An Automobile in the Living Room
Posted: Monday, January 23, 2012
by Jack H. Schick
Disappointingly, the Pipersville Free Library is closed until further notice. The president of the library’s board of directors, Maureen Harvey said, “We’re hoping not too long,” but it probably won’t be open for at least another couple of weeks. The library is independent of the Bucks County (Pennsylvania) Free Library system, so its ID cards are not valid at other free libraries in the area. People who want to do research or borrow stuff will have to join another library in the interim. Everything depends on how fast the contractors can complete repairs.
The 1886 building, which is registered with the Heritage Conservancy as an historic structure, has housed the Pipersville Free Library for 46 years. The lending collection includes more than 15,000 books, videos and CD’s. “Good neighbors” Bonnie and Dean Myers helped get the front ‘opening’ boarded up to protect the interior from the winter weather. In addition to having the front doors blasted in, the structure suffered damage to the brick walls, electrical damage and ruined carpet. Repair quotes were acquired last week.
Something weird seems to be going on around here. Driving cars into buildings is becoming a suspiciously common occurrence, lately. It’s in the newspaper or on the news shows almost every week. Half the people I’ve talked to have a story or know somebody it’s happened to, including me. A few weeks ago…
My son’s neighbor in Sellersville saw no real reason to contact his insurance company immediately. His mini-van was hardly damaged at all. The back bumper was in pretty bad shape, and the back, hatch door was dented, but it still drove fine. The one tail light was broken, but that was no big deal. His inspection' sticker's good for another ten months. Unfortunately, though, there was a police report that spelled everything out, so when my son’s insurance company contacted the neighbor’s company, they had to believe it.
The neighbor was in a hurry to get to work. He slammed the van into reverse and backed out of his parking spot into the residential neighborhood intersection that usually has no traffic. This time, another neighbor (the old guy who sometimes has trouble remembering which house is his), was driving by. The collision was pretty severe, though apparently not enough to badly damage a mini-van. Stunned, both neighbors just sat there in their vehicles wondering what would happen next. Matters got more complicated.
The old man’s car stalled out, but the mini-van didn’t and was still in reverse gear. The neighbor swears he didn’t have his foot on the accelerator, but it kept on going--backwards. It took an arced path across the street, hopped the curb, went up over the sidewalk, ripped through the front garden, cut tracks across the yard, mowed off some bushes, bounced up onto the front porch knocking out a support pole, bashed through the double framed picture window, caved in the front brick wall, knocked the front door frame out of square, bowing and splitting the door, smashed the brand new sofa to bits, driving it into the middle of the room. The mini-van finally came to a lurching stop, its rear end sticking into my son’s living room up to the back seats. As debris and dust settled, the floor of his second story bedroom creaked and moaned and slowly sagged. Fortunately no one was home at the time, but it scared the hell out of the dogs, one of which, judging by where the ‘messes’ were found, was sleeping on the sofa at the time.
Fortunately the police had my son’s cell phone number from the report we filed when his ex-wife broke in and emptied the house while he was in Iraq, so they called him at work to break the news. He lost half a day's pay, but was able to get a contractor to temporarily shore up his bedroom, clean up some of the debris and put plywood over the mini-van sized hole in the front wall. Unfortunately, for economic reasons, he got his homeowner’s insurance through the discount brokers, Bendova and Squeel, and found it more effective to file a claim himself on the Internet.
The insurance company insisted that he get three quotes, including one from a friend of theirs, and promised to send him the money as soon as next month's premium checks are deposited. The contractor (Will Cheetum, Inc. was the lowest bidder—he’s dealt with them before), expects to be able to get started on repairs a couple of weeks after the insurance company check clears. They promised him they’d be finished by the holidays, but didn’t specify which ones. Will's guys came over and temporarily stuffed newspaper in the cracks around the door frame.
The mini-van driving neighbor stopped over to apologize. He thinks it’s amazing how the whole front of the house caved in, but the van was hardly damaged at all. He swears by American built cars. Since he doesn’t have to fix anything until the next inspection is due, he’s taking his girlfriend down to Atlantic City with the money they got from his car insurance company. Besides, he’s got a buddy who’ll do the repairs for half of what he got paid. He did feel a little bad about what happened, though. He loaned my son a couple of tarps and helped him duct tape them up over the plywood where his front windows and wall used to be. Snow and rain still blows in through the cracks sometimes.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Unbelievable...hope they check the structure and foundation well. Is the dog on medication now? That paragraph was hilarious, but not the accident iself, and I hope your son gets his house fixed right.
Driving does seem to be a liability for people, as we have some strange accidents here too.dogs are fine-one was mine who was visiting. Things will be okay- the article exagerated it, of course. His agents are not Bendova and Squeel (that's what he had to do).
haha, nott exactly but pretty close to the truth. Had I not pushed the other couch against the dog gate, peyton may have been hurt. Good news is I got a free room renovation out of the whole mess. I had to deal with a couple of winter months of freezing cold living room, but it was worth it....I guess. BTW, my Insurance agent's name was Ilene Eulich. Seems very apropriate to the insurance company you listed. haha
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