Teresa, no one said it was licorice.
And ...
off topic ...
The last few days have been busy for us. We met the SBA inspector, an engineer for the elevation survey, and today a structural engineer who gave us a ton of useful information. Oddly, his office is up the street from the apartment.
He seemed to be the most knowledgeable person we've met with yet, but even he had no idea what the round thing in the sand under the house was … it is a sealed wooden cap about 2 feet across and unfortunately we can’t open it because some support beams are sitting on it. Best guess at this point is that it is a well … but it’s in a strange position, so who knows?
We need to get estimates from three contractors so we decided to take a ride around and look for houses that had work being done. On our block most of the houses were raised up on higher ground so there were only three that were damaged like ours, but ours was the worst. Nonetheless, our house is the anomaly in our neighborhood. We drove to the West End of Long Beach which is more like a beach community. The houses are very close to each other and while there was some new construction of mini-McMansions down there, most of the homes are small like ours is (was). We were shocked at what we saw. I have to say that on most of the blocks 80-85% of the houses are vacant and gutted or on the way. No matter where you live, look around your community and imagine that many people just GONE. It is astounding. There are no street lights either so at night it is pitch black. And this is four months later. I cannot imagine how this community will ever return. It is insane.
BUT we are feeling more positive today and feel as if we are on the way. To where is another question … but we’re on the way.
There were the first crocuses poking up through the soil and while that normally gives me a great deal of joy, today it just made me sad.
I need to focus on the future. Hopefully we will be able to put solar panels on the roof and I think that will add a lot of value to the house -- so we get sell and get the heck out!