The trouble with water!

Update:

You wonderful, wonderful people! You are so freaking spectacular!!! I love it! The encouragement and support makes me get the boost I needed to fight like the dickens again. I have screamed my fool head off at the idiots in this town and I finally got tired. But, suddenly, I don't feel like being so tired anymore!!! "A screaming I will go!"

You see.....some of the people in this town don't agree with us. Mainly, because they are concerned about us suing the shit out of the school and they are worried about repercussions on their part! So, it is miserable when people roll their eyes at you or make up excuses for the stupid superintendent. Now that the town is seeing his true colors, he isn't very well liked and people are strangely changing their minds. Amazing! Some of these people were our friends though, which made for some uncomfortable situations.

The teachers all want this fruitcake out! He gets paid like $80,000 and has a huge power trip. I have been asked by many teachers to get on the school board, which then I would become his boss. I am highly considering it. I just have to keep my attitude in check for awhile and work my devious ways to kick him out! It goes to vote as to who is on the school board and b/c of some people being hateful towards us, they probably won't vote for me. And conflict of interest plays a huge part. I'm suing the school for criminey out loud! It's something I have to check into

For now, I just keep going down the stairs with my bleach bottle and killing the mold that grows. It's never ending, but it is under control for now! It helps to have people on our side though! I love that you are so willing to support me!

I have not gone public yet, under the advice of our stupid lawyer. That's another avenue that I have to fight. But the thought has been there all along. My great friend and number one supporter knows some people in the news world and the minute I give the okay, she is making the phone call. Word of mouth has been my only way of confronting this. And let's face it, my mouth is huge. I have no quarrels telling everyone and anyone who will listen how stupid the school and city are. Most agree!!!!!

Hugs to you all for being my buddies!!!! And wow....thanks for reading the whole thing!!! You certainly don't suffer from ADHD!!!!! LOL!
___________________________________________________________________





I will give you fair warning.....



This post is going to be pretty long and so not funny. This is our life for the last 4yrs. It sucks and it's sorta depressing. But my friends are sick of me venting about this and so I'm gonna blog about it. Each time I tell this story I get very emotional and very sick to my stomach. But I'm holding it in again and need to get it out before I go postal!!!!! If you don't feel like reading my sob story, I completely understand. If you want funny, read the Butt blog!



We moved here 4yrs ago. After looking for houses for a year we sorta found this house by accident. I fell in love with this house. It was my home! We put in a bid, had an inspector check it out and the house became ours. It was actually cheaper then other houses we were looking at and it was the best home suited for me. It was a sign!



The day we moved in wasn't all that stressful. We had been moving things in weeks prior to this so really, we didn't have a lot to finish the "big move". I had friends here helping, we were laughing and talking while we worked. We finally grabbed some wine and watched a movie. At about 2am we all went to sleep. I was so happy until at 7pm when my friends boyfriend screamed up the stairs "Craig, wake up, you basement flooded!" WHAT????



Sure as hell, it flooded. Of course, because the basement was a legal finished basement, all of our stuff lay on the floor waiting to be put in order. We threw it all away. Luckily I had added a rider onto our insurance for sump pump back up. All houses in Sioux Falls and surrounding areas have sump pumps. I wasn't used to this so I paid the extra $10 a month to add it to our insurance. It only pays up to $10,000 (minus the $2000 deductible) and covers only structural damage. What this means, our computers, t.v.s, printers, clothes, ect. were history. The adjuster came out and swore that even though the walls were wet, the sheet rock would dry and we only needed carpet replacement. Fine....we listened like the dumb asses we are and took his advice. We put down new, better carpet and bought all the personal items we lost again.



That whole year later, my daughter was always sick. Allergies were kicking her ass and her momma was shitting eggs. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going wrong with her allergies. I kept getting sinus infections. Bad sinus infections that Rx's and nose sprays wouldn't help. Then one day I got very, very sick. I couldn't move my head, I slept all the time, my neck hurt, I couldn't remember anything. My doctors sent me to the hospital (almost by ambulance but didn't because I begged them not too) thinking I had a tumor. After spinal tabs, cat scans, blood work, tests upon tests, they realized that I had the viral spinal meningitis. I was in the hospital for 3 days. They determined that my sinus infection got out of hand and infected my brain. Because it was viral, it wasn't too harmful but I could have headaches up to months after this. I had to have cortisone shots shot into the back of my skull, to dull the headaches. It was traumatic to say the least.



After that I still suffered with sinus issues and my daughter had pneumonia 8 times. I was getting ready to move back to where we came from. I was scared. I was worried beyond belief about my daughters health. My hubby suffered too.....and woke up gagging up green stuff daily. Things were wrong, terribly wrong. I had a bad feeling and the stress was taking it's toll on me.



Then one day my hubby was in N. Carolina and Diva and I sluggishly woke up. It had rained like a bitch that night. I stayed in my basement until 1am or about to make sure we were not flooding. Our sump pump was running continuously, so far so good. When we woke up, Diva looked down the stairs and freaked. Then she begged me not to freak. I half asleep wondered over to the stairs. I see water up to the 3rd step, our personal belongings floating by and no hubby to yell too. I started to cry. Then I pulled it together and called my friends whom all came over to help. It was a disaster. We had 14inches plus in our basement. I was in utter disbelief. I called the insurance, who they advised me to call a carpet restoration company to see what could be saved. I was pissed about that but had to listen or my piddly little $10,000 insurance rider wouldn't apply. The restoration company was here for 2hrs at the most, charged me $3000 and left. The adjuster came the next day and told us to rip out all the carpet and all the sheet rock. He personally said "This is a disaster!"



When we ripped out the sheet rock, we discovered mass amounts of mold. Mold all over the place. Hmmmm....wonder why we were always sick. That was from the first flood! Nice!



We had a engineer come out and look at the foundation. He immediately told us that the bus barn the school had built before we moved in was the blame. No drainage and the whole town pretty much drains to this area. It backs up under ground, and our drain tile and sump pump cannot keep up.



We fought with the school and city for a year. The city allowed this bus barn to be built without a building permit. After it was built they gave them the permit which stated that a detailed drain survey was to be done. It never was. The engineer who built the bus barn has admitted that it is causing our problems. The city and school don't care. Our neighborhood protested that bus barn going up, in fear of flooding. The superintendent at the time stated that if there was any flooding issues "the school would be responsible" We have that in the city minutes. This house flooded the year before we moved in, but the old owners blamed it on sump pump failure. Little did they know that it was actually the damn that was built behind them. We now have a new freak of a superintend ant that literally told us that it didn't matter what was said before. He's the one in charge now and he will not help us!! Then they told my hubby that we could no longer go to the school meetings to discuss the problem and try to find a mutual agreement. They didn't care about our problems.

Everyone knows the reason we are flooding.....but everyone pretty much laughed in our face!



We have gone to every single department in the government. All of them admit that the school and city broke the law, but they cannot do anything about it, it's not in their jurisdiction. Then they send us to the next level of government and so on and so on. I spoke to the Governor himself and my husband spoke to the FBI. Nobody can help. Everyone just offers us pity, but no help.



It's in lawsuit now but we picked the wrong fucking lawyer. He is worthless. We have flooded every year we lived here. Never mind the fact that a week after the big flood, I had major surgery. Then our insurance, because they gave us the $10000 (minus the deductible), gave us a very limited time frame to fix the structural damage or they would put a lien on our house. Remember we spent $3000 to the idiot restoration company, then we waterproofed our basement. We put in decorative cement flooring (which is gorgeous) which cost $3000. You can see where this is going. We have roughly put in $15000 to that basement of our own money. We put the medical bills on hold to get rid of the mold in the basement and to fix the bitch up. It is 3/4 the way finished, but because all of our personal property was thrown into a dumpster and the fact that we know we will flood again this year, it sits empty. I don't even want to tell you how much we have lost in home value. It's sickening. And then the medical bills started threatening us. We have to pay or we will have judgements on us. We are trying to fix a basement and pay for a very unexpected surgery too. Both things were unexpected. All our savings went ka-put and all of it into the basement, lawyers, etc. I chose to fix the basement and deal with the mold so my child won't miss mass amounts of school again and struggle to breath. I figured the medical bills will just have to wait. Priorities. But the hospitals and doctors and bill collectors could give a rats ass about our situation. They don't care and demand the minimal payment. This means we pay about $300 a month. Never mind that my health insurance paid over $19,000 for my surgery. It's not like they didn't get paid! The Rat Bastards are heartless.




The repercussions of this has been overwhelming and has caused us great amounts of stress. I could tell you more, but I would only bore you. Our city council and superintendent of the schools swore to my husband that water does run uphill (my husband is a mechanical engineer, and these morons are arguing with him). I have freaked out on these assholes before. It hasn't been pretty and everyone knows us as the "family that is suing the school". Ugh.

We have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped us threw it all but couldn't take it to court b/c of conflict of interest. He sent a fellow lawyer to a meeting with me (he or hubby couldn't attend). This lawyer, who got a crash course on our situation, walked out of the city council meeting and said: "You live in the town of Fuck!!! As soon as you can, move the hell out of this pathetic excuse of a town. I have never seen such ignorance and stupidity in my entire life!"

He fumed and vented to our friend lawyer and said that he totally feels sorry for us as we have done nothing wrong. He is right, we have done nothing wrong.

We spoke with everyone possible. No one will help! Everyone gives us their apologies and then quickly dismisses us as dirty old shoes. I could not even explain the amounts of heartache and stress I have. I am on anxiety meds as this was causing me to have ulcers and I was puking all the time. Most of the times blood. I know that my life could be worse....I get that! But it still sucks ass people! It leaves a bad taste in my mouth every.single.day! Like I'm sucking on rotten eggs! I sit here and blog through my tears. The memories of the sickness it caused my baby girl! The numerous times I slept with her, my hand over her chest, making sure she didn't stop breathing. The numerous times I lay awake just to hear her wheezing, struggling to breath. My doctors were concerned, and when we discovered the mold we all went "Ah-ha!"
My doctor will testify that it caused severe health issues for us all!



This is my life for the last 4yrs.........and it sucks. People are sick of hearing our sob story. People are sick of listening to me vent about how much I hate this effing town and wish I could move. People are sick of us venting. I don't blame them.

And my stress level hasn't been any better b/c I deal with this all the time. It is in my face daily. I want to move, but with the loss of property value, we cannot. So, we will sop up the mess again this year and fight the battle of mold again and again. It is a never ending battle.



Now that I have tears streaming down my face from exhaustion, sadness, madness and everything else.....I will sign off.



This really is only half of the story. I could tell you more and more, but I just don't have it in me. I don't want pity out of this, I just needed a place to scream as today is "one of those days!"



If you made it this far, thank you! If not, I understand! I'm inches away from saying screw it and move anyway. Screw the fact that we will lose even more of our hard earned money. WTF????

I would show pictures but I can't do it. It hurts.....deep! I can't stand to look at them anymore. It's not about losing everything. 3 computers, t.v's, my daughters baby memorabilia, her bible with her name engraved on it in gold from her Godparents, our antique furniture, our newer furniture, our place where friends and family could come and stay, all my Christmas decorations (including my $400 tree), surround sound, Xbox, pictures (lots and lots of pictures), my daughters scrap book, all of our summer clothes, and much much more.

Okay, I'm done! I'm quite certain most haven't made it to the 2nd paragraph! Sorry!