The storm last night was fierce, much shorter than earlier predictions led us to believe, but still... fierce. I had finished a long day of work and joined one of my daughters for sushi at a favorite local restaurant. I watched the rain pummelling the ground, lashing and whipping about like a gnarling beast. By the time our meal was enjoyed and over, the storm was gone, leaving traces of its presence like wet footprints on a clean, dry floor.
I didn't think too much more about it, and the news didn't relay much more to intensify my thoughts. Then, this morning, I received a text with a photo. The picture was of the back of my business card, on which my client had written the following:
Tree Fell on Roof
Need Home owners #
I knew she needed help contacting her homeowner's insurance company because this, like so many other things, was something her now-deceased husband would have handled.
My morning, set aside to put together tours and follow up on paperwork, dissolved into insurance phone calls, followed by calls attempting to locate repair contractors. And in the back of my head was what I expected to see when I arrived at her house: her 2-story house, my listing, one of my many short sales, now reduced to a smashed ruin. Oh so thankfully, that did not turn out to be true. Instead, it was almost freakish how two branches had been sheared off one of the huge trees, leaves stripped from them, and then the bare branches hurled like javelins through her roof. Their passage left only three holes in her roof and those, from the street, appeared minimal. So minimal, in fact, that when I took a photo of it and sent that to the insurance company, they questioned if I'd sent in a photo of the correct house.
I followed up with the photos she had taken from inside the attic where the offending branches were now an inclusion in the rafters.
The storm must have wrecked havoc across the area because locating a readily available contractor began to prove a challenge. Then I remembered that the Buyer had contacts and who better to do the repairs than someone with whom the Buyer would be happy. Another phone call and it was all arranged.
Move forward to the end of the day and I got another phone call, this time from the Buyer.
"Monica, the roof is all fixed. The tree is gone from the attic, and the attic is good as new. We're all going to dinner together and would love for you to join us!"
And so another day in the world of real estate draws to a close.
Well.. not really. I still have houses to show.
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