I am Michelle D. Carter

The call from the Regional Vice President came on July 2^nd. He stated that McCar was now in negotiations with their banks and it would be towards the end of the following week before they could close on any houses.

Tim had planned on taking the 6^th and 7^th off. You know, to get settled in the house. Since that wasn’t going to happen, we decided it would be best if he went to work and then take the time off when we actually got into the house. But wait, all of our clothes are on the moving truck. We decided just to go buy Tim some clothes. Our closing date was most likely going to be the 9^th or 10^th. It didn’t make sense to unload the truck into storage and then have to find someone else to load and unload it again. It was about the same money wise. Then add in the time we’d have to spend with the movers.

Tim decided he wanted to go to the Gaffney Prime Outlets to shop.

Me: “Are you sure you want to do that?”

Tim: “Yeah, why?”

Me: “There is a serial killer loose there.”

Tim: “Seriously.”

Me: “Yes, dear. Apparently they’ve had five murders in the last four days.”

I don’t think he believed me until we passed four state troopers all armed with assault rifles. Luckily we never ran into the serial killer. A few days later he was shot and killed.

Another call from the Regional Vice President on July 8^th stating it would be another week before they could close. The movers couldn’t hold our stuff on their truck any longer. We ended up unloading and going into storage anyway. I’m getting very upset to say the least. They are stringing us along, just one more week.

July 14^th, a call from the Regional Sales Manager stating it would be the end of the month before they would be able to close. WTF?! You are kidding me, right?!! This can’t be happening!!!

Our suspicions were confirmed, McCar is going bankrupt. The reason they couldn’t sign the warranty form in the beginning was because the banks were afraid they’d be liable for any claims. In essence, McCar was in receivership. Everything was being controlled by the banks. We asked if McCar would reimburse us for our expenses of living in a hotel. The response was: “in the past, we have reimbursed for expenses, but the banks won’t let us now.”

We made attempts to meet with the Regional Sales Manager face-to-face. We had hoped the face-to-face meeting would perhaps speed up the process. He would tell us when he would be available. We would then try to schedule something during that time frame only to have him tell us he was no longer available. Isn’t that convenient?! 

We were totally devastated. We had found the home of our dreams. We had the money (loan). Yet, they couldn’t take it and give us the house. We had been living in a hotel for four weeks. McCar was now telling us it was looking like August 4^th before they could close. I had heard enough of “one more week.” Eventually the bank would want/need to unload it. But what was their time frame? There certainly wasn’t any working with the bank to get it moving.

All signs told us to run and run fast! We decided we needed to have a back up plan. We started looking at other houses. I just couldn’t find anything that I liked that was near the quality and/or size for the price. Even if we did find something, we were still looking at the same close date as McCar said they could close. But would they be able to close? We looked at a re-sale in the same neighborhood as our home. The house was beautiful. But I didn’t know if I could live that close to our dream home and not have bitter feelings. Looking at other houses only made me want our house more.

Finally a face-to-face meeting with the Regional Sales Manager was set for July 27^th. Our attempt to make any headway was quickly diminished. They couldn’t speed up the process. Every option to get us in the house quicker had been explored and it always came back from the bank as NO. There was another house five lots up from us going through the same thing. They had finally jumped ship because McCar had been too wishy washy with them. The Regional Sales Manager did provide a little bit of hope. He said that the banks had approved a 2/10 warranty. The original warranty was a 2/15. They were in the process of obtaining that warranty and that he was told August 4^th was a good date. I wasn’t as hopeful. We had been told that before.

I asked him: “What would you do?”

McCar Sales Manager: “Cut your loses and move on.”

Not want I wanted to hear! I wanted to cuss the smug little bastard out. I wanted in my house. Even though I was told it was a fairly good date, they couldn’t confirm it. There were hoops that McCar had to jump through for the banks. I had heard that before. I held my tongue. It wouldn’t have done any good. In reality, this guy was just the messenger, most likely a messenger that would be out of a job soon due to the financial difficulties of his employer. I hadn’t enrolled the kids in school yet. I didn’t know where we were going to end up. I just didn’t know. There was no compassion from them at all. This was supposedly a company that prided themselves on customer service. What I saw was anything but. We had so many additional expenses between the hotel, eating out and storage. I was pissed off beyond words. I wanted this nightmare to be over.

Hotel life isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. We spent our first two weeks in regular hotel room with two full size beds and a pull-out couch. We were on a first name basis with the staff. We then moved to a Residence Inn, a two bedroom apartment, so to speak with two queen sized beds and a pull-out couch, a full size refrigerator, stove and microwave. Welcome back to apartment life. Although this gave us room to spread out a bit, you heard every little noise. We had been asked twice to hold it down. There was a cranky guy living below us. We also had people with kids above us. There were several instances when we heard them jumping around. One night it was pretty loud. I called the front desk. They tried to justify it because they had little kids. I said so did I. I was asked to hold it down. You can’t expect me to keep my kids quiet while they were running amuck upstairs.

After our first night in the Residence Inn, I was approached by the Director of Sales. He inadvertently quoted me the wrong price for the room. Luckily our conversations had been through email. I had a written documentation of his mistake. I took it back to him. Yep, right there in black and white, he messed up. They honored the price. Now there’s some customer service! I got so sick of eating out, not to mention the expense of it. The kids were getting tired of playing with each other in tight quarters. My patience was shot. Every day was a fight. I so could have become an alcoholic. How was I supposed to entertain the kids daily that didn’t cost a lot of money? After two weeks at the Residence Inn, I needed to extend our stay. Their two bedroom suites were all booked and we were supposed to change rooms/hotels. Thank goodness I had told them my sad story and they worked it out and we didn’t have to move. However, three days before we checked out, the air went out in our room and we had to move rooms anyway. During this time, there was a sewer leak in Tim’s office. We all wondered if Tim was cursed.

After living in a hotel for six weeks, we finally closed on our home on August 6^th. We couldn’t believe it! Several people kept asking us if we were sure this was the house. Yes, it is! It was definitely worth the wait!!

After unloading a lot of our stuff on Friday, I went to take a shower – no hot water. We soon realized there was no hot water in the master bath, kitchen or washing machine. The following Tuesday after putting one huge hole in my laundry room and three in the garage, the plumbers had fixed my hot water. McCar actually came back and fixed my drywall too.

Yes, we are home! FINALLY!!

We woke up, ate some breakfast and headed towards St. Louis. We were originally scheduled to close on our home in South Carolina on June 30^th. However, the builder, McCar Homes, (we purchased a spec home) needed to sign a form stating there was a warranty in place. They refused. They had been advised by their attorney not to sign. OK, this doesn’t make any sense. When you purchase a new home, the builder gives a standard one year warranty to protect against just about anything. That’s the advantage of purchasing a new home. Why wouldn’t they sign it? Is their product that bad that they won’t warranty it? What is going on? Another warranty was purchased and we were moving forward. The closing date was moved to July 1^st, then July 2^nd.

My frustration level was growing. We would be in Greenville on July 2^nd. However, we weren’t able to unload our stuff off the truck until July 3^rd so the couple day delay wasn’t too big of an inconvenience.

We decided to stop at the St. Louis Arch. The boys had never been. Since we didn’t know when we’d be back that way, we thought it would be a great opportunity. All the kids enjoyed it. The Arch is truly an amazing piece of history. St. Louis has a lot to offer. I wish we had made the effort to visit as a family before we moved.

We left St. Louis and headed for Nashville, Tennessee. It was another late night of driving. I couldn’t wait to lay my head on the pillow. However, with everything going on, I needed the help of my friend, Ambien. Out like a light, sleeping soundly while chaos was brewing.

We begin the day excited about our journey. There is a lot that needs to get done. The professionals will be here, all will go smooth and we’ll be outta here by 2:00 p.m. I just know it.

7:45 a.m. – The boys get on the bus for summer school. We decided it would be easier to have them go to school than hang around watching them load the truck, or more appropriately, in the way of the loaders.

8:00 a.m. – The van arrives to load us.

9:25 a.m. – I leave to take Alyssa to a friend’s house to play. Again, just to let her spend a little extra time with one of her friends and out of the way of the movers. I also drop off the cable boxes and do a little shopping for me. Gotta squeeze it in when you can.

11:40 a.m. – I arrive back home. Wow, have they done much?! Will they make my 2:00 p.m. deadline?

12:15 p.m. – Tim leaves to go get us some lunch.

1:45 p.m. – They are a long way away from being finished. My 2:00 p.m. expectation has been changed to perhaps 6:00 p.m.

2:05 p.m. – Alyssa gets home from her friend’s.

2:10 p.m. – The boys are home from school.

6:20 p.m. – Oh my God! When are they going to finish? It’s so freakin’ hot. Did I mention we had to shut off the air so they could keep the doors open as they brought stuff out of the house? Please tell me when you are going to be done!

6:25 p.m. – A walk to the park with the kids. They needed to get rid of some energy. It was not a good trip. HOT, HOT, HOT! The kids got bored very quickly.

7:05 p.m. – Back home. Tim leaves to go get pizza for dinner. Seriously, are they going to finish today?!! Come to find out, we should have had two more men on the job. And the men that were there were inexperienced. So much for professionals!

11:00 p.m. – FINALLY DONE loading the truck!! We then drove two hours arriving in Columbia, Missouri at 1:00 a.m. I didn’t want to stay in Kansas City. KC is home, I shouldn’t have to rent a room in my own hometown.

It was an incredibly LONG, HOT day!! Little did I know that was the beginning of the RELOCATION FROM HELL!!!

We met the Hildreths at Meet Your Teacher night before school started last August. They are the other set of twin boys in my boys’ class. The cooler weather was approaching and like so many other people, we hibernated. Then, this past spring, as it began to warm up and we emerged from our cocoon, I started making play dates for the boys. It was then that I realized Alex and Andy have been friends with Ben and Will all through school. They played extensively with each other and rarely played with other kids. A bond was formed.

As the boys played more and more, Tim and I got to know Todd and Laura. We realized just how much fun they were to be around. All this happened about the time we found out we were moving to South Carolina. DANG IT!! I was OK with moving until I got to know them. In a very short amount of time, the Hildreths and the Carters have become very close friends.

Realizing time was short. We started spending as much time together as possible… cookouts, sleepovers and pool time.

On our last day, the Hildreths rented a pontoon boat. We spent the entire afternoon at Lake Jacomo. It was great!! Of course, there was the time when we thought the boat was anchored. We swam off only to realize that we weren’t REALLY anchored. The boat went floating off. Luckily Tim was on the boat. He waited until I swam all the way back with Will and I said, “Don’t you think we should go get them,” before he started the boat to go pick the rest of the passengers.

I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last day in Kansas City… good friends, good times.

DANG IT!! I almost wish I didn’t get to know them. I miss them very much!

Well we FINALLY made it. We are in South Carolina. It was a very LONG and TUMULTUOUS journey. One that I am glad is behind us. I’ll bring you up to date over the next few days, weeks, whatever it turns out to be. Thank you for your patience and dedication.