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Did someone yell Timber?!
By Laurie | June 8, 2008
Maybe it was Mother Nature.
Thursday night while D and I were at the gym, I was watching the news while doing the elliptical machine. We had noticed how windy it was when we got out of cars and were walking into the building.
On Friday morning when he was about to head off to work and I was getting ready, he comes back in and said, “I have some bad news.” I walked outside with him, and there was one of our trees, fallen completely over– roots and all just sticking up.
We looked up and down the street, but ours was the only house with our tree knocked down. They are all held up by pretty stong wires that were nailed into the ground, but it looked like the force of the wind broke some of the rope holding them together.
The bad thing is, there is also a hose system connected to the sprinklers that was planted around the tree’s roots. You can see it in the pictures. That thing was also ripped out of the ground. I had seen this happen to a few other houses back a few months ago when we had the tornadoes, but ours had been safe. I also frequent the Homeowner’s Association website, and am paranoid because some people were on there complaining about how long someone else’s tree had been down. I don’t know the first thing about these things, but I remembered reading that someone had called the builder and they came back out to replant and brace it back to the ground. I paged my co-workers to let them know what happened and that I would be home for the day dealing with it. I had to wait for 8:00 to call Fox & Jacob’s. The rep was so rude and told me there was nothing they could/would do if we have lived in the house more than 90 days. Good thing I haven’t completed the customer service survey yet. Take that F&J! Not to mention the fact that they “forgot” to tell us that they would be building apartments practically in the middle of our neighborhood. They are suppposed to be “Luxury” from $600,000 to $1 Million, but we’ll see about that. No one is happy about that either.
D had a half day off so when he came home I suggested that since F&J wouldn’t help us we should drive around the neighborhood and look for workers that are still building in the last phase of our complex. We offered them a little cash and some cokes, and in an hour our tree was back up almost as good as new. We had tried to lift it ourselves (it’s MUCH heavier than it looks), but decided we might need some more experienced help.
In the end it all worked out, but my opinion about Centex (i.e. Fox & Jacob’s) is much changed. Seriously, how long would it have taken them make a call to send the same workers we drove around the corner and got to replant a single tree?
I am thankful our trees aren’t bigger and that we didn’t have damage to our house like my brother did a few months back. I am pretty sure they are still dealing with insurance crap and repair work.
Topics: Home Sweet Home |
The tree story is crazy but what caught me most is that you’re living in our old house. What a mean is that we lived in that exact same model (same brick selection too it looks). Check out the photos of our old house in Frisco here.
http://tinyurl.com/3glzqg
Posted by: Brad Garland on June 8th, 2008 at 4:46 pmYup… that’s our neighborhood! I can even see the gazebo in the background, so I know exactly where your house was. We’re in the newer phase in the back.
Why’d you leave? Should we be packing?
Posted by: Laurie on June 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pmWhoops!
I just love how these developers would crawl over broken glass to get you to buy one of their houses but after all is signed and sealed you get kicked to the curb!
Posted by: Jill on June 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pmI know, Jill! It really sucks. They really did bend over backwards right after we closed to fix any little things that might have been wrong, and they kept reminding us about that survey and their 100% positive score they always have. I decided to wait to see what happened a few months down the road, and I’m glad I did!
Posted by: Laurie on June 8th, 2008 at 10:52 pmThat was smart thinking on your part to go find some workers and just pay them cash. Way to go! I hope it didn’t do damage to your sprinklers.
Posted by: Lynne on June 9th, 2008 at 10:44 amI am so tired of all these winds, we have a small piece of siding that came loose the week before because of the winds. I have no idea who to call and it’s such a small job, I don’t know who would even come out for it. It’s on the 2nd floor, so I can’t reach it.