The house had survived the fire and knew I was lucky when so many had lost so much. But I also knew it was going to be a long and difficult struggle. I had been through it before in 2003 when my garage had burned to the ground after I inadvertently put some paper towels in a waste basket that spontaneously combusted. That time, I spent eleven months living in a hotel, fighting with my insurance company over every god forsaken penny. I lost my truck in the fire, the company I worked for was acquired and I got let go and I had to put my dog down. Lost my truck, lost my dog, lost my job. The perfect country song, called The Three Times The Misery. Little did I know I was about to do it all again, adding health issues.
Sometimes it’s best we don’t know what’s coming. It would only keep us up at night trying to figure out how you are going to handle it.
Threefold misery also came to mean something else in 2025. My insurance company, my contractor and my mortgage/utility companies.
TRIPLE EVIL PART ONE
The one thing I have learned from two fires. As far as insurance companies go, you are in good hands with NOBODY. They are not there to take care of you. They exist to make money, cancel you if you make a late payment or live somewhere that has a tragedy and fight you over every penny while you go through one of the worst times in your life. Sound jaded and bitter? I prefer to call it being experienced.
As soon as I found out my house was still standing, I called my insurance company, AAA.
The first call was wonderful. The person I spoke to was sympathetic, asked me did I need to get to a hotel. They said an adjuster would be out in the next couple of days and they advanced a small amount of money for expenses. They got someone out to board up all the windows, even the ones that weren’t broken or melted, so I didn’t have to lay in bed every night and worry about looters. When the adjuster came, he made it sound like everything was going to be taken care of with plenty of funds.
I was staying with the DMan, but the situation was far from ideal. Driving to Altadena to meet with insurance adjusters and check on things took three hours out of my day, just for the commute time. Of course, that was having to fit it in with a full-time job. My first mistake, I took only two and a half days off work. I should have taken a lot longer. I should have taken stress disability leave. I say this now, knowing as soon as 2026 rolled around, my company was acquired and I was dumped like yesterday’s trash. The fact is, I never had a minute to process the trauma of losing my entire neighborhood and community and had to immediately jump back in to trying to sell software. I never received so much as an Amazon gift card from my employer, throughout the whole long twisted mess.
Top it off, Kody was suffering from advanced hip disease. DMan’s condo is two stories, bedrooms on the bottom, so we had to come up with creative ways for Kody to not have to use the stairs. AAA had said we could discuss finding more permanent living for me, since it looked like I was not going to be able to get things cleaned up at the house quickly.
I refer to this as our honeymoon period. And just like a honeymoon, it lasted a couple of weeks. Because after having a couple of adjusters who were AAA employees, I was told only total loss members would have “real” adjusters. Those with “standing structures” were being passed off to some contractors that they had hired in Texas.
Just like that, they went from being AAA to Triple Evil.
Push back and ineptness started almost immediately. When I spoke to my new adjuster, she seemed very bothered by the fact that she had to deal with me at all. Find me a place to live? Not so much. I ended up going on AirBnB after I calculated what my total ALE (Additional Living Expense) was on my policy. (This is an important piece of your insurance policy. If you don’t have it, you need to get it. Otherwise, you will be paying out of pocket for a place to live, while STILL paying a mortgage).
Since so many people were displaced, prices were outrageous. I needed a yard and no steps for Kody. I finally found a place in San Gabriel, about twenty minutes from my home. It was a small two bedroom and I found out later, the back was a separate unit, with someone who also had a dog. Not as private as I had hoped, but it had a nice front porch and the front yard was totally fenced. I had ZERO help from Triple Evil finding it, as all they were offering were rentals that were snapped up before I could even look at them. Luckily, I had a credit card with plenty of available credit so I could secure the place. When I tried to get the funds reimbursed, my adjuster didn’t know how to process it and I had to involve her supervisor. It wouldn’t be the last time.
Little did I know they would go from being lackadaisical, to aggressively standing in the way of me returning to my life and my home.
Sometimes it’s best we don’t know what’s coming. It would only keep us up at night trying to figure out how you are going to handle it.
Threefold misery also came to mean something else in 2025. My insurance company, my contractor and my mortgage/utility companies.
TRIPLE EVIL PART ONE
The one thing I have learned from two fires. As far as insurance companies go, you are in good hands with NOBODY. They are not there to take care of you. They exist to make money, cancel you if you make a late payment or live somewhere that has a tragedy and fight you over every penny while you go through one of the worst times in your life. Sound jaded and bitter? I prefer to call it being experienced.
As soon as I found out my house was still standing, I called my insurance company, AAA.
The first call was wonderful. The person I spoke to was sympathetic, asked me did I need to get to a hotel. They said an adjuster would be out in the next couple of days and they advanced a small amount of money for expenses. They got someone out to board up all the windows, even the ones that weren’t broken or melted, so I didn’t have to lay in bed every night and worry about looters. When the adjuster came, he made it sound like everything was going to be taken care of with plenty of funds.
I was staying with the DMan, but the situation was far from ideal. Driving to Altadena to meet with insurance adjusters and check on things took three hours out of my day, just for the commute time. Of course, that was having to fit it in with a full-time job. My first mistake, I took only two and a half days off work. I should have taken a lot longer. I should have taken stress disability leave. I say this now, knowing as soon as 2026 rolled around, my company was acquired and I was dumped like yesterday’s trash. The fact is, I never had a minute to process the trauma of losing my entire neighborhood and community and had to immediately jump back in to trying to sell software. I never received so much as an Amazon gift card from my employer, throughout the whole long twisted mess.
Top it off, Kody was suffering from advanced hip disease. DMan’s condo is two stories, bedrooms on the bottom, so we had to come up with creative ways for Kody to not have to use the stairs. AAA had said we could discuss finding more permanent living for me, since it looked like I was not going to be able to get things cleaned up at the house quickly.
I refer to this as our honeymoon period. And just like a honeymoon, it lasted a couple of weeks. Because after having a couple of adjusters who were AAA employees, I was told only total loss members would have “real” adjusters. Those with “standing structures” were being passed off to some contractors that they had hired in Texas.
Just like that, they went from being AAA to Triple Evil.
Push back and ineptness started almost immediately. When I spoke to my new adjuster, she seemed very bothered by the fact that she had to deal with me at all. Find me a place to live? Not so much. I ended up going on AirBnB after I calculated what my total ALE (Additional Living Expense) was on my policy. (This is an important piece of your insurance policy. If you don’t have it, you need to get it. Otherwise, you will be paying out of pocket for a place to live, while STILL paying a mortgage).
Since so many people were displaced, prices were outrageous. I needed a yard and no steps for Kody. I finally found a place in San Gabriel, about twenty minutes from my home. It was a small two bedroom and I found out later, the back was a separate unit, with someone who also had a dog. Not as private as I had hoped, but it had a nice front porch and the front yard was totally fenced. I had ZERO help from Triple Evil finding it, as all they were offering were rentals that were snapped up before I could even look at them. Luckily, I had a credit card with plenty of available credit so I could secure the place. When I tried to get the funds reimbursed, my adjuster didn’t know how to process it and I had to involve her supervisor. It wouldn’t be the last time.
Little did I know they would go from being lackadaisical, to aggressively standing in the way of me returning to my life and my home.
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