BOO-HISS!!!

I consider myself a decent person.  I'm not a saint, but I try to be nice, to do the right thing, to treat others fairly.  Sometimes I fail at these things, but I'd like to think, on the whole, it all averages out to me being a pretty okay human being.

Some people are NOT decent human beings.

And one of those decidedly NOT decent human beings HIT my car over the weekend.  And drove off.  No note, no knock on the door. NOT a decent thing to do.

Some background before I tell the tale...We have a very narrow driveway, only big enough for one vehicle. You see, we live on a cul-de-sac and so our property is like a slice of pie, narrow in the front and quite wide in the back.  Our one car garage is used for storage, so we park our van in the driveway. My sister has been parking to the right of the driveway, in the grass, and we park our car on the street in front of our mailbox.  This is totally legal and there are others that do the same.  There are five houses on our cul-de-sac, three tri-levels in the center and a double on each end/corner.  One of the doubles is under construction, putting on a new roof and new siding.

I left work early on Friday to take Tyler to the dentist (No cavities--YAY!!!)--Michelle (my sis) drove Tyler up to Adam's work in the van so I could leave the car for Adam to drive home.  He got home around 5:45 pm and parked in his usual spot.  Michelle went out for a bit in the evening and go home around 8:30.  She didn't notice anything strange at that point.  So, fast forward to Saturday morning.  Mom takes the car to work at the bookstore on Saturdays. We were all getting ready to leave at the same time, around 9:00 am, because we had appointments to get the kids haircut.  Mom left first, but she called right after she left and said that something was wrong with the car, that it looked like someone had hit it.  She came back to the house and we could see that the front drivers side had been hit by another vehicle.  At first glance, the damage didn't look too bad, dents, scrapes, and a plastic underside of the wheel well was broken and pressing against the tire.  We took some photos and Adam was able to move the pieces away from the tire, so since mom needed to get to work, we decided it was probably okay to drive it and we'd get it looked at later.

She did manage to get to work in it, but it seems as though the damage is much more extensive than we thought.  When the tires are straight, the crossbar on the steering wheel is not straight across like it should be, but at a sharp angle.  It's very hard to make the car turn and the brakes are squealing.  It's definitely out of alignment (remember I JUST got the car aligned along with 4 new tires and a new rim like a month ago) and who knows what else. I'm really worried that the axle or frame is bent.  It's a 2008, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that there might be more damage that the amount the car is worth. 

I spent Saturday afternoon filing a police hit and run report, starting a claim with my insurance company, scheduling a repair shop to come get it for an estimate, and setting up a rental car reservation (which I had to do again on Sunday, because something wasn't done right in the system).  They picked up the car this afternoon, so we'll see what they say when the estimate is ready.  I'm dreading the phone call, honestly. 

When we saw the damage, we did approach the contractor working on the house on the corner, because it seems awfully coincidental that something like this happened on the same day that many trucks, vans and trailers were taking over the street and backing in and out of the small area. They claim to know nothing about it, both the contractor and his team, and the group of roofers (though most of them didn't speak English).  I certainly can't prove that they did it, I suppose it could have just as easily been someone doing doughnuts in the middle of the night, but it certainly seems suspicious to me. We didn't hear anything and so far none of the neighbors have reported seeing anything.  It could have been during the night or early in the morning, we just don't know. The police officer said she would hand the report over to the hit and run detective and he might give us a call, but it's unlikely they'll find out who did it.

So the whole thing is horrifically frustrating, but there isn't much we can do.  We have a $400 deductible, which means the chances of us being able to pay that, plus the extra charges on the rental car (We have an allowance of $20 per day from the insurance company, but with tax the car is slightly more than that, plus we opted for the $16/day insurance coverage, because we're feeling anything but lucky right now), and continue to work on the house and move this fall are slim.

We spent the day Sunday moving Michelle's stuff from her storage unit to her new place. She's renting a half double from a really nice lady and it's not far from our house, so that is good. It was hot, but at least it didn't pour rain on us.  When we moved her last time, it was snowing and sleeting.

So that's the goings-on here!  More to come as this story develops LOL!