One day I will look back and laugh, right?!?

Ok I know, enough with the complaining already, right? Sorry this is hopefully the last complaining blog..... YES, I am knocking on wood right now after saying that. But, I am going to put my blogs onto dvd's so this is like my journaling. My hubby, kids and I can look back at these and laugh some day, right??

Here goes...
We had some financial problems a year ago and had to sell our big beautiful house that we spent many hours together doing fun projects on to make it our own. That was hard but fine, big homes are just a luxury. We finally sold it as a short sale which we later found out killed Josh's credit so we would have to rent for a while... no big deal. We found a great neighborhood that we loved because it had great parks and pools and lakes and beaches and a community gym and everything that we would have access to. Until we found out that the people we are renting from haven't paid the HOA fees in a LONG time so we can't use any of those fun things. Which once again was ok, we would live without pools and fun amenities. But then we woke up one morning and the water was shut off... come to find out they haven't been paying the water bill either (which all of these things were included in our rent according to the contract we signed). Then we all started getting sick whenever we were in the basement. At first I just thought we were all a little crazy, because frankly we are :} But then, I noticed I couldn't watch movies or anything down there because I would get terrible headaches and allergies. Then, Cameron started coughing but only at night when he was sleeping downstairs. He has had breathing problems gotten croup twice and been on steroids since after we moved into this house.
Well, one day we came back from a week long vacation and found black mold all over the finished basement walls. We immediately called the management company. They sent the maintanence guy over and he told me just to wipe it down with full strength bleach, which I did but it came back (obviously bleach doesn't kill black mold). So, Josh went to try to look behind the drywall to see how bad the mold was and the whole thing just sort of crumbled apart and since the wall was then open the mold smell was overwhelming. So then we had some mold tests done and sure enough we had over 26 harmful mold colonies that they detected within that hour of testing just in that one room. We faxed the lab results over to the management company and their response was, "What do you want us to do about it?". So then we HAD to fix the wall because the smell was overbearing. Josh cut out all of the moldy drywall and replaced it and patched it all up. We didn't do it because we were woried about what they would say about a big hole in the wall, we did it because we couldn't live with the awful smell! Once again, we sent the management company the receipt for all of the things that we had to buy in order to clean and fix the wall and we haven't seen a dime... imagine that. And we told them this was just a temporary fix, but I think we all know nothing will be done about it, considering we still don't have smoke alarms in the house which we have been complaing about since we moved in :(
Then, not too long after we repaired the wall we had a BIG storm. It POURED, and then it HAILED and then it POURED and this went on for hours. And yes, this house has TERRIBLE drainage problems outside and you know what happened next.... the basement flooded. Once again the maintanence guy came over and said "Oh ya, this place totally flooded before you guys moved in too". I thought oh, that would have been nice to know before we moved in :] Needless to say I am so glad that the homeowner at least had insurance which paid to have the Utah disaster clean-up crew come and move all of our funiture (which is all ruined, hopefully our renters insurance will replace all that) and drain the water and pull up the carpet and pad and bring in BIG heaters and dryers and dehumidifiers to dry it all out. So, it has now been two LONG weeks since the flood and listening to the LOUD fans and dryers all day and night (I am NOT looking forward to seeing the electric bill when we get it this month... which WE WILL NOT PAY!!!) and having our house smell like a moldy, dirty fish tank... I am going NUTS! We have, sorry to say it, weird men coming and going from our house cleaning carpet and laying pad and "cleaning" up the basement (oh and the guy who was laying the new pad showed me that there were three other kinds of pad under that nasty carpet which means it has obviously flooded more than one time before!!!).
Meanwhile, we have had ALL three kids sharing the guest room upstairs. Now if any of you have ever tried to have a two year old and a four year old and a six year old share a room you know that NO ONE gets any sleep, including mom and dad. Therefore, with all of the lack of sleep and mold and who knows what growing downstairs you can imagine that our immune systems are all a little compromised. Well, on Sunday morning I woke up with hives all over my body and just itching everywhere. So I drank a ton of Benadryl and took a hydrocortizone bath with oatmeal soap and we left the house for a while to see if that would help. Yep, come to find out I am allergic to my house, how pathetic is that? Then, if that wasn't bad enough I got the swine flu (seriously the worse flu ever! I have never been so drained and sick in my life). I have now been sick for three days and I haven't wanted to do anything but stay in bed, which I obviously can't do because I have three kids and mom's don't get sick days. I have also been trying to find a different rental house because we can't qualify for a loan to buy a home yet. And then tonight Cameron (which is still sharing a room with Brendan and Daelyn) threw up all over! So now, I have all three kids sleeping randomly on the TILE floor in the entry way and dining room because there isn't anywhere else to put them to sleep. I still feel so sick and I am cleaning up puke and I know that it is only a matter of time before the other two get the bug as well... and then I am sure the hubby will get it as well and sometimes they are the biggest babies of all, he he he j/K ;o) Which of course, during this week of being sick I finally got out of bed this morning to a sink full of nasty dishes next to an empty dishwasher... still haven't figured out why it is so difficult for men/kids to load the dishes. I even emptied the dishwasher while I was sick hoping that the dirty ones would magically load themselves.... nope.
Anyway, the clean-up crew is done but you would never know it by looking at the basement. There is still about a quarter inch of mud on the window sills and all over the walls and baseboards and the "clean" carpet leaves your feet stinky and muddy and all of our ruined furniture is sitting down there getting worse. So, now I am waiting for morning to come praying that I will feel better from the flu tomorrow so that I can clean up the other's puke without puking myself, and have the strength enough to clean a muddy basement and furniture and pack up the house to hopefully move soon to a different rental house. Oh, not to mention I need to plan my lesson for primary on Sunday, oh and lucky me I am in charge of sharing time as well. I am so glad that I am going bonkers from my own three kids being cooped up with them in this nasty house and then on Sunday I get to go teach a whole room full of other people's kids in primary and then a classroom full of sunbeams. I guess they do say the Lord works in mysterious ways and that all storms come to an end, right?? Well, I am praying for rainbows =)


So there you have it, our first renting saga. I will let you know how it all ends.
And now, I should be taking some ambien and going to sleep but I can't take it tonight because I am worried that one or all of my kids will throw up in the night and I know Josh won't hear it so I guess I better be awake to take care of it... lucky me :P