15000% return on investment
News ·Tuesday January 23, 2007 @ 02:04 EST (link)
The snow finally left. Yay. Melted away to nothing. Our icy street, which some of the dimmer neighbors were sledding on, is clear again. And the tree at the back that got almost knocked over is still tied to the nearby rock and smaller tree and will probably recover. A smaller tree at the side also got knocked slantwise, but is being propped up by a log from the tree that fell (it's the least it could do). The rest of the tree has been removed from our yard; one of the trees near the fall point did have a main branch sheared right off, but another one right by the gap in the fence escaped almost unscathed. The rest of the tree remains for the neighbors to clean up; it's pretty huge in diameter, they're supposedly looking at some pretty whacked-out estimates and I don't think their insurance is covering it (since it didn't damage their house). To be honest, I don't really feel all that bad for them.
You're probably wondering about the title, or maybe you've figured it out by now: the ROI is for our homeowners insurance; we paid about $400, and the estimate for the tree removal, interior replacements, temporary repairs, and rebuilding work is about $60,000. The windstorm actually happened on our policy renewal date, so technically we'd been paying two years (and if you want to go that far, we'd also had a policy while living in our various apartments) so it probably comes to more like 5000%, which is still not too shabby.
However, to add insult to injury, our hot water went out last Thursday; we called Puget Sound Energy, they'll be sending someone out Tuesday (thanks). We showered in cold water (invigorating and then some), but I decided to hold off on shaving, although I suppose boiling water's not too much trouble. I took the cover off the heater Friday (when the stored water ran out; I'd noticed it being a little cool Thursday but not thought much of it); the pilot light was out; I re-lit it, but it didn't stay on; most sources seem to think the thermocouple's gone (or possibly dirty, but I tried to file it and no luck).
