Tear The Roof Off The Sucker
I am finally getting rid of my blue roof this week. Thank you, Jesus.
About 1/3 of the shingles on my roof were removed for me by Hurricane Ike, and ever since the damaged area has been covered by a heavy blue polyethylene tarp, courtesy of the Corps of Engineers. It is not a bad looking tarp or anything, and there is no shame in having one. After the storm, there were hundreds of houses covered by them.
The tarp was meant to be a temporary fix, however. And it has been five months since the hurricane. Most of the tarps around town have been removed and roofs been repaired by now, so my big blue tarp has gone from a sort of badge of courage to a mildly embarrassing eyesore.
A lot of people had trouble lining up a roofing contractor right after the storm. The dependable local companies were booked up with jobs for months, and the alternatives were mostly fly-by-night storm chasers from all over the country, many of whom may or may not have been legitimate roofers. Roofers by training, I mean. I think a lot of yard men and convenience store clerks and day laborers in Florida and New Jersey and Michigan and everywhere else woke up the day after Ike plowed through here and had an epiphany. “Hey, I’m a roofer now”, they said, and so they packed up themselves and an unemployed cousin or two and a couple of idiot in-laws, and headed for the Texas Gulf Coast.
On the other hand, I’ve had a contractor lined up all along; my guy is a Honduran named Jesus. He and his crew have done several construction and landscaping jobs for me and/or friends of mine over the years. Even though Jesus and I basically communicate by sign language, because I suck at Spanish, he does good work at a reasonable price and I trust him. We ‘talked’ just after the storm, and he said he would do the roofing job as soon as I had my insurance claim taken care of.
And therein lies the rub. I will not spend any time here railing against insurance companies. Believe me, over the last five months, I and everyone else who lives in this area have heard more than enough of it. I’ll just say that all the bonhomie one sees between clients and insurers on television is total bullshit – the relationship between homeowners and their insurance companies after a hurricane is entirely adversarial, both ways. If I ever got elected to any position of power, the very first industry group I am going after is the personal insurance companies. They are a drain on the economy and a scourge on the populace, without exception.
But anyway, I finally got my insurance straightened out, after having to go through three different adjusters and miles of red tape. Then I found out the mortgage company wanted to get involved, too, and dictate terms. That is when I aimed my attorney at them. That didn’t do a lot of good – not my attorney’s fault – so I had to go through another process of lining up pre- and post-construction inspections and having my contractor submit a detailed bid to my lien holder for approval, before we could start work (there are several other minor repairs needed, in addition to the roof.) We finally got through all that, and this week the roof job begins.
I’ll kind of miss my blue roof. It looked tacky, and it was definitely noticeable. But if I ever got disoriented coming home, I could always find my house eventually because of it. There is that. Hell, I could probably have spotted my house from space, if I ever needed to, thanks to that bright azure beacon nailed to the top of my home. But it is almost gone now, to be replaced by 40 squares of dark green architectural shingles (my wife’s idea.)
So, goodbye blue roof, old friend. And good riddance.
About 1/3 of the shingles on my roof were removed for me by Hurricane Ike, and ever since the damaged area has been covered by a heavy blue polyethylene tarp, courtesy of the Corps of Engineers. It is not a bad looking tarp or anything, and there is no shame in having one. After the storm, there were hundreds of houses covered by them.
The tarp was meant to be a temporary fix, however. And it has been five months since the hurricane. Most of the tarps around town have been removed and roofs been repaired by now, so my big blue tarp has gone from a sort of badge of courage to a mildly embarrassing eyesore.
A lot of people had trouble lining up a roofing contractor right after the storm. The dependable local companies were booked up with jobs for months, and the alternatives were mostly fly-by-night storm chasers from all over the country, many of whom may or may not have been legitimate roofers. Roofers by training, I mean. I think a lot of yard men and convenience store clerks and day laborers in Florida and New Jersey and Michigan and everywhere else woke up the day after Ike plowed through here and had an epiphany. “Hey, I’m a roofer now”, they said, and so they packed up themselves and an unemployed cousin or two and a couple of idiot in-laws, and headed for the Texas Gulf Coast.
On the other hand, I’ve had a contractor lined up all along; my guy is a Honduran named Jesus. He and his crew have done several construction and landscaping jobs for me and/or friends of mine over the years. Even though Jesus and I basically communicate by sign language, because I suck at Spanish, he does good work at a reasonable price and I trust him. We ‘talked’ just after the storm, and he said he would do the roofing job as soon as I had my insurance claim taken care of.
And therein lies the rub. I will not spend any time here railing against insurance companies. Believe me, over the last five months, I and everyone else who lives in this area have heard more than enough of it. I’ll just say that all the bonhomie one sees between clients and insurers on television is total bullshit – the relationship between homeowners and their insurance companies after a hurricane is entirely adversarial, both ways. If I ever got elected to any position of power, the very first industry group I am going after is the personal insurance companies. They are a drain on the economy and a scourge on the populace, without exception.
But anyway, I finally got my insurance straightened out, after having to go through three different adjusters and miles of red tape. Then I found out the mortgage company wanted to get involved, too, and dictate terms. That is when I aimed my attorney at them. That didn’t do a lot of good – not my attorney’s fault – so I had to go through another process of lining up pre- and post-construction inspections and having my contractor submit a detailed bid to my lien holder for approval, before we could start work (there are several other minor repairs needed, in addition to the roof.) We finally got through all that, and this week the roof job begins.
I’ll kind of miss my blue roof. It looked tacky, and it was definitely noticeable. But if I ever got disoriented coming home, I could always find my house eventually because of it. There is that. Hell, I could probably have spotted my house from space, if I ever needed to, thanks to that bright azure beacon nailed to the top of my home. But it is almost gone now, to be replaced by 40 squares of dark green architectural shingles (my wife’s idea.)
So, goodbye blue roof, old friend. And good riddance.
*****
1 comment:
I still have a blue roof, too. Stupid condo association.
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