I keep meaning to tell you guys the story of my 'house saga', but it is really long, convoluted and probably quite boring...lol scroll as necessary
It's been going on for nearly two years already and will probably not be fixed in total for another two years :
:-/
I live in a complex of 11 identical houses. Four are at the top of the driveway and the other 7 are set back further down and bordering on a creek. It is these 7 that have the problems.
Back in August/September 09, the residents collectively started noticing odd things. Cracks appearing in some houses, a slab of concrete starting to lift in the driveway, the double carport roof that co-joins my house with one of my neighbours was steadily being ripped off the side of my house. It was smack bang at the end of winter and whilst we all get on really, really well down here, in winter we tend to scuttle in an out of our respective abodes and wave at each other in passing. But there was enough significant oddities going on that we started to emerge and start talking to each other. One person eventually called in an engineer (I think) who had a quick look around the properties and quickly called a Geo Tech friend to come look as well.
The upshot of that was that we discovered that we had some serious land movement problems going on. We were then legally bound to notify the Earthquake Commission within a certain time period - which we did.
And so it began...
Lots of on-site meetings, to-ing and fro-ing, blah blah followed. Because no-one could prove WHEN the 'event' actually took place (which is crucial to the statute that EQC MUST work to) they finally agreed to put five, 18 metre (59 feet) bores down and monitor the property for 90 days to see if they could identify any movement.
But of course :
, we were now heading into summer and the ground dried out and did sweet FA in that time, so they initially declined our group claim, but then agreed to monitor it for a further 9 months.
By this stage the house next door had moved even more, the carport roof had now been ripped off the side of my house and was threatening to fall on my car. I was having trouble with my front and back doors opening and closing and before I embarked on my epic GNT journey to the US I had to get a builder in to build a supporting frame in the carport and jack up one of the foundation piles under my front door, so I could lock it.
And so we waited.....
I toodled off to play in Adamland for realz
and it was during that June/July period of last year, during a really wet winter that the bores finally picked up some significant movement. So whilst we waited to get a report in - Christchurch big earthquake #1 happened - and our problem got shelved whilst the EQC had to dive in head first into that.
Finally on Christmas Eve last year (7 days after my Mum's house got burgled and trashed the first time) we got confirmation that our claim had been accepted. Yay!
Three days later, Mum's place got hit again - and again the day after. >:(
It was latish January of this year, when EQC were finally getting clear of Christchurch that we started to see some action and were told we had been moved back up the list.
Two weeks later Christchurch earthquake #2 happened and this was the one that had a large loss of life
So we waited some more.....
Meanwhile, I had to have one my fluffies put to sleep and at the same time I found that gorgeous property on the island that some of you might have seen me post about. The plan was to be living there when our land fix took place, because it is going to be a fucking nightmare - seriously!
Anyways, I put a deposit down, got all excited and then ordered a Land Information Memorandum (LIM report) from the council. The first thing I saw was that the property had a Soil Warning registered against it for unstable soil.
WTF!!!!!
I am the one person in frigging Auckland that does not need a property with unstable land - I've already got me one of them.
So.... around that time my Mum's house got graffitied BIG time, and I got diagnosed with breast cancer. The house on the island got a better offer and I had 7 days to complete contract or lose it. I sadly stepped away. The universe works in mysterious ways sometimes.
I decided that I needed to concentrate on my upcoming surgery first. Meanwhile I am still battling the insurance company for my Mum's house and it is still not fixed from the burglaries. I did manage to get the 6 cracked and broken windows fixed and that night that the windows were replaced, someone threw a large pipe through one of the brand spanking new panes. I was a week out from surgery and rapidly approaching breaking point.
Somewhere around this time (it's a big blur in all honesty) the EQC suddenly sent us all an assessment of what they were prepared to pay us for our house damage, which is an entirely seperate issue to the land fix. They gave us a couple of weeks to dispute it, which we didn't because it's actually very generous, and about six weeks ago, they sent the first checks out, which if any of us had a mortgage, was sent straight to our bank.
We then waited for our land values. The way the EQC works, is that if the value of your land is greater than what it will cost to fix, they take the cheaper option and fix it. However, if your land value is less than the estimated fix, then they pay you out the land value, walk away and leave it up to you to fix.
And that is what has just happened to us >:(
EQC have collectively paid us out close to $900,000, but the land fix is estimated at around $1.3million +
Before we could sneeze, or disagree with our land values (and having waited for 20 odd months) they sent the second cheque out - also to the bank. My bank is currently being a prize arsehole and they are inflicting so many rules and regulations on the money that it is beyond ludicrous. I am very, very close to telling them to clear my mortgage and debt to them completely, give me the balance and then hope like hell in a couple of years I will be able to raise $60k or so to fix my house. They currently have $200,000k of mine which I will not let them bank until I can sort out the rules. Am so pissed off right now! All of this has been going on in amongst my daily trips to the hospital for my radiation therapy. STRESSFUL!!!!
On top of all of this, my neighbours and I are now trying to pull our land fix together ourselves. We have civil engineers giving us competitive quotes, we are still waiting for answers from the EQC and we are now having to get lawyers in to set up a trust fund for our land money to be pooled collectively as no contractors are gonna step foot on the property if they can't be guaranteed payment.
Now the land fix - oh dear God - is going to be horrendous. The geo tech's have identified two landslips. One starting at the property behind me and running through my patio, the middle of my neighbours house in front of me, across the communal driveway running over to the creek. The second one is further up the driveway and the land leading down to the creek is giving away which has left a ginormus crack in the driveway. It is the access to the site. The creek needs a 114 metre (374 feet) retaining wall built, the land back filled and drainage put under all our properties. The fix will take around 3 to 4 months and it is highly unlikely that we will be able to stay in our properties whilst it is going on. They will have to rip down carports and fences to gain access to the creek. There will be no parking available. There will be bulldozers, trucks, pile drivers and some major heavy equipment, people and noise. The land fix will probably damage our houses some more. The contractors are worried about putting their heavy machinery close to the creek edge in case it collapses from the weight...... and so it goes on. And we haven't even started yet.
Meanwhile, we are currently in the middle of another really wet winter and I am noticing more and more damage to my house. Cracks are opening up everywhere, the floor in my laundry is starting to bow, the middle of my lounge has dropped. It is really scary, although not life threatening.
Another problem is my babies - my fluffies. They were all born in this house and have never lived anywhere else. I don't want to shift them...but what do you do?
Now - once all that crap has been achieved, we have to let the land settle for 12 to 18 months before we even start to fix our houses. Six of the houses need to be re-piled, carports need to be demolished and rebuilt, cracks need plastering, floors re-leveling, interior painted.
Then we're done.
And that my dear Atopians (for those of you who have managed to wade through this epistle
) is why I'm a tad tired at the moment. Add the fatigue from the radiation therapy and I'm totally fucked physically and mentally right now
The last eight months have been a living hell.
It gets better - right?
Thank God for Adam and this fandom. The insanity of it all is the only thing keeping me sane
. Of course, these days I don't think you can do that anymore.
