I mentioned in my Stupid Wizard post in August that I wanted to move, and am happy to announce that we finally did after looking at many, many houses. We were actually close to buying some Davenport Real Estate! But we decided against it as it was just too far away, in the end we were able to find a great deal on a townhouse, closed on October 1st, and have moved in. Sounds all sunshine and roses doesn’t it?
This past week I’ve been fairly silent. Two weeks before we were planning on moving, hubby was sent unexpected away for a week of training by his job; I stayed home to begin packing after I had found a good crate hire company. When he returned home we had one week to pack the entire house (I have entirely way too much crap), get all the utilities set-up, my 8-year-old’s school transferred, and everything else that goes along with moving. Not fun-but we were steadily plodding along.
The owner generously gave us access to the home a week before closing so that we may begin moving our things and complete whatever work we wanted done. I was so grateful because the idea of closing on the house late in the afternoon on the first, and moving out of our rental that same day was daunting, but we were moving our items and belongings ourselves in the van, and the garage had been cleaned out and the vehicles handed over to a vehicle shipping company like this Cars Relo, so we were moving!
No Lights
First hiccup in my plan: Hubby calls the power company to turn on the electricity-easy peasy right? Wrong! I remember thinking that I should have looked at more Prepaid Electric Companies.
On the Tuesday before we were scheduled to close on the house, the power company came out to install the meter. The old one was removed because the home was empty for a while. Unfortunately they could not turn the power on. The meter base was damaged and needed to be repaired before a new meter could be installed.
On Wednesday the repair men showed up but could not fix it; the entire meter base needed to be replaced.
On Thursday the electrician installed a new base. Great! Let’s turn on the power. NO-the power company wanted the city to inspect the electricians work before installing the meter. Grrrr. Permit paid for; inspection scheduled.
The inspection should take place on Friday. The city would inspect, and then send their report to the power company, who would then schedule the installation of the meter. Now, my head hurts, but it is still alright because we continued to pack and move things to the new house while there was daylight. Closing was not until Monday afternoon, and the power should be on by Monday.
The weekend came and went. We needed to vacate our rental by Sunday (the day before the first) to make way for new tenants. There was no electricity on in the townhouse, so after we moved all our things, we checked into a hotel (Sunday night). At least we were all able to just fall into bed without the chaos of assembling beds for the kids and wading through boxes.
There is nothing like being homeless, when you just purchased a home.
Monday afternoon we went to the attorney’s office, and signed the papers. Congratulations, we now own the townhouse! Yay! The city never did the inspection; back to the hotel.
Tuesday we checked out of the hotel, and by this time I was going seriously broke. Moving, attorneys, down payments, utility deposits, moving costs, eating out, and hotels! Seriously broke, and no city inspector in sight.
After spending most of the morning on the phone with different city offices, we found out they hadn’t even scheduled the inspection! They wanted to wait until Wednesday, which meant no power until at least Thursday-not good.
Persistence paid off. We did get someone to agree to come out that same day to inspect the electrical work, and the power company agreed to send a crew out as soon as the inspection report was in their possession foregoing the “at least one business day wait.”
It was late afternoon before the inspector showed, but everything went well and we were assured that he would be sending the report to progress energy the minute he got back to the office. He told us to go ahead and call the power company (the wait-time is usually at least 20-30 minutes), and by the time I had someone on the phone they would have the report. Great-no hotel tonight!
The phone beeped only a few moments after a customer service representative answered my call; it was the inspector.
“I am sending the report now. It is going through the fax as we speak,” he said.
It was nice of him to call me. I returned to the customer service rep., who I got to put on hold for a change, and asked him to check for the inspection report. That had it!
“I am sorry Ma’am, this report says Unit 21-you need service for Unit 20.” What?? I have my copy of the inspection report and it clearly says Unit 20!
“I am sorry; we cannot send anyone out there until the city resends the corrected paperwork.”
My eye is twitching.
Of course, the inspector was out of the office when hubby called back to ask him to resend the paperwork. The clerk was not at all helpful, would not try to contact him, and continued to just send the calls to his voicemail. What did she care, she was going to home to a house with electricity!
Foot is flapping.
Frustration = Anger building
Rage Meltdown?
I felt like a pressure cooker. I called the city office myself. I know that I asked if the inspector had a cellphone they could contact him on and have him call us, or give him the message. It was approaching five o’clock and I was concerned that progress energy would not send anyone out to install the meter if I didn’t call them back before six.
To be honest, I don’t remember what she said, but I know it could not have been good because the next thing I remember is her telling me, “you’re not gonna call here and curse at me!”
My cellphone paid the price when I flung it across the room. Did I curse at her? I don’t know…maybe…it is possible since I cannot remember. I didn’t remember during then, or two second afterwards, or now.
“Well, did you curse at her?” Hubby asked.
“I don’t know!”
My insides were shaking. I wanted to scream, to break things, to toss all the boxes piled in the living room with no lights onto the floor and kick them! My hands trembled. I clasped my fingers behind my aching neck and squeezed my head with arms. I had both forearms squeezing my temples, my elbows together in front of my face-desperately trying to breathe-to control the massive rage meltdown that I felt like was coming.
Rage meltdowns are rare for me. But, one thing I know is like a bull I see red, and then it all goes black. I don’t remember what I said, or did afterwards. Thankfully, I can count on one hand the times I can remember having full-blown rage meltdowns-most occurring in my teenage years.
The anger took me by surprise. I was too tired, too frustrate, too overwhelmed, and my body and brain were rebelling. With my hands on the back of my neck, and my face buried between my arms, I rocked and rocked and rocked and rocked until the tears fell. This is what usually does happen.
Shutting down
Deep breaths…tears…all the energy draining from my body at the same time. I felt dizzy, and laid my head down on the sofa. It was like my entire system was just shutting off; it was overloaded; circuit boards fried-a robot shorting out.
I don’t know how I can go from being so angry to asleep in such a short amount of time! In fact, I don’t even remember falling asleep.
I slept for about an hour.
When I woke I was nauseous and still groggy. Hubby informed me that the inspector called him back, progress energy received the correct report, and were sending someone out tonight (it was already after six). Our power would be on in a few hours. We left to get some dinner.
