I can say Chinese Drywall instead of just 'defective drywall' because our drywall actually did come from China. Want to see pictures of the labels with the Chinese writing on them? Well, anyway, it's been nearly 8 years since my last post about our Chinese Drywall incident. I know you are riveted and dying to hear how it all ended.
There was no insurance to cover this catastrophe. It was labeled either an environmental exclusion to the policy or a product defect. I understand the product defect angle because the insurance company felt like there was someone specific at fault who should pay. I just wish they had the policy of making us whole and then subrogating the claim to the responsible party. But that's not how the cookie crumbled. Here's what happened...
We paid out of pocket, our own pocket. Timing is everything, and we were lucky. We still had the house from the previous military assignment and had a good renter in there. She found the man of her dreams and decided to get married and move out of our house. She gave notice and had taken great care of the place. We were able to sell the house and net about $30,000 on the sale. That covered half of our Chinese Drywall remediation bill. The other half came from...there were lots of tears and much gnashing of teeth... the sale of my husband's 2003 Corvette ZO6.
The way we were able to keep this remediation so affordable was that we were permitted to be the general contractor for our own home as long as we weren't going to rent it out or sell it for at least a year. I arranged all of the licensed subcontractors and used their licenses to pull permits for all the work that needed a license. My husband and I, along with a very kind and skilled neighbor, performed any all work that didn't need a license or special expertise.
As luck would have it, the housing industry was still very slow after the housing crash of 2008. I was easily able to get the contractors in exactly when I needed them. They would often be on the heels of the previous contractor or the city permit inspector. Something would pass inspection, and the next crew would be in that afternoon (or an hour later) to begin the next step. We were able to remediate the entire 2700 square feet of house in 5 weeks from final demolition to move back in.
We originally thought we would live on one floor while the other got remediated then switch floors. Sounded like a good idea at the time! But it was terrible. We had that plan to avoid the expense of living in a hotel (while still paying the mortgage and the useless homeowners insurance). We actually tried it at first. They demoed the upstairs while we camped in the downstairs. But the working shower was upstairs. There was a false wall blocking our living quarters from the stairway. One day after my shower, I found myself locked out of our living quarters! I can't recall how I got back in. I may have removed the door handle while in a bathrobe with a towel on my head...
Luckily, we lived very close to MacDill Air Force Base, and my husband's commander was able to go to his commander and get special permission for us to stay in temporary living quarters for families on the base. Those units are generally reserved for people who are moving to or out of the area and need up to a week (two at the most) to stay with their family while looking for a home or having their household goods moved out or delivered. My husband's commander got us up to 4 weeks in that housing! Now it's not free, but it is extraordinarily affordable! And it has a kitchen, two bedroom rooms, lots of beds, a living room, laundry, and is safe and was convenient to work and to the house. But there was a week we had to cover between final demolition and the day we could move into the base family quarters. For that week, we lived at the beach! The base also has a family campsite where, mostly retirees, miltary or retired can bring a camper and hook up to water, sewer, and electricity. In Florida, it is packed with snowbirds for the winter. They also had a couple of RVs to rent to people like us who wanted to stay there but had no RV of our own. So we stayed in one of those for a week with a 2 and a 4 year old! It was an adventure.
So, we finally got out of the house, all our permits pulled, all our plans approved, the entire house demoed, all of the subcontractors lined up, child care for our 2 and 4 years old babies, the money in place, and we got to work. My husband still had his day job, so he did that, although, I'm sure his boss was generous in letting him leave early when need be. But I was a stay at home mom with two kids in full time daycare, so I was at the house all day nearly every day. When the project got really underway, it was not uncommon for us to work late into the evenings. Our neighbors would watch the kids after we picked them up from daycare. Our kids went nearly a month without seeing us for anything but breakfast and dinner. They were in day care 10 hours a day and with the neighbors another 4 hours while we worked shoulder to shoulder doing everything we had to to make the project work. We met the contractors, met the inspectors, hung the insulation, painted the walls, and cleaned the place before we moved back in.
We moved back in on December 6th. As we were moving back in and unpacking boxes, our 4 year old sat down on a box and wrote out her name. We had no idea she could do that! And during that month of reconstructing our house, our 2 year old potty trained while at day care. Huge milestones while we were otherwise engaged. My husband and I looked at each other with a mix of pride for our children and disappointment that we had missed it.
They were long, hard days. But they shaped us. We didn't back down, we didn't' give in, we didn't walk away as so many did. We fought and won and are still waiting on China to make us whole... But my husband and I, as if we needed more proof, further recognized how much we have each other's back and that we are together, shoulder to shoulder through whatever life throws at us. Here it is 8 years later, coming up on our 15 year wedding anniversary, and we still have such deep trust, love, and respect for each other. And I am sure it is part and parcel because of these trials we've walked through together.
We're still in the same house! It is still the house we fell in love with back in May of 2008, and even with the Chinese Drywall debacle of 2008-2010, we still love our home and all the memories it has created for us, and all the memories we have created in it.
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