Rebuilding

You may not know this but May 29 this year Kearney had some tornados go through town and we were one of the lucky ones to have quite a bit of damage. Our tree was uprooted and landed on our carport which just so happened to have our car inside. The carport was completely destroyed but the car didn't have a dent on it, just some pin-strips. We also will have to have the bathroom redone as we have a huge crack that goes through the tiled walls and a huge crack in the bedroom replaced. Of course this all happened just a few weeks before we were to get married. This is of course why it has taken so long to get the ball rolling on getting everything fixed.

I have been working with a contractor and waiting for him to get me an estimate for the work. I also had him check to see if we would be able to build a garage instead of carport and he was to check with a building inspector. Well, yesterday he stopped by to let me know that he wasn't sure if they would let me even put back the carport because we aren't 7 feet from the lot line. He told me that I needed to take up some pictures and talk to the inspector to see what was possible. He also told me that if all else fails we might have to file a hardship and take it to a city board meeting to get permission. My contractor gave me some names of which inspector to talk to and which ones to stay away from so I headed on down to city hall towing my friends little baby with me. When I arrived the contractors were off on their lunch brakes so I decided to wait, not too fun having to put baby in car, take baby out, put baby in and so on. Oh course the secretary tries to give me her opinion and thought I was crazy trying to ask the inspector when the code says 7 feet and you can't go closer than that! I over heard her saying the "good" inspector that I was to talk to won't be in until later so I told her I'd come back later. She tried to tell me that any inspector can help me and that the one I was NOT to talk to would be here shortly. I told her I'd come back later.

I went home, called the inspector and left a message with him to call me when he was back in the office. I received the call and headed back down to City Hall with baby too to talk to the "good" inspector. He pulled my house up on the computer and basically said that I could only rebuild the carport as it was, I couldn't build a garage. I was happy with that because that is better than nothing. As I was leaving the secretary said, "So he is going to let you do it??!!??" and I smiled and said, "Yes!" and walked out.

I am just wondering how many loop holes I will have to go through before our house is fixed.