T1D Extra Chores

Mold Journey pt. 2

Leaving the property Dec. 2, 2014, we were offered to stay at a neighbor's vacation home at Bryce Mountain Resort.  We stayed there for 10 days until our belongings could be cleaned and we found a rental to move into.  Dec. 16, we moved to a rental home in Staunton, VA.  We met with a builder, Darrell Marshall, of Marshall Home Construction.  Darrell was our rock and had many connections.  Because our property is in a flood plain, we had a more complicated case to rebuild and had many hoops to jump through.  Surveying of the land,  choosing a house plan, presenting to the county for approval of the foundation, tearing the old house down and removal of trees and bamboo to rebuild, and breaking ground.  Thank goodness all went smoothly, we believe because of our fortune to be guided to the right people.  Being outsiders in a small community, many times outsiders are not treated well (as we believe happened to us when we bought).

In the meantime, we did file a letter with those we feel were responsible for our predicament.  Of the 5 parties, we got one letter back from a lawyer of the home inspector.  We then proceeded to file letters of complaint to the state and were told those involved would have notations put in their file.  If this would have happened in Maryland, we would have had a case.  Virginia is a 'buyer beware' state.

The decisions were many, the weather was not always ideal, yet, all in all, the build went fairly smooth.  We broke ground May 18, 2015 and moved in November 12, 2015.

 The holidays were wonderful in our new house!  All siblings and family visited throughout the season and now we are settling into January 2016.  A storage unit awaits us to remove its contents, still.  How much of the contents are really necessary, we shall see.  The house needs special design for storage, such as bookcases and shelving.

Anyway, our dreams have been realized in our safe, beautiful house.  More to follow,...

Churchville, VA

Our new home.

Churchville, VA

Little North Mountain

Churchville, VA

Jennings Branch running through our property.

Final Weekend of T1D study at UVA

After being set up with all of the technology, I am now on auto pilot for insulin and must eat at dictated times because the artificial pancreas gives me insulin to coincide with eating.  Praying this all works.  More updates to follow,...

The Mold Journey

Since I have not been keeping up with this blog since retirement and now picking up again with the diabetes research, I looked at my history and realized I never wrote about our mold story and moving to Virginia.

You see, we lived in Maryland our entire lives, and in Hagerstown for 24+ years.  We always wanted to try rural living and looked for property in Washington County for many years, even putting offers in on properties.  None of our offers panned out.  When it came time to consider retiring and moving away from Maryland (where we had no family), we considered beauty of surroundings, health care, college life and somewhat closer to family.  

Our daughter attended Bridgewater College in Virginia and we really liked the area.  We happened upon Staunton, VA when we were on our way south for a surprise 50th birthday party for a family member.  Staying overnight in Staunton, we discovered this small town with a college, history, and a great vibe of energy and culture.  I began searching for properties and found a realtor.  I/We visited many times to look at properties.  I also subscribed to the local paper and looked at Zillow for listings.  I found this one listing that kept at me.  It had a creek with a swimming hole, 15+ acres, a barn and an old hunt cabin, turned into cottage (dated 1904).  Upon seeing the property, we fell in love!  The property even has a ridge.  We thought we were getting a good deal and would have little mortgage in our retirement years.  

We listed our house and put in an offer on the Churchville property.  Everything was working out, we found buyers for our house and the price on the property in VA was reduced because there was concerns with the roof.  We learned this after it was inspected.  We left Hagerstown and started the adventure to the VA property.  We arranged to stay in a cabin at a KOA campground for 15 days and then we were to settle.  Once we got down here, the owner of the property decided she would not be ready to settle on the date we had agreed upon.  We had no place to go, so we told her she would have to pay to put us up someplace until she would be ready.  The agreed upon date was set for October 14, 2014.

We moved into the house and the next day saw that the roof was leaking on the porch and on the furnace.  We started to call for estimates to get the electric and plumbing updated and for other upgrades on the house.  After 3 weeks I started to have symptoms of asthma like I had as a child.  Paul began feeling similarly and he never even had asthma.  We both also began having difficulty thinking clearly.  Paul had an episode where he thought he was having a heart attack!  I would wake up at night and have heart racing and panic attack like symptoms.  We had no idea why since we were living what we had always dreamed of.  After explaining our symptoms to a neighbor, who happened to be in the mold business, we decided to test for mold.  The results were horrendous! We had a few types of mold growing in the house, but the highest levels of black mold were found.  The house was so far gone that it could not be saved.  We left the house December 2nd, never to return to live there.

I will continue this saga,...