SAY "NO" TO COUNTRYWIDE

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.- -- Eleanor Roosevelt

This week has been a very hectic, busy one. Our insurance - State Farm - has deemed there has been sufficient time for the house repairs and they will not pay any further hotel expense. (Although we have not been in hotel this entire time since May 10. We had four weeks in a motorhome.) I understand the insurance company feeling this way, but it really isn't fair. At the end of January, our county was declared a disaster by the governor due to the freeze. When we had our catastrophe, we called many contractors and they were too busy to help us because the freeze caused all contractors to be overloaded. Furthermore, our insurance company has written us several times stating, "Do not begin work until your contractor's bid has been reviewed by your agent." The insurance did not accept the contractor's bid until July 31, as you already know from the post I made that day. Although the contractor had stated it would be a three week job, it doesn't mean he was waiting by the phone for the bid to be accepted and running the minute they called. He is an excellent contractor and is also in high demand. By the way, our contractor is Joe Banuelos of Banuelos Construction of Hanford. He is an excellent contractor and has been very kind and generous to us. Joe has been ready and willing to work, but our insurance monies are being held by our mortgage lender. They have had our money for a month and have yet to release any funds. (They sent the checks back once asking us to endorse them and they were already endorsed. That's the kind of stupidity we have been dealing with.) I will scream their name - COUNTRYWIDE HOME LOANS. PLEASE DO NOT GET YOUR MORTGAGE FINANCE THROUGH COUNTRYWIDE. If they treat everyone the way they have treated us, it's no wonder they have been in the news about to go belly up. Everything was smooth when we needed a lender but we have found out through our insurance agent and experience, they are the most difficult to deal with during a catastrophe. No matter who we talk to in their offices, no one knows anything about dealing with such situations with the exception of Dee from the Santa Maria office. We finally spoke with a manager from Dee's office and she promised we would have money by noon today. I will have to see it to believe it. We have never had one late payment in 12 years and you would think they would treat us better. Can you believe they made us sign a paper stating we want the insurance monies to go to the repairs of our house instead of our principle balance??? DUH!!! Do I hear anyone screaming a good attorney's phone number? Most lenders stamp the checks and hand them back to you for immediate use. Our contractor is at a stand still waiting for money and a mortgage lender inspector to come, and I have been furiously trying to clean plaster dust from the upstairs bedrooms so that we can at least sleep in clean beds and, if we accidentally drop a piece of clothing on the floor, it will not turn white with dust. We will be moving back to the house tomorrow. This will be really interesting trying to dress five year old Bryn in the mornings and keep her from stepping or falling on carpet tack strip that is all through the house. More seriously, Blake has chronic sinusitis and asthma and I hope I can get enough dust out that he can breathe. We thought we would be able to use an industrial vacuum when the house was completely empty of furniture. It will be interesting for five people to share one toilet and shower when they are used to three, and keep the exposed wood floor from getting too wet from so many showers in the one bathroom. Fortunately, Trout's Floor Covering of Visalia will go ahead and place the order for the carpet and tile believing that payment is on the way. As soon as the carpet and tile are in the warehouse, we will get a big U-Haul and move our furniture into it. Then, the painter will come and paint the house in two days followed by the tile layers. As soon as the tile is down, the toilets will be set and the carpet installed. Just maybe we will see a conclusion within three weeks. This I promise - if my kids get sick or hurt because of this, I will most definitely contact an attorney because mama bear will be really upset. I feel guilty venting all this frustration to you, but hopefully you will forgive me. In the meantime, at the top of this post, I have a left a quote for your to review. Have you ever looked fear in the face? Tell me your story.