again. Woohoo! The adjuster was unhappy with Critter Control's estimate for the rest of the work, so I'll need to get other bids next week.
Friday: Serviceman comes to repair duct. I voice my discontent with prior workmanship -- our THIRD fallen duct in less than two years?! He goes under the house, discovers more extensive damage due to "chipmunks or squirrels". His boss agrees to cover the work under warranty, and will send an install crew Monday morning.
Monday, October 20: Install crew works under the house for a while, then comes sheepishly to the door and asks that I call someone to vet the crawl space to confirm that no animals are currently in residence -- they fear a raccoon was responsible for the damages, and that the damages were more extensive than initially thought.
I call several places, most of whom refuse to go into the crawl space. Finally, Critter Control comes and crawls underneath the house but there's so much damage and so many places to hide, that they can't verify that the raccoons have left. They set two traps in the crawl space, seal off the entrance, and everyone goes home. After three days, if they haven't caught anything, they'll declare the space free of raccoons. They tell me insurance will cover the work. I ask that they call me with updates.
Tuesday: I've got Alex on the potty at 8:15am when Paul comes, stricken, to find us. "Jess, there is a raccoon down there. I can hear it rusting around and grunting and it's creepy." I tell him I want to hear it and he says "No! It's too creepy!" I leave him with Alex to go call Critter Control. While I'm on the phone, leaving a message, I look out the window to see that the stuff previously blocking the entrance to the crawl space has been scattered aside. I hang up, and report to Paul that I've left a message. I look back out the window -- to see a man in a white suit crawling out of the crawl space. It was one of the Critter Control guys, but he didn't bother to knock on the door. :P We rush around to get ready for our trip. We leave Indy at 5, have a three-hour layover in Detroit. They have a fountain. Alex gets soaked and we change him into his PJs. We arrive in ALB at 11pm. Alex hasn't slept a wink. We pick up the car and drive to Saratoga Springs. Alex falls asleep, but wakes up when we stop the car at the hotel and is very disoriented and cranky. He refuses to be out of our sight and screams when we lay him in his crib -- this goes on until close to 2am when we all finally collapse, exhausted. I'm glad I'm not in a next-door room.
Wednesday: We sleep in and toodle around Saratoga. We all sleep on and off, are referred to a diner for breakfast -- that only takes cash and depletes our resources! If only we had thought to ask! We eat lunch at a great Irish pub that makes a kid-sized "bangers and mash" for Alex. We stop at the Farmer's Market and are only able to afford apples and a wonderful blueberry pastry for treats later on. (Alex LOVES eating apples out of hand.)
Thursday: Paul does conference things. Alex and I go to a little cafe for tea and bagels. They happen to roast their own coffee in the middle of the room and Alex is fascinated. (He helps Dada scoop coffee beans in the morning.) When I tire of ushering him back to the roaster, he befriends the female half of the couple sitting next to us, grabbing her finger to lead her on, and she happily follows. I have a nice chat with her boyf. We go the yarn store (exciting for me!) and Alex goes up the stairs and down the ramp over and over again, occasionally grabbing a store clerk to show her something, and giving everyone in the place hugs. He's a big hit. We head back to the hotel for a nap. We go back out on the town for a post-nap snack and discover the cutest little market -- like a hole-in-the-wall Whole Foods. Back at the hotel, we go for a family swim before meeting up with Marie and her boyf Steve at a Cajun place in town. They walk back to the hotel with us after dinner, Paul takes Alex up for bed and I visit with them a while longer in the hotel lobby. (The restaurant was very noisy -- not good for catching up.)
Friday: Paul does conference things in the morning. I touch base with Critter Control, since I hadn't heard from them. No news. Critter Control calls back 30 minutes later to report they've caught a burly male raccoon. They'll leave the other trap down there just in case.The three of us go back to the cafe for bagels and coffee before we hit the road. We also walk around Congress Park. We get bad directions back to the interstate, get stuck in traffic on i-90, take Route 5 a ways, and get to Rome four hours later than when we started. Paul's parents are driving to Rome to meet us and get there around 6pm.
Saturday: It's POURING. Paul and his parents go back to Syracuse to pick up Mark (who's now attending ESF) and bring him back to Rome. We just hang around the house and visit, which is exhausting in its own way, and all the in-laws leave that night.
Sunday: We go to church, visit Papa, and drive to ALB for our 4pm flight. Same layover in Detroit, arrive in Indy at 11pm. Shuttle back to pick up our car, and come home. Alex is the same kind of exhausted and disoriented, having not really slept at all on teh trip, and we all get to sleep around 1am.
This week has been one of insurance wrangling! The light's at the end of the tunnel, finally -- tomorrow morning they'll be reinstalling our ductwork and we'll be able to heat the downstairs again. Woohoo! The adjuster was unhappy with Critter Control's estimate for the rest of the work, so I'll need to get other bids next week.
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