As we reach the end of the week, I thought I’d take some time today to share what is going on in my life and explain some of the drama I have recently hinted about in other posts. In short, a natural disaster has made my family homeless and we’ve taken up residence in hotels as we survey how best to rebuild.
Homeless And Living In Hotels: The Backstory
On August 19, 2023, I wrote a story called Hurricane Klint: My Horrible Week In La La Land. My wife Heidi’s car had been broken into, my daughter Claire Marie had fallen in the garden and ripped her forehead open, and I had burned my hand and collapsed.
What a week, right? I wrote:
My son Augustine was then climbing our massive oak tree in the backyard…I stopped him before he could fall off it and break his arm.
Oh, and did I mention that Hurricane Hilary is approaching Los Angeles, the first such tropical storm in 84 years? Today I’m cleaning the rain gutters with my left hand.
Little did I know about what would happen next…
First, a note about our backyard. We live in an old bungalow house in the Los Angeles area that is almost 100 years old. It was a total fixer when we bought it and the large backyard was nothing but a dirt pile under a massive 130-year-old oak tree. But over the years we have poured a lot of love into the house and cultivated a comfortable outdoor living space in the backyard:
We love spending time in our backyard and we particularly loved our oak tree, which provided shade during the warmer months and even shelter from rain.
You’ll note I referred to the tree in the past tense…
When Hurricane Hilary did strike Los Angeles, it led to this, as captured by our Nest Cam:
Yes, folks, a trunk fell on our little guest house and another trunk fell on our house. While the structural damage was limited, the water damage was pervasive. So much so that the city tagged the structure and informed us we could not remain in the house.
Let me stop for a moment.
No one was home when the tree fell on the house. But 45 minutes before the tree fell down, Claire Marie and Augustine were playing in the rain…under the tree.
Houses can be rebuild…but not children. Despite the disaster, I am so thankful that the tree did not fall earlier in the afternoon.
We are insured and are working with the insurance on a plan to repair the damage.
In the meantime, we spent several weeks living in hotels.
It took us some time before we found one most suitable for our family, which turned out to a suite at the Hyatt Place in Pasadena:
Without a full kitchen, we have been eating almost every day at Whole Foods.
There is really nothing relaxing about staying in a hotel when you are trying to juggle work, school for the kids, and the new housing project…
We are now spending some time in Germany and will return to a rental house for the next few months while repairs are done.
Regular readers may have noticed that I have appeared somewhat distracted and somewhat annoyed over the last several weeks. Now, perhaps, you will better understand the context. My recent trip to New York was my first trip after seven weeks at home. But travel has resumed and I have a number of mini-trips to share with you in the days ahead.
However, I cannot stray too far for too long: the rebuild must move forward because we want to get back into our house. Indeed, I’ve never appreciated my house as much as I have now that I am (temporarily) homeless.
This has been a time drain too. I am amazed at how dealing with this has been a full-time job. I greatly look forward to getting beyond this chapter of our lives.
CONCLUSION
So there you have it, folks. I promised to share about what has been going on and now you have the update.
Let me again say that houses can rebuilt, new trees (even mature trees) can be planted, but human life–at least on this side of the grave–cannot be restored. This is a sad chapter for me right now, but it could have been so much worse. So I choose to be thankful that I may be out of house and home, but only for a time and with my family by my side.
Wow. That is horrible, really puts things in perspective. Glad your family is safe and best to you all.
I feel horrible for y’all but thankful that no one was hurt.
Stay strong. There are a lot of folks that care for you and yours.
Wow, glad everyone is okay and that your insurance appears to be covering you. Hope the rebuild goes smoothly.
As a silver lining, I guess you could make some good progress towards lifetime status with Hyatt while living out of hotels.
All the best Matthew. Do shout if you need help. Have more brisket while you’re at Whole Foods – looks brill.
Matt, I am very sorry to hear this, but I praise God that your family were safe.
The WF in the picture brings back memories for my family and I. It was one of our grocery stores when we lived in the Pasadena area.
I hope that the rebuild goes well. Dealing with LA County and Insurance companies can be nothing but frustrating. Praying for God’s favour.
Well said.
In August, one town over from me, a nine year was killed by a falling tree at a family picinic.
I’m glad you found somewhere better than Excalibur to stay after the tree fell… hope y’all continue to have good health & the house recovers as well
I actually don’t feel sorry for you at all. Living at a Hyatt and eating Whole Foods. You should check your privilege. Most folks would be out on the street.
@Andy K – what an a**hole thing to say. Is the privilege that he owned a home at all? Had insurance? Chose a mid-level hotel that had a market nearby with tons of prepared food?
And for the “most” that would be on the street….nearly all home-owners policy includes some kind of coverage if y ou home is unlivable. But I hate to get in the way of your anger and jealousy.
Your remarks are in poor taste. Since you apparently only reserve your sympathy for the poor I’m sure that you’ve chosen a career like social worker to help those unfortunate folks.
So sorry to hear that and so glad your kids and family are safe. As you said, houses can be fixed but lives cannot.
This brings memories of a great friend that very unfortunate passed away in the summer. Last Christmas, his family was traveling and when they came back home they found out that a pipe had frozen and later bursted and flooded their house to the point they had to take the entire house down to the studs. So they moved to a hotel and later to a rental apartment for 6 months while their house was rebuilt. Two weeks before moving back, he had a business trip to Amsterdam and unfortunately passed away during flight after having a heart attack. Yes, Delta FÃ tried to wake him up to move his seat back for landing and he was dead.
Summary of the story, get the best of this which is to be closer to your loved ones.
Oh Matthew, your family is in my prayers for sparing everyone. Fallen trees are the bane of my homeowner existence. Hang in there.
I thought it was something more terminal or ominous, so I’m glad it’s not that. Sucks for the house, but being alive and well with family is pretty cool also.
I’m glad that your family is safe! Losing your home like that must feel horrible. I feel you and your family, especially your kids.
I hope that you enjoyed your time here in Pasadena (as much as possible, that is, given the circumstances)! We live not far from that Hyatt and even closer to the Whole Foods.
And here I thought you just didn’t like me? Joking of course, and wishing you godspeed going forward. That’s a lot to deal with given two young ones. Why I love this blog, more actual life and less entitlement to the fantasies.
I am so glad your family is safe. In the long run, that’s the important thing, isn’t it? Good luck with all the renovations!
Best of luck with this. I’m sure that this has been emotionally and physically draining.
Since you are generous with your travel advice to all of us, let me offer a bit of unsolicited advice in my area of expertise as an attorney in Los Angeles who handles complex civil litigation matters, including residential construction defect cases.
Your insurance adjuster is not your friend and is not your ally, no matter what that person tells you. That person’s only job is to save his/her employer as much money as possible. And while your adjuster will often suggest preferred contractors, know that you have absolutely no obligation to use their people (and despite what your adjuster will tell you, you are usually not better off using their people).
Get multiple estimates from licensed contractors. Be prepared to fight the insurance company on everything. And document every single communication. If you have a telephone call, immediately send a follow-up email documenting exactly what was said and what was promised. The more detail the better. End the e-mails with something like “if you disagree with any portion of my summary, please advise me immediately, in writing, otherwise I will presume that you agree with my representations…”
Many of these projects do unfortunately end up in litigation – whether over the construction itself, or the bad faith of the insurance company. The old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure holds especially true here.
Feel free to reach out with questions
Very helpful and while I won’t publicly get into details yet, I have already struggled with the insurance company. I may indeed reach out.
One question I will ask publicly is what your thoughts are on hiring a public adjuster.
I’m unfortunately not surprised to hear that you are having trouble with the carrier. That seems to be a much more common occurrence these days.
I am personally not a fan of public adjusters. While their job is to advocate for you, they do not have the same ethical guidelines as an attorney. They often get kickbacks from contractors. This is not to say that there aren’t good PAs who will go to bat for you and perhaps help you move an insurance adjuster off of an unacceptable position, but I’ve certain had plenty of opportunities to clean up messes created by PAs who promised far more than they could ever realistically deliver. (There are certainly bad attorneys too, and I’ve handled a few malpractice prosecutions on behalf of clients who have suffered from attorney negligence too…)
If you do go the PA route, be sure to get multiple references and do research to see how many times that PA has been sued (and what the outcome of those suits are). Most courts – including the Los Angeles County Superior Court and the Central District of California – have pretty robust search capabilities. And anyone with access to Westlaw public records or Alexis-Nexis can do a far more in depth background check for you.
In 2016 a car hit our house while we were out of town. After our insurance company refused to acknowledge the extent of the damages, we hired a public adjuster. Although the process was time consuming, he ultimately got us about 85% of what we should have received (the insurance had originally offered about 20%). Even after paying the adjuster 10%, it was well worth it.
May I share some advice with you? Never, EVER speak to the insurance company; only ever communicate in writing so you have a full audit trail.
In 2020, I had a water leak which caused water damage and the company refused to pay out based on something I’d said on the phone. Of course, when I requested a transcript, there was no reply.
Just 2-3 months later, we were fortunate to have another water leak (yes, I did mean fortunate, so do read on!). This time, I followed my own advice, I refused to engage with them in by phone and insisted that every communication was made by email. Result? I got paid in full for the damage caused, which may or may not have included damage caused by the first leak 😉
Good luck!
So sorry for your challenges. Best wishes to you and your family
Good luck to you and your family during all of this.
Maybe this is God‘s hint to finally make the move to Germany? You have been playing with the thought for so long…what hinders you?
Heidi’s work and my legal credentials currently tie us to California, but we have and continue to consider such a move.
Glad your family is safe and sound, you have a way to work thru all this.
May be it’s time to feel for the homeless civilan Palestinians. Oh yes, btw they are under constant bombardment, no luxury hotels to shelter under.
Maybe they should elect better leaders or stand up and fight those that butcher babies and behead women.
But I do feel sorry for the Palestinian people, most of whom are just trying to survive and for provide their family, as I have elaborated on in my next post.
Oh please. Palestinians are being massacred and displaced from their homes in the West Bank – even before Oct 7th – and Khamahs has nothing to do with that. Hell Palestinians were slaughtered by the IDF when they protested along the Gaza border a few years ago. Stop using Khamahs as your convenient boogeyman to excuse Israel’s brutal occupation of the Palestinians.
Hope everything works out for the best for you and your family Matt. And I can sympathize with this issues with the Insurance company, Neal provided great advice above, the adjuster definitely is not your friend.
Europeans are learning at light speed what living next to muslims is like. You’re not fooling anyone.
Hi Matthew,
How does the old cynical adage go? If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all?
I know you personally, not just through this blog and feel comfortable saying that you are blessed by having a great sense of resilience and positive attitude. I know that you and your family will pull through this. Hang in there!
Cheers
Your Green Lake friend, Denny
Take care Matthew. I really hope you get support from the insurance company and building contractor. Unfortunately, from experiences of friends (in the Southeast US) it seems to take months and months to get these kinds of rebuilds done. And California may be even longer.
In Washington state, there are some towns that are fanatics about trees, preferring to risk human life for a tree that is less than 100 years old. Cut down a tree and have to plant maybe 12 trees, crazy. I think Bill Gates’ town of Medina is one of those crazy towns. The city government might be high on mushrooms.
Sorry to hear t about the house. It might be 2 years of pain, maybe 3.
Good luck with all of this. While not quite as dramatic, have been through similar and can attest to how not-glamorous it is to live in a hotel on insurance dime. Be well.
It’s amazing, no matter how far we come as humans, we’re nothing compared to the forces of nature. I can only imagine how disruptive this is, but fortunately your desire to show your family the world means they’re comfortable outside of the cocoon of their home life. While you’d never wish to do any of this again, you’ll only look back fondly on your days at the HP Pasadena years down the road.
“Denke an all das Schöne, was in dir selbst und dich herum wächst und sei glücklich!”
What a drag of an experience though glad it wasn’t a health problem. Best of luck with the rebuild project. Surprised the city would red tag for water damage do you think you could have lived in place while work was done if the city didn’t put its restriction on the property?
So very sorry about the situation and am grateful that everyone in your family is safe. May your faith continue to sustain you during the weeks and months ahead. Thank you for letting your Live and Let’s Fly friends know of what happened.
I’m sorry to hear about what you’re going through. I guessed a fire when you first alluded to your situation, but this sucks just as bad. As someone who had to deal with my insurance and mortgage companies on a roof replacement due to hail damage (thankfully not bad enough to penetrate the roof and cause interior damage, so at least we didn’t have to leave the house), I get the frustration. Just to warn you, if you have a mortgage on your house, the mortgage company can be almost as bad to deal with as the insurance company, if not more so. Ours required the insurer to pay them the claim proceeds first, and then insisted on issuing checks jointly to me and the contractor. And good luck getting a bank teller to actually cash the two-party check. I ended up having to take off from work multiple times to go in person with my contractor to get them to finally accept them.
Hopefully your situation gets worked out soon.
You think your life sucks? My stepfather had a stroke yesterday at the age of 65. Now he’s in the hospital, right side paralyzed, able to speak but only on the left side of his mouth, and unable to remember what month it is.
These last couple of days have reminded me to always be thankful for what you have. Because just like that tree, you never know when the things you take for granted will be taken from you.
Glad to read no one was hurt. That was a lot of tree to fall anywhere, let alone where a young family lives. That storm was so random, as I live in LA too and I am a native Angeleno and I have never seen a storm like that in August. Hopefully, your insurance company will come around soon enough. Good luck!
Best wishes for a quality and quick rebuild!
I feel so bad for you and your family. Your problems seem very large in comparison to the problems of others. Fortunately you’re not a widow with 3 children who lost everything after your husband of 17 years unexpectedly died just months after your father even more unexpectedly died. Now you’re living in hotels called woodspring suites which is the new “projects” for 3 weeks out of the month because $300 is your budget for rent. So you spend a week or so sleeping in your car with your children. Yeah I feel extremely bad for you and I am sorry for your huge problems
Omg I couldn’t even begin my story I should have been dead already that hotel was a [redacted by admin] mansion compared to the single room I had to stay in with four kids working and taking kids to school we had no table, refrigerator man come on now
Dont you live on an airplane
Wy redo your house at all?
Matthew, I am a couple of days behind in reading your blog. Let me say how sorry I am for this significant disruption for your family, but also how glad I am that you all remain healthy and safe. You have a good perspective on it all.
I am glad that things are proceeding but understand how stressful this has been for you and your family. Hang in there!
Sorry to hear how the storm came with such a disruption to your life but glad to hear that no one got hurt due to it.
Close friends of mine had a tree destroy the roof of their house in NJ back when Christie was still governor and they were living abroad. That was bad enough but if it were with kids in the picture and it being the primary house for the family, this kind of situation is about as inconvenient as it can be (in a non-conflict zone). Thankfully you’re insured and can afford to eat at Whole Paycheck — I mean Whole Foods — that puts a hole in the bank account of many, but this kind of inconvenience is definitely not kind to anyone and hopefully the kids are enjoying the change of scenery and found places to enjoy while displaced.
Wow so sorry for all of that! You would have thought that was Florida vs LA!Hope u get settled into your home again soon.
I’m so sorry to hear this. But very happy your family is ok. I went through a smaller scale of this back in January 2023. Our neighbor’s tree fell on our Pasadena, CA house. The massive 60 foot Chinese Elm tree fell in the roof above our son’s bedroom at 2 AM. Luckily, no one was hurt. But as the old neighbors had sold and moved and the new neighbors were still in NYC, it took a while to get the tree removal and roof repair going. It is ten months later and I’m still trying to finish the last of the repairs. That also put a hold on my regular Boston trips to help my elderly parents.
A full rebuild will take you a while. If there’s anything I can do to help- compare construction notes, or help you vent, I’d be happy to help.
Best of luck with the home rebuild!
Wow you are very lucky Matthew! Not related but I hit (or should I say grazed) a deer last night. Moments like this make you thankful for what you have…