Monday, 8 a.m., we open the front door to the home because we have to do a tear-out and new install due to water damage. Well, we have a key, but the homeowner forgot to disarm the ADT alarm. Here comes the law… We are thinking that they will be on-site in 3-4 minutes. Then we see them up the street coming… and then they drive right by. So then about 10 minutes later, here he comes right back and on he goes right by again. The landline in the house rings, and on the caller ID I see that it is the Huntington Police Department, so I pick up the phone. They said that the squad car could not find the home. I gave them a description of the house so he could find us and call ADT to get the vicious screaming siren shut off. It took them 20 minutes to find us and we had to tell them how to get to the home. Hello, this is the home invader they are talking to! Sure, we can tell you how to get the house now that got everything out of it! Now, that was just a fun start to the day. The homeowner came back to shut down the alarm so we could start the job.
The job itself is just as dumb as the police: the 200 feet we had to tear out has been installed for 15 years, but the hot water heater broke and leaked all over the floor, so that is why we had to remove the damaged area. We were thinking that the floor was installed with staples but nope; it was pin-nailed on the 45, plus top-nailed… and all the end-match was nailed, all with a pin-nail gun, too. So we got the damaged area removed in 10 minutes and then could see that the floor has no moisture barrier…
How does this work? The floor is all scrap wood-I mean leftovers from many jobs. They used flooring from 2¼ to 4 inch. Not one row is of the same species, talk about hard to make look good, but when it was all installed I must say it looked cool. It was one of the oddest-looking but good-looking floors.
So the entire time I have told the folks who live there that the poly will smell and they might need to find a place to stay for a few nights; they told me "You said it will smell, not stink." So now I need to define the smell of stink! They are in a hotel room for the next few days... How do you tell folks to find a place to stay? Do you request the funds from the insurance company for hotel rooms? If you do not mind, let me know.
So, off the job and then a nice 30-minute ride home; well my daughter Rebeka and I are on the back porch when we hear a huge bang-the sound of metal bending and glass flying, tires screaming-and a nasty, odd sound. I jump in the truck, drive out the driveway and see a car skidded back and a dead 400-pound calf. The neighbor's calves are being weaned and are being put in a holding pen for a few weeks. Somehow they got the gate open and all 36 were on the loose. So were up till 11-11:30 getting them all herded up and back in the pen, plus we were dealing with an extremely cold, dark night with flashlights, headlights and the state trooper asking, "How many are out?"
We got 31 rounded up and left feed for the rest on the backside of the pasture where they were running. The first thing today Walter gets them all and puts them back in the pen, so the noise starts up all over...have you ever heard 30-plus calves yelling for their Mom cow? Well, it is loud and makes for a long night...for a few days. The great news is that no one got hurt and other than the one calf and the totaled car. So, now you know why I did not post last night… or sleep!
