An Update on the Fence Debacle

Scroll down to read the post about Heather's accident during a recent winter storm to get the full details, but essentially we crunched a "county" fence a little while ago and have been figuring out how it was going to get fixed and who was on the hook for the cost.

At the time of the event my wife called the police to report the accident, a fact many of our neighbors decried as foolish, since a consensus was we could get ourselves towed out and the county would never know who dented the fence. But that's just not the kind of people we are, so Heather called the police. A nice Sheriff came out and did not cite Heather, but unfortunately was required to issue a case number. That case number then put us smack dab in the crosshairs of the county.

We immediately got quotes from third party fence companies, and realized we were looking at around a $400-$500 bill. Insurance would cover it, after a deductible and 40% increase in our rates, so we chose not to go that route!

To compound the problem the county called back and said if we were going to go with a third party fence company, we had to ensure they were licensed, bonded, insured and paying prevailing wage. Oh...great...thanks. I had just gotten a neighbor to commit to fixing it for $300-$350 and now that option was gone! I felt like I was being screwed by the mafia or something.

So a phone call was made to the contact at the county and things got a little nasty really fast. I implored to this man that we were trying to do the honest thing by working with them, and yet they were forcing me to pay a premium to get this stupid fence that serves no purpose other than to contain a wetland fixed. Like I said...the phone call got ugly.

But eventually cooler heads prevailed and the head contact agreed to meet with me to take a second look at what really needed to be replaced/repaired, and next thing I knew I had a handshake on the fact that the county would fix it for no more than $450. He said they'd start working on it right away, so I told my wife to keep her eyes open for any workers and to document what they did and how much time it took.

An hour or so later a few guys showed up, so Heather went out to chat with them. The main contact was there and he informed her that after meeting with me he had talked to his boss about the few items that needed to be replaced and they had concluded the cost would be closer to $200. Heather was elated! But then main contact guy said the news got better. He said for a cost as low as $200 it would not be worth all the admin, invoicing, billing hassle, so the county was going to just do the repairs at their cost.

FANTASTIC NEWS! We couldn't believe it. Things had looked so bad for a while there and many people were shaking their heads and saying that we should'a just lied to the county.

Doing the right thing prevailed though! And the county did right by us too! Good for them for rewarding honest citizens! And good for us (my wife) for being an honest citizen!