Flood update

If you’d told me on October 28 that we would still be living in temporary quarters on January 6—10 weeks later!—and that reconstruction still would not have started, I wouldn’t have believed you.

And yet that’s where we are. Our apartment is still the same ruined mess and we are still living on the eighth floor on Mass Ave.

I do have some progress to report, though. Right before New Year’s Day, we received notification that the condominium association’s insurance company had agreed on a figure for the reconstruction cost. We don’t actually have a check just yet, that won’t get here until the end of January.

As a quick aside, reconstruction is more complicated here because we have the condominium association’s insurance, which covers the walls, the floors, the kitchen cabinets and some major appliances, and we have our personal property insurance which will cover those appliances not covered by the condominium association’s insurance. Since the condo association’s insurance company had their own adjuster plus a public adjuster, the whole negotiation process took a long time.

Anyway, we have requested estimates from two general contractors and have begun the tedious process of finding replacements for our stove, dishwasher, refrigerator and so on. Honestly it’s overwhelming. The general contractor we are almost certainly going to use says it will take four to six weeks to rebuild once he starts if we have all the necessary permits (which is a huge pain in the rear in Boston) and the appliances and cabinets. We’re thinking it will be more like eight weeks. So even if he starts on Monday, which he won’t, we are in this apartment for the rest of the winter. Bleh.