My neighbor's flood left me replacing 600 sq ft of laminate last Tuesday

Water seeped under the wall from their busted pipe. Insurance says it's their problem but I had to rip it out same day to stop mold. Took me 8 hours alone with a pull bar and a lot of swearing. Anyone else deal with water damage claims that drag out for months?

3 comments

3 Comments

knight.felix1mo ago

Yeah I read somewhere that water damage claims take like 3-6 months on average if there's any back and forth with the adjusters. My buddy had a similar leak from his upstairs neighbor and it took 4 months just to get them to agree on the scope of work. He ended up paying out of pocket for the drying equipment because mold started growing behind the baseboards in like 48 hours. That pull bar work sounds brutal though, 8 hours of that is no joke.

emmaclark1mo ago

Knight.Felix, that 48 hour mold timeline is exactly what happened to my sister. She had a pipe burst in her laundry room and by the time the insurance adjuster came out three days later, there was already visible mold spreading up the drywall. She ended up having to rip out cabinets that could have been saved if they'd just let her start drying immediately. The whole process took nearly five months because the adjuster kept disputing whether it was "pre-existing damage" from humidity. Your buddy was smart to pay out of pocket for the drying equipment. I've seen too many people wait for insurance approval and end up with mold remediation bills that dwarf what the drying would have cost. And yes, eight hours of pull bar work is absolutely brutal. My nephew does construction and he says that's the job nobody volunteers for. Takes a real toll on your shoulders and lower back.

the_linda1mo ago

You know, I used to think waiting for insurance was always the right call but this totally changed my mind.