The Neilton Disaster

So the Neilton property out in Washington.  I have made references to it here from time to time but I never really got into the nitty and/or gritty of that utter and complete disaster, and one of the stupidest financial decisions EVER made in the history of mankind.

Early in the spring of 2005, we decided to look for property near Lake Quinault.  We'd vacationed there twice and loved the solitude of the rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula.  To our surprise, a 7 acre parcel with a livable trailer was on the market for $69,000.  It was pretty cheap, considering the location and whatnot, so we made an appointment with the realtor and made the 3.5 hour, one way trip out there in the pouring rain to see it.  Here is a map with the red A on Neilton, to show how close it is to Lake Quinault at the top of the picture.

But to give you scale, the red X on the right was where we lived, and the one on the left is Neilton.  It was a long, long, LONG trip.  Follow that yellow line from where I lived, past Lakewood and to the left of Olympia and you'll see how it curves north at Aberdeen, in an L shape.  128 miles, one way.

But it was also a scenic trip, for the most part, especially after you got past the wretchedness that are Aberdeen and Hoquiam, twin cities that are decaying and poverty stricken since the mills closed.  We ended up figuring out a way to bypass those 2 places by taking some curvy (and in places gravel) roads that wound their way northwest, joining Highway 101 a few miles north of Hoquiam.

Times were booming in early 2005, and our house was appraised quite high.  We both had good jobs and could afford to refinance and withdraw $69,000 from the equity to buy the Grays Harbor County property outright.  So we agreed to meet the sales price and were underway when the seller ripped the rug out from under us and decided to keep it in the family.  I was uneasy with the whole thing to begin with, but as usual, I was trying to give Brian what he wanted in the hopes he'd finally settle on something without jumping from expensive hobby to expensive hobby.  I was relieved when the buyer pulled out of the deal.  

Then a week or so later, the realtor calls me and said the buyer's sons didn't want the place after all, so he would offer it to us again.  This was my out....I could have said, 'No thanks', but then I figured if Brian ever found out I said no without at least talking to him, he'd be really pissed, and how would I feel if he kept that kind of info from me so I told him and yes, he wanted it.  Unfortunately.  I did argue against it but, as always, I caved in, and reluctantly agreed to move forward with it.

We closed in late May or early June, 2005 and the place was ours outright.  We'd gotten a little bit more from the equity so that we could pay for some work to be done on the place.  There were four buildings, total.  The main one was a single wide trailer, around which a huge metal building had been constructed, giving it a one car garage inside.  I figured OK that's good...with all the rain that area gets, it's best not to have a flat roofed trailer.  We would furnish it and I could make it cozy, but first we had to clean it and that was a major undertaking in and of itself.  There was another single wide trailer on the property that was a total mess and had to be removed.  There were also 2 large wood shed-like structures, also in bad shape. One looked like it could have been a small cabin, maybe a hunting cabin.  McCalla Creek ran through the property, and the 7 acres backed up to the Quinault Indian Reservation property & Olympic National Forest.  It was pretty desolate and wild, with only a few people kinda clustered on that small road we were on, called Old Mill Lane.

This is Highway 101 headed up there.  Have I mentioned what a long drive it was from Bonney Lake? 

This is the main building.

There's my car.  We hired a local handyman to dismantle the old trailer and that's his truck.  He met us out there a few times and eventually we just let him park his camper on the property during the week he was taking down and hauling away debris. 

It was a pretty location.  We went up a few times that summer to work on the trailer and furnish it.  It made for a long day, especially when we were doing round trips.  Out the door at 6:30 AM on a Saturday and didn't get home often till 6 PM.

We started to run into a huge amount of problems almost right away.  For one thing, there were a couple of neighbours, so we couldn't let the grass in the yard go wild all summer.  It got so much rain that the grass grew extremely fast and before you knew it, it was knee deep.  It happened at my house every spring too, where I couldn't get out to cut the lawn and eventually would have to weed whack it first.  So that meant paying the handyman to keep it cut.  I had to buy furniture for the place too like two cheap twin beds & a loveseat that came from Old Cannery Furniture in Sumner and some other odds and ends.  I got most everything else at thrift shops.  

Then we started a huge comedy of errors.  The day we rented the UHaul truck to bring all the heavy furniture, the UHaul had no record of our reservation.  I rescheduled for the next weekend and the Bonney Lake store was locked up tight when we went there.  We called and called and someone at UHaul told us we had to go down to Buckley to get the truck.  After a several hour delay, we finally got rolling.  There was also the time that we forgot to bring the keys and Brian had to kick the door in, breaking the lock, which meant ANOTHER trip out there to put a new lock on the door.

Then there was the time we went out there for the sole purpose of waiting for DirecTV to install satelite service because there was no cable out that far.  We waited all damn day and they never showed.  We couldn't get any cell service so we drove down to Humptulips to use the pay phone, only to find out that they'd had to cancel, but couldn't get ahold of us to tell us.  Another wasted trip.  Brian ended up taking a half day off work, and driving out there to meet them.  I think he finally got home at 10:00 PM.

He went out there to stay one weekend when hunting season opened.  There was such a torrential downpour that weekend that no one was hunting, so he came home.

The next time we decide to go up there and stay was right after Thanksgiving.  We loaded Pepper and all our stuff in Brian's truck and set out from work (Brian used to work down the street from my office).  We weren't on I-5 more than 10 minutes when all lanes came to a complete stop.  It took us an hour to go ONE exit.  We heard on the radio that there was a bad accident near Olympia (which was, at that point, still 30 miles away) and traffic was backed up all that way.  We bailed in Lakewood as soon as we could and went home.  So much for that.

Meanwhile, I kept having recurring creepy dreams about the place.  It was always dark, and the buildings were always covered in cob webs and were kinda scary.  There was always something very sinister lurking in the shadows at the edges of those dreams.  I dreamt of floods and power outages and trying to get there but always running into overgrown highways or muddy dirty roads.

We decided to ring in the new year (2006) at Lake Quinault, so, once again we packed up all our crap and Pepper and left for Neilton after work.  It was December 30, and we were going to stay the weekend, coming home on the 2nd.  About halfway there, and again it's pouring rain, panic washed over me.  I shouted, "OH SHIT THE KEYS PLEASE TELL ME YOU GRABBED THE KEYS!"  Brian pulled over to the side of the road and we started searching every bag and back pack.  No. Fucking. Keys.  AGAIN. Brian said, 'We are NOT blowing off this trip this time', so he turned around and we drove 2 hours back to Bonney Lake, only to begin the damn trip from 20 miles farther away than when we'd started out from Tacoma.  We got there around 8 pm, 4 hours later than expected.  It was my first night in the trailer and I'd made my room as cozy as possible, but I didn't like how spongy the bathroom floor felt (we just hadn't had the money to fix it yet), and I began to feel very creeped out by the fact that this was Sasquatch country, and as bad as I wanted to see one, I felt very vulnerable.  Pepper did not like the place at all and spent the night shivering miserably next to my tiny twin bed.  

So December 31st was fine....I went around shooting some pictures and we had a nice dinner at Lake Quinault Lodge.  It was really storming too.  We went to bed and Pepper was a wreck.  As I slept, I would occasionally be woken up by this strange booming sound.  I didn't know what it was.  When I finally threw in the towel and got up at 5:30, Brian was already awake too.  The power was out and the place was ice cold. He went out to see what made all that noise and the back part of the metal building had been torn loose in the storm and was flapping around.  He re-secured it and we decided to head home.  There was nothing else that could be done.  As we headed back, lines and poles were down everywhere. 

The next time we decided to spend the weekend was for President's Day in February 2006.  We now had Sagan, and I'd taken that Friday before off so that I could pack up everything we needed.  Brian couldn't take the day off and was gonna drive in, load us up and we'd head out.  However, we had a huge wind storm the night before and now our power was out in Bonney Lake!!!!!  It took him over 2 hours to get to work b/c all the traffic lights were out and due to detours from downed lines and trees.  I sat in the house all day waiting for the power to come back on and it never did.  Brian didn't get home till close to 6 and it was obvious we weren't going anywhere, so we scrapped the trip.  Again.  We got our power back the next day, midday, and yeah we could have headed out but we were just so frustrated with this constant issue.  It was like fate was thwarting us at every turn.

That spring we were burned out.  Sick of it.  What seemed like a good idea in theory, having vacation property near Lake Quinault, was in fact a complete nightmare and financial failure, when you factor in everything we went through just to even get out there half the time.  We grossed just $10,000 more than what we paid, and after the realtors and everyone else took their cut, we walked away with maybe $4,000 over the initial sales price, but we'd borrowed more than that against the equity in the house, so we came out really far behind.  We did use a good portion of the net proceeds towards the balance on the loan, but not near as much as we'd taken out.  And that is why, when the economy tanked, my house sold inn 2011, owing more than it was worth.

We never returned to Lake Quinault again, although I did pass the area on my way out to Kalaloch in 2010, but I didn't stop.  Just too many bad memories.

I leave you with pictures of boulders on tree stumps, that were alongside Highway 101 on the way to Quinault.  We have no idea where they came from or how they were placed on the stumps.  

Very close to the road as you can see from this shot.  There was no sign of human intervention; no scrapes on the rocks from chains, no evidence of tire or heavy equipment tread tracks.

I have heard stories...theories....that Sasquatch will mark territory with giant rocks or even trees plucked from the ground and replanted, root side up.  Did a Sasquatch leave these?  It would have to be a mighty strong being if it did!

This one was just beyond eerie. I don't know how they got it to balance.

And these are pics of the one and only time I actually stayed overnight, in December 2005.

The Olympic Peninsula is beautiful....I highly recommend it for vacation.

Just don't buy any land out there!!!!

Resurrection Blogfest

From December 18, 2006, following a devastating wind storm that brought Western Washington to it's knees on 12/14/06, with widespread and prolonged power outtages and terrible damage.  My power was out for nearly 6 days, during the darkest and coldest time of the year.  It very nearly ruined the holidays.  Crews were brought in from all over the USA to try and restore power & phone service.  The rural and mountain communities didn't get power back till Christmas Eve.  It was so bad that this storm even has it's own Wikipedia entry HERE.  It was dubbed The Hannukah Eve Storm of 2006.  The emergency response came under massive fire and criticism.  It should be noted that after sinking nearly $10,000 into a state of the art generator & gas stove after this storm, we never lost power again.  This post was done when I was at work since I  had no power at home until the 20th.  I was unable to post the photos taken the day after the storm for several days.  

Without further adieu, I give you:  

BUT HEY, I'M OK

POST-STORM REPORT CARD:

State of Washington: F

Puget Sound Energy: F

City of Bonney Lake: F

Qwest Telephone: A

Comcast Cable: A

It was one hell of a storm we had on Thursday night. It poured rain in buckets all day long, and my boss sent me home at 2 to prepare for the storm. I was so relieved when Brian made it home. The wind didn't start kicking up till about 6:30 and it was pretty bad. Our power flickered for a few hours. We finally went to bed at about 9:30, and when Pepper woke me up at 10, shivering and crying, the power was out. Poor little doggie was so frightened. I got up and gave her half a doggie tranquilizer and let her get up on my bed, but she wouldn't stop shaking. Brian finally got up and gave her the other half and let her up on his bed.

We woke up to massive devastation on Friday morning. Fortunately, no trees fell on our house, but we had a lot of huge and heavy branches in the yard. We also discovered that Sagan was so frightened that he'd vomited in his crate all night long, so Brian had to clean that up. Friday we went for a walk w/ the dogs and checked out the damage. Lots of trees on power lines, snapped poles, one guy had a tree fall on and cut in half his brand new 5th wheel. We also saw a few damaged homes. All things considered, we were in good spirits on Friday, and Friday night we figured our power would be on by Saturday night. Meanwhile, we withheld food from Sagan on Friday but he did drink water, which he proceeded to projectile vomit all over the family room rug that night.

Saturday arrives and our kitchen freezer is clearly melting, fast. There's a huge puddle of water on the kitchen floor. We threw out all the food in the freezer, and put some of the fridge stuff outside since it's cold enough to keep. We were able to get the cars out of the garage by propping the door open. We were starved so we went out for breakfast, came home, and did storm clean up just like the rest of our neighbors. The thing that REALLY annoyed us was that as soon as you turn off our street, everyone else has power. But you should see the piles of debris alongside the roads!!! I swear, just let the City of Bonney Lake tell us to remove the debris and they will suffer my wrath. Meantime, we let the doggies out in the backyard to play and get some air while we cleaned up out front. Saturday night arrives, and we are still in the dark. I notice that Sagan is acting really weird. He can't seem to stand up or walk right, he keeps staggering into the walls, tipping over and he has this goofy grin on his face. Brian gave him a quick exam and there were no yelps of pain. Then we smelled it.....sour apples. Sagan got into the rotting apples in the back yard and was drunk. I half expected to wake up the next day and see that he had a tattoo on his leg that said "mom" or "rosie" or something. lol We spent Sat. night in the dark, again.

Sunday we get up and there's STILL no power. By this time I am pretty much apoplectic. I was able to get the car out and go to the bank, but the gas station was out of gas, and they had jacked the price dramatically. I called PSE and was assured that they were "working on it". I called them again at 3:00 and I shit you not, the message they had on their first menu, after listing all the towns (in King County of course) that may not see power for another week, was "for emergency shelter information, go to our website." HELLO!!!!!! How can you check a website WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE ANY POWER? Morons. I finally talked to someone and basically bitched at him.

Before I explain further, those people who do not live here or have ever lived here need to understand the dynamics in Washington State. King County thinks that they are god & Seattle is the center of the universe. They think they are the only county in the state. They look down on Pierce County as if we are a bunch of redneck country bumpkins. A few years ago I was on my way home from work and there were 2 accidents on Highway 410, and a brush fire at the top of the highway, and not one single Seattle-based traffic report mentioned it. Not one. All facilities are restored to King County FIRST and foremost. (Unlike the east coast, where people are more town-centric, west coast people identify themselves by county. It's the same in California). Meanwhile, as you travel around town, you can see plenty of Qwest and Comcast trucks working on their lines, but not a PSE truck or City of Bonney Lake truck to be seen anywhere.

At 6:30, I called PSE again. I wade through their stupid menus and finally get a person. I am stark raving mad now. And you know what she tells me???? She has the unmitigated AUDACITY to tell me, "I know, we have people in Medina who are still out of power too." That was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. "MEDINA?!" I scream into the phone. "WHO CARES ABOUT THE GODDAMN BILLIONAIRES IN MEDINA!" (Bill Gates lives in Medina!!) The only reason the fucking lights are off in Medina is that the richest of the rich flew their private jets to Vail or Aspen for the holidays!!!! If she had said any other town - Spanaway, Graham, Yelm....places that are remote and poor, I would have been more understanding, but don't expect me to feel sorry for the mucky mucks in Medina for chrissakes. So then she explains the 4 stages of repair: "First we assess the situation. Then we assign a job number to the repair and wait till that number comes up, for the repair stage, but if the crew has to wait for another piece of equipment to arrive like the tree cutting crew, they will leave and go to another location to keep working. Then we next make sure that the mainlines are working & power is restored." She goes on to tell me that they are flying in crews from other states to help.

I said, "OK, the trees are on the lines, there's a pole snapped in half and dangling over the road, SITUATION ASSESSED! NOW GET THE DAMN TRUCKS OUT THERE!" She was actually really nice and took my abuse pretty well......and I did try to tone it down a little b/c a part of me felt sorry for her b/c I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was that upset. In fact, she said they were getting a lot of irate calls from my neighborhood. But she did say that it was in their system so that meant that the crew had been out to "assess" the situation & repair number was assigned, which meant that we were now in the "repair stage". Well la-de-frickin-da. And another thing, it's not like they didn't know this storm was coming! Why weren't crews from the other states on their way up here on Friday? They wait till Sat. and Sun. to fly people up?

At that point, I left a message on my work's machine and my boss' home machine, with my cell phone number, requesting that he call me at 6:00 a.m. to wake me up so that I could get to work on time. He called this morning, as requested, and felt awful about our situation. I had to bring Pepper to work with me because the house is too cold, and we took Sagan to day care. Both dogs desperately need a bath.

Next time my PSE bill comes in, I'm thinking about sending my payment at the last possible second with a letter that says, "your bill came in and first I assessed the situation. Then I assigned it a bill-paying number and put it in line after all the other bills that came in before yours. But then when I went to pay it, I didn't have a pen that worked so I moved on to other things. Then once I found a pen that worked, I was able to write the check. Then I had to bring it into work to get a stamp. Then I mailed it."

So all things considered, we are fine and in a lot better shape than those who had multiple trees fall on their houses. However, we are greatly inconvenienced without power and clearly, I was not cut out to be Amish. The first 3 things on my "want" list are: A landline telephone, a generator and a gas stove.