Thursday, April 16, 2009

It's A Calamity


The dictionary defines a calamity as a great misfortune or disaster. Sound like us? The County of Orange says "YES". They actually have a Calamity Clause that allows for an adjustment to our property tax - in our case we didn't have to pay tax on the value of the house (otherwise they'd surely owe us money) but only for the land. Apparently few people actually take advantage of it, I guess most people don't know enough to even ask about it - but my husband is a shrewd business man, that coupled with the fact that it just didn't seem to make sense to him to pay taxes on a property in such condition led him to ask the question. And it has led me to expand my vocabulary. I'm just loving the word...Calamity! It's almost fun to say much more fun than "our fire"
As I traipsed through the remains of our home I stumbled on the Female Rescue Hero pictured here, I have since named her Calamity Jane. Ironic isn't it that she is a Firewoman and survived the calamity though she is made entirely out of plastic. The de-construction guys had displayed her in a prominent location as a guardian angel of sorts but I brought her here to Dove Canyon. She isn't "safe" to play with but she is a garden angel now and living outside in the flowerbed.
The house is coming down well, I guess. There isn't much left upstairs - great view, kinda feels like a tree house. But now that we can literally see inside the walls we have discovered burned areas that we didn't realize existed. There are many spots where though the drywall looks fine, once it's removed and the framing is exposed, we can see that there was fire burning INSIDE the walls....kinda creepy. So, Friday we'll meet with Allstate, the contractor and the engineer to see what more we can tear down. From what I saw today, what isn't burned is moldy - doesn't seem worth saving to me but what do I know? Look at these pictures and tell me what you think http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=19l58mqd.84ykycc1&x=0&y=qtvfeh&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button

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