Where to start? It's been nearly a year since the house fire, and I finally got the inventory sorted out and accounted for. Unfortunately, our frustrations continue to pile up, and I'd like to take a moment to vent about them. I'd love to be able to come back here and post more often, but life is crushing us right now.

Our Adjuster Forgot Over Half Our Inventory

Let me clarify, first of all, this isn't a matter of feeling that our property wasn't damaged badly enough. This is a matter of forgetting all of our furniture! We got the check for the inventory and a bunch of my collectible stuff was on there, but there was no furniture or appliances whatsoever.

Ugh. Good thing I still have records of all this stuff (I refuse to delete any photos or throw anything away until all of this is squared away), but it's frustrating that I'm still not done with this part of the house fire. I'd like to replace my stuff and move on, and the rest of the family would like to as well.

Our Contractor Bailed on Us

We had a contractor hired before the house fire because we were planning to install new windows. The upstairs caught fire before that happened, so we just asked him if he'd take over as the general contractor.

He charged us $85/hour and had us pay for every phone call he made to line up plumbers, HVAC, etc. He left one day saying that once insulation gets in, the rest of the restoration will go very quickly, and then he never came back.

He sent a bill, which we paid (and have proof), but stopped returning phone calls or text messages. Finally, six months and two formal letters later, we asked Menards to track him down for us, since they recommended him to us. He told the manager that he wasn't being paid (it's an insurance job; of course he's being paid) and that he'd actually just spoken to us about it.

I don't want to have to go to court, but I'm thinking that's what should happen. In the meantime, we've got a ragtag group that's going to pitch in to help get things done.

What Would You Do?

Would you take him to court? Obviously small claims, but would you sue him? We wound up paying over $1,500 in heating bills last year because he left us with no insulation and no windows upstairs. It barely stayed above 40 degrees Farenheit.

To be fair, however, the insurance company did reimburse us our extreme heating and electric bills.