Back (in Black!)

[midnitemaraud_r]

After four weeks, I'm finally back home in my apartment! I came home Sunday night, despite pleas from Hannah and Josh that I stay for two more weeks, or how about fifty-two more weeks, or, as Josh begged, "nine more years, until I go to college!" Awww, kids

Comments

[midnitemaraud_r]

I remember that earthquake and the state of your house. You definitely had it worse! I'm just glad I was able to stay with my sister and her family. Even though we didn't have heat for 9 days, and the only electric we had was for the fridge and a few outlets in the den, we had something and could charge our phones, use the coffee maker, and even plug in the TV and DVD player to watch movies. And we could cook because she has a gas stove, and we also barbecued. We were also lucky to have hot water so we could shower. (Though the bathroom was freezing! Hee!) Not getting cable/phone/internet back for another week and a half also sucked, but again, not a tragedy. We had movie night every night, and it was fun to watch things like the six Star Wars movies and the various Avengers movies with the kids. :) We even made Jiffy Pop popcorn on the stove.

I think the worst inconvenience was that in the weeks directly after, it was the biggest pain in the arse to get gas/petrol. Those stations that did have power had lines that were hours long, and the deliveries were slow in coming after they ran out. We needed gas for the generator, too, so my brother-in-law actually drove upstate one day with my niece to a friend's place with all the gas cans (and some of their neighbors' too) and even bought more so we had enough.

I just feel like, "Whoa! Where did November go?" you know? But it's good to be home. Now my biggest inconvenience is that the circulator pump for the building is broken so when I want to shower (and since I live on the fifth floor!) I have to run the water for a good 15 minutes before it warms up. I can't run my dishwasher either, and the washing machines only have cold water for now. It's supposed to be fixed by tomorrow though, so I can wait another day. :-P I think I'll survive.

[mcparrot]

We didn't really have it worse, not at the time. The house was livable and we somehow had all utilities, water, power, sewer (more or less) although we had to boil water for months and that gets really tired really quickly. So although the house was broken we were much better off than the thousands who were suddenly homeless. A lot of people were living with no water or no power or sewer for ages too. I had people come home from work with me to use the shower or fill their water containers.

It was later, when it was obvious we couldn't live in the house through the winter (too many holes that went right through the walls to start with) that we became "homeless". We are very frustrated renters. We have been renting for nearly two years now and frankly, I've nearly given up hope of ever having our new house built. It is not (entirely) that the insurance company is unwilling to pay out (they want to make sure that ALL the "i"s are dotted and "t"s crossed) it is the shear scale of the city wide rebuild that have slowed things down.

I guess being home owners has made things so much more stressful, because we are just stuck and there is NOTHING we can do to speed things up. We have a piece of land with no house on it, that we have to keep insuring, paying rates on, paying the mortgage, as if the house was there. We have NO equity so we can't just throw our hands up and leave. But see, we do have a roof over our heads, so we are luckier than some.

Strangely though, it is the people in the red zone, (the area where it has been too dangerous/expensive to rebuild) who were initially so much worse off than us (many, many unlivable houses and people homeless) who are now better off than us. Once the zoning decisions were made, they were bought out by the government, (usually at a loss) but they have taken the money and moved on.

I read you on the petrol thing. I have only recently started letting my car get below half full before I refill it. You always wanted to know you had enough petrol to get out of town if you needed to. Many of the stations were destroyed in the big quakes making petrol doubly hard to get.

I feel quite safe here now. It's all well over as far as big aftershocks. I just feel frustrated and stuck. I want my own home again. I want my books out of the boxes in the rat infested garage. We were only supposed to be here for six months tops. It's coming up two years. I'm planting the garden - again.

That was probably tldr. Sorry.
I'm glad things aren't too bad for you. It looks though, from what we saw on the news, that a lot of the neighbourhoods along the coast will be going through just what he have here, for years. We here in Christchurch know how that feels.
Take care.
McP