Well, for those of you keeping up with the tree on the garage saga that has overtaken our lives the last two days, I will tell you what's up so far.
I had to hire an emergency tree specialist to remove the tree from my garage. They came and were thouroughly aghast at the entire situation. The guy asked if he could take extra pictures and said he would be thrilled to be an expert witness to the association's incompetence and negligence should I end up needing to go to court. The yahoos who cut down the first tree cut into a neighboring fir in the process and the tree specialists had to take that down as well. $1,904.00 later I had a treeless garage.
The owner of the development (the gentlemen who had them take down the first tree) came by my home yesterday to take pictures of the damage and agree on a plan to fix the situation. He wanted to avoid insurance and cover everything in cash reimbursements. I had him sign a statement to that effect and am hoping that the checks are cut quickly.
The first contracting company came to give me an estimate and gave me a ballpark figure of around 10K. They will have to replace the entire roof of the garage structure. I will most likely have to move the entire contents of my garage into a storage unit for the week the roof is off to avoid water damage from the ever present Washington rain. I plan to hire out the moving of every last box. The young men in our ward could have a very profitable summer...
Then this morning, the guy who came from the construction company to affix a tarp to my roof told me that it is quite possible that they may need to re-roof the entire house becuase if they can't find an exact match to the existing roofing material they have to redo it all so it doesn't look all patchy between the garage and the house. Apparently that is standard in the insurance repair world. My house was built six or seven years ago so I don't know if the stuff is still available. To quote the lisping gopher on Pooh, "this could run into money..."
I am profoundly grateful that the damage is not worse. My kids were not playing in the garage, my car was not in the path of the decending branches and roof trusses, and the tree did not fall ten feet to the right taking out my master bedroom and kitchen. I can only imagine how fun it would be to live out of a hotel for the summer. Although the kids probably would have liked it if we found one with a pool....
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