Sorry V, I did not mean to hijack your thread - started fresh here.
I have just come from a meeting to start the insurance claim. Ladies, your homework this week is to do two things.
1. Check/test your smoke detectors or replace batteries as appropriate. We are fortunate that no one was in the house at the time, and being that it was in the boonies, there was no one around to hear it anyway, but believe me, fire is not a good thing.
2. I know many of you have digital cameras. Go around your house right now and photograph everything in it. Not just the items of value. EVERYTHING. You need to show you really had 12 place settings of china, or 4 lamps of a certain type, or 6 vs 8 DR chairs. When you have to make an inventory of evverything you lost, you will be glad you did. You should even the closet where you keep the extra rolls of tp and kleenex. You will have to replace all that stuff eventually, and you might as well list it so you can get reimbursed.
Books - take photos of your bookcases, cds, etc., then close- ups to show the titles of the objects on the shelf blow them up on your computer if you need to prove the title list later. If you have 1st editions, or other valuable books, set those aside and photograph them to show the publishing info, dates, etc. You need a photo to show all your bikes - not just individually or taken out of context.
If you have 6 bikes, you need a photo that shows them all in one place, with some identifying characteristics like your living room, to prove you didn't take the pix at the bike shop. (See, I had to make it cycling related). Don't forget the pictures hanging on the wall, odd trinkets, "collectibles" - may not be worth so much say to a burglar - but the type that would sell on Ebay for a few or a lot of bucks. You need pix of everything. These will jog your memory when you have to fill out 50 pages of insurance inventory forms and assign a fair market value to each item.
Really odd stuff, if you can corroborate value with Ebay completed auctions, so much the better. Certainly any big ticket stuff you need good pix and receipts.
Once you do this, put it all on a CD, video tape, DVD, jump drive whatever and STORE a copy with a family member that lives somewhere else, and another copy in your safe deposit box. If not the fire, the water and chemical damage after a fire will finish it off.
Don't wait. If it happens to you, you will truly regret it.
They think this was the work of bored kids with nothing to do. Sheesh! It could have been anybody's house, but it was mine.
I have been through a lot of life altering events in my time -deaths in family, family health issues, divorce, auto accidents, bike-auto accidents, helicopter evacuations from boats, armed robbery, burglary, but this is truly the worst. I have never felt so violated.
Martha
