Photo courtesy WRBL-TV; Used with permission.
By Charlotte Bowman
A team of roofers showed up at our house last month. Roofers are a lot like plumbers. You hate calling them because you know they’re going to find more problems than you originally thought you had. And you know it’s going to cost more than you planned. Our roofers ended up replacing all the shingles on the backside of our house. The endless banging and drilling brought back nostalgic (i.e. nightmarish) memories of the last time we needed a roof repair.
It was the weekend of March 26-27, 2005. You remember it, right? The Easter Monsoon?
An early Spring storm brought hail and a sky full of cats and dogs that left us with several inches of rain. Thankfully, tornadoes failed to materialize, but large hail pelted North Georgia, and heavy rain flooded the central part of the state.
In just two days, Columbus received a whopping 4.36 inches.
My husband and I emerged from our home Monday morning like survivors of a bombing. Then we looked at our front yard and saw shingles laying everywhere. NOT a good sign. The roof was less than 8 years old. What in the world was going on?!
We called a roofer. He took a good look and shook his head. We had no sub-roof, he said. Nor did we have any nails in the shingles! The only thing holding the shingles to the house was their actual weight! Needless to say, we were stunned. Then we were angry. Then we made several vows (interspersed with some colorful language) that we would find the company that installed our roof and MAKE them come back and do it right! For free!
But of course, as you can guess, the company no longer existed.
Next we called our insurance company. They refused to pay for a new roof, saying the problem was “faulty construction.” You think?! However, they assured us they would bend over backwards and cover any damages to the interior of our house while we waited for repairs. Seriously? That’s all you will do? My roof is missing!!
Naturally, after a storm like that, we weren’t the only house with roof problems. The roofers were weeks behind on their jobs. They had like a dozen roofs to complete before they could tackle ours. Business was booming!
So we waited… (“Please don’t rain!”) and waited… (“Please DON’T rain!”) and waited… (“PLEASE don’t rain!”)
March turned to April and I discovered I was pregnant with our second child. April turned to May. Everything was beautiful and green because it RAINED ALL THE TIME!! The weather would clear up for a few days, then it would rain again. And every time it rained, more shingles slid off the roof.
Then the leaks began.
The first leak sprang in the dining room, the second one in the family room. A drip became a trickle, then a trickle became a stream. Within a few days we had little rivers running down the walls across the front of our house. Paint bubbled on the walls and flaked on the window seals. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling.
I was NOT happy. I felt like I was living in a drainage ditch.
We purchased a dehumidifier, set the dial on high, and ran it non-stop. It was like trying to dry an ocean with a hair dryer. Then my fear (pregnancy paranoia) of mold growth set in, and out came the bleach and vinegar. Have you ever placed a pregnant woman in a home with possible mold growth? My husband strongly suggests that you never try it. He’s never had so many death threats in his life.
The roofers finally arrived in August (FIVE months later). Frankly, I didn’t care who did the work, so long as they were finished before the baby came. I had a date with my OB/GYN for a scheduled c-section on January 4th.
Once the roof repairs were completed, the restoration company stepped in. The restoration company put our furniture in storage. Then they sealed off the front three rooms of our house and gutted them to the studs. They disinfected everything and used industrial-grade dehumidifiers to minimize the secondary water damage.
The months dragged by. My belly grew, and my toddler and I tripped over each other in our quest to safely navigate the stacks of boxes and clutter of our newly cramped home. The stacks of boxes proved to be an irresistible jungle gym for an exploring tot. I lost count of the times I had to haul him down from his latest cardboard perch.
Halloween came. Thanksgiving passed. Christmas and my due date loomed on the calendar like an oncoming freight train. And they STILL weren’t done. I was about to pull my hair out. It was like a nightmare that refused to end.
In an desperate effort to be festive, I set up a tiny tree on a high table and decorated it with a few of my favorite (breakable) ornaments. It was a foolish move and I should have known better, but my pregnancy hormones were too strong to be reasoned with. Fortunately my husband was home when the inevitable crash happened and took care of cleaning up the mess.
It was a week before Christmas when I finally lost it (to someone other than my long-suffering husband, I mean). The project manager stopped by to give me an update on their progress. In the course of the conversation, I asked the obvious question.
“When the heck will you be done?!!!!”
“We still have a good two weeks of work left, ma’am.” he said. “We’re closed the week after Christmas, so it will be the first of January before we get your things moved back in. ”
That did it. The room turned red and for a moment, I’m pretty sure my head spun on my neck like a scene from a horror movie.
My scheduled c-section was January 4th. The nursery WASN’T ready and my nesting instincts were in overdrive. I was NOT about to bring my newborn home to a maze of boxes.
I looked him square in the eyes and said, “I swear to you, if you’re not finished before I give birth on January 4th, I will drive down to your office with my newborn and my toddler, sit on your doorstep and cry.”
“We’ll get it done, ma’am.”
On Christmas Eve at 5pm, it was over. They carefully put our furniture back where it belonged, then I waved good-bye to the last of the repair men and breathed a sigh of relief! Eleven days later, our baby arrived. And 2005 (the most stressful year of my life) was finally over.
