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OT: (6/18 Update: My family and I Thank Each And Every One Of You!!

Before I post an update, I will explain this since a couple of people asked me:

After living in South Jersey for 12 years while commuting to my job in North Jersey, I got a small place with relatives close by so that I can keep going to work before I snapped from the daily 190 mile commute. Go down there on weekends and become Santa Pop Pop to the grands and so forth. I got the call Tuesday before I stepped out to go to work and I’ve been feeling like crap ever since because I rather be the one dead than have them go through what they did. But that’s another session for another time.

Update is that they’re looking for a couple of houses/ apartments in the same area this weekend. Hopefully things will come through soon enough. I have been blown away by all the generosity everyone has shown this past week, from my granddaughters school, my wife’s job, shoot, there’s at least 3 schools in the district I work at who have done collections for them. And of course what all of the 52s here have done for someone who didn’t even go to Rutgers. For all that I will not appreciate enough this board and the people here.

THANK YOU!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!

In case you guys want to physically send stuff to South Jersey, here’s my daughters PO Box:
Alexandria Carrasquillo
PO Box 8790
Collingswood, NJ 08108

And here’s the GoFundMe page in which they will have enough money for down payment and a f
 
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Tico, your family might already know this, but I see there is a Salvation Army location in Collingswood at 15 Haddon Avenue. The phone number is 856-338-1700.
 
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Before I post an update, I will explain this since a couple of people asked me:

After living in South Jersey for 12 years while commuting to my job in North Jersey, I got a small place with relatives close by so that I can keep going to work before I snapped from the daily 190 mile commute. Go down there on weekends and become Santa Pop Pop to the grands and so forth. I got the call Tuesday before I stepped out to go to work and I’ve been feeling like crap ever since because I rather be the one dead than have them go through what they did. But that’s another session for another time.

Update is that they’re looking for a couple of houses/ apartments in the same area this weekend. Hopefully things will come through soon enough. I have been blown away by all the generosity everyone has shown this past week, from my granddaughters school, my wife’s job, shoot, there’s at least 3 schools in the district I work at who have done collections for them. And of course what all of the 52s here have done for someone who didn’t even go to Rutgers. For all that I will not appreciate enough this board and the people here.

THANK YOU!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!

In case you guys want to physically send stuff to South Jersey, here’s my daughters PO Box:
Alexandria Carrasquillo
PO Box 8790
Collingswood, NJ 08108

And here’s the GoFundMe page in which they will have enough money for down payment and a f
This thread shows that in the chaos and madness of this world, there are kind people who in the time of need help someone they've never met. 🤗
 
Here’s an update.

I am not a religious man at all but my family have been blessed by the help we got from my granddaughters school in Collingswood, a couple of schools where I work at up in Jersey City, esp the PTA at my current school, the family, friends, and strangers who donated to the GoFundMe, which will help us cover a deposit and rent for a few months. Hell, my son asked me, WHO ARE ALL OF THESE RUTGERS PEOPLE DONATING???😂 I said, that’s the board where I argue about the Mets and HS Football lol. He said that we gotta start going to their games again. To be fair we haven’t gone in a year or 2 because I’ve been busy with football. Hopefully, I’ll be at Rutgers one way or another this year🤷🏻‍♂️.

Back to the update, we’ve been looking for a place in CWood area so that the girls can stay in that school. Hopefully something will come up this week and things can start getting back to normal again.

We all thank everyone of you for your donations. @HeavenUniv., if offer still stands, we’ll get in touch with you when we get a place. Talk to you guys soon and thank you.


In case you guys want to physically send stuff to South Jersey, here’s my daughters PO Box:

Alexandria Carrasquillo
PO Box 8790
Collingswood, NJ 08108
 
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Tico, the offer absolutely still stands. I apologize, though, but I can not find the actual metal frame for the bed. It hasn’t been used in five years and I have lived in three places. I don’t know if I left it on a U haul or what. I think girls would love the set though. Like I said, it is white wicker in very good shape. Headboard, Hope Chest, Rocking Chair, and a three drawer chest. I am sorry about the frame. I have an extra TV too if you need it.
 
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Tico, don’t know if this something your daughter thought of, but the Dollar General stores carry some clothing and shoes for small children. It may not be fancy Oshkosh stuff, but that doesn’t matter anyway. Prices are crazy low. Just a thought.
 
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Tico, don’t know if this something your daughter thought of, but the Dollar General stores carry some clothing and shoes for small children. It may not be fancy Oshkosh stuff, but that doesn’t matter anyway. Prices are crazy low. Just a thought.
Yes sir. Already been to Dollar General, Family Dollar, Walmart to get some clothes and supplies. Will be back when we get a place, which is hopefully soon. The girls are young enough that they will happy wear anything with generic dinosaurs, unicorns, and princesses and plastic slippers lol. Luckily my schools and the kids school have donated A LOT of kids clothes, which is GREAT. Plus my daughter works in an Aldi and we already would rather go there than a Stop and Shop or Acme.
 
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I absolutely hate doing this and if this have to be taken down so be it. But my family in Collingswood lost their house this morning. If you want to help them out, here’s my daughter’s GoFunMe page.



Bump. Donated. Haven't quite hit the goal yet, but almost there. God bless.
 
I am a little late to this thread, but saw this on Reddit and thought this wall of text can help you.


Hey OP... I used to be the guy who worked for insurance companies, and determined the value of every little thing in your house. The guy who would go head-to-head with those fire-truck-chasing professional loss adjusters. I may be able to help you not get screwed when filing your claim.

Our goal was to use the information you provided, and give the lowest damn value we can possibly justify for your item.

For instance, if all you say was "toaster" -- we would come up with a cheap-as-**** $4.88 toaster from Walmart, meant to toast one side of one piece of bread at a time. And we would do that for every thing you have ever owned. We had private master lists of the most commonly used descriptions, and what the cheapest viable replacements were. We also had wholesale pricing on almost everything out there, so really scored cheap prices to quote. To further that example:

• ⁠If you said "toaster - $25" , we would have to be within -20% of that... so, we would find something that's pretty much dead-on $20.01.
• ⁠If you said "toaster- $200" , we'd kick it back and say NEED MORE INFO, because that's a ridiculous price for a toaster (with no other information given.)
• ⁠If you said "toaster, from Walmart" , you're getting that $4.88 one.
• ⁠If you said "toaster, from Macys" , you'd be more likely to get a $25-35 one.
• ⁠If you said "toaster", and all your other kitchen appliances were Jenn Air / Kitchenaid / etc., you would probably get a matching one.
• ⁠If you said "Proctor Silex 42888 2-Slice Toaster from Wamart, $9", you just got yourself $9.
• ⁠If you said "High-end Toaster, Stainless Steel, Blue glowing power button" ... you might get $35-50 instead. We had to match all features that were listed.

I'm not telling you to lie on your claim. Not at all. That would be illegal, and could cause much bigger issues (i.e., invalidating the entire claim). But on the flip side, it's not always advantageous to tell the whole truth every time. Pay attention to those last two examples.

I remember one specific customer... he had some old, piece of shit projector (from mid-late 90s) that could stream a equally piece of shit consumer camcorder. Worth like $5 at a scrap yard. It had some oddball ****ing resolution it could record at, though -- and the guy strongly insisted that we replace with "Like Kind And Quality" (trigger words). Ended up being a $65k replacement, because the only camera on the market happened to be a high-end professional video camera (as in, for shooting actual movies). $65-goddam-thousand-dollars because he knew that loophole, and researched his shit.

Remember to list ****ing every -- even the most mundane ****ing bullshit you can think of. For example, if I was writing up the shower in my bathroom:

• ⁠Designer Shower Curtain - $35
• ⁠Matching Shower Curtain Liner for Designer Shower Curtain - $15
• ⁠Shower Curtain Rings x20 - $15
• ⁠Stainless Steel Soap Dispenser for Shower - $35
• ⁠Natural Sponge Loofah - from Whole Foods - $15
• ⁠Natural Sponge Loofah for Back - from Whole Foods - $19
• ⁠Holder for Loofahs - $20
• ⁠Bars of soap - from Lush - $12 each (qty: 4)
• ⁠Bath bomb - from Lush - $12
• ⁠High end shampoo - from salon - $40
• ⁠High end conditioner - from salon - $40
• ⁠Refining pore mask - from salon - $55

I could probably keep thinking, and bring it up to about $400 for the contents of my shower. Nothing there is "unreasonable" , nothing there is clearly out of place, nothing seems obviously fake. The prices are a little on the high-end, but the reality is, some people have expensive shit -- it won't actually get questioned. No claims adjuster is going to bother nitpicking over the cost of ****ing Lush bath bombs, when there is a 20,000 item file to go through. The adjuster has other shit to do, too.

Most people writing claims for a total loss wouldn't even bother with the shower (it's just some used soap and sponges..) -- and those people would be losing out on $400.

Some things require documentation & ages. If you say "tv - $2,000" -- you're getting a 32" LCD, unless you can provide it was from the last year or two w/ receipts. Hopefully you have a good paper trail from credit/debit card expenditure / product registrations / etc.

If you're missing paper trails for things that were legitimately expensive -- go through every photo you can find that was taken in your house. Any parties you may have thrown, and guests put pics up on Facebook. Maybe an Imgur photo of your cat, hiding under a coffee table you think you purchased from Restoration Hardware. Like... seriously... come up with any evidence you possibly can, for anything that could possibly be deemed expensive.

The fire-truck chasing loss adjusters are evil sons of bitches, but, they actually do provide some value. You will definitely get more money, even if they take a cut. But all they're really doing, is just nitpicking the ever-living-shit out of everything you possibly owned, and writing them all up "creatively" for the insurance company to process.

Sometimes people would come back to us with "updated* claims. They tried it on their own, and listed stuff like "toaster", "microwave", "tv" .. and weren't happy with what they got back. So they hired a fire-truck chaser, and re-submitted with "more information." I have absolutely seen claims go from under $7k calculated, to over $100k calculated. (It's amazing what can happen when people suddenly "remember" their entire wardrobe came from Nordstrom.)
 
I meant to donate earlier this month, but finally got around to it. Figured a bump here wouldn't hurt either.

Tico, I hope your family feels blessed by the outpouring of support and prayers from our legion of 52's! Keep us updated in the coming weeks.
 
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This cat was annoying but I actually shed a tear when my wife, then daughter texted me this morning that the cat was found this morning by the SOUTH JERSEY LOST AND FOUND PETS people in Collingswood. Whiskers got burnt off but somehow survived for almost two weeks. Can’t thank them enough. Things are slowly getting back to normal with obviously trying to get a house being the main thing.

Let’s see what happens this week.

Thank you all.

 
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This was a stupid week.

Found out that the cat wasn’t my daughters and before she, I, or whoever said WELL STILL KEEP HIM, the cat just went complete apesh** and attacked the vet. The clinic STRONGLY ADVISED for this cat to be put down.

The good news is that we may have a place down there by April, mid April pending Boro inspection. Nice place, nice rent, good area. Hopefully all works out next week or two.

Thanks to each and every one of you for your support.

 
This was a stupid week.

Found out that the cat wasn’t my daughters and before she, I, or whoever said WELL STILL KEEP HIM, the cat just went complete apesh** and attacked the vet. The clinic STRONGLY ADVISED for this cat to be put down.

The good news is that we may have a place down there by April, mid April pending Boro inspection. Nice place, nice rent, good area. Hopefully all works out next week or two.

Thanks to each and every one of you for your support.

Geeze, the cat was living his best street life! That vet is a JO.
 
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Geeze, the cat was living his best street life! That vet is a JO.
Don’t get me started on the other stuff that happened after this. I almost had to come out of retirement and beat someone’s arse.

Hopefully once they get a place, they kids will get a black kitten and call him Loki.
 
The family got a new house in the next town over and they’re going to start moving in little by little this week so that they’re in first week of May. We all have been blessed with all the help they got in the last two months from family, friends, coworkers, strangers, and of course The 52s. I can’t say enough how much you guys stepped up for someone who’s not even from Rutgers. I’ll never forget that.

I also want to thank the grandkids school, THOMAS SHARP ELEMENTARY in Collingswood, for all they have done for the girls and my family. I’m just going to say that that whole school gave us so much stuff, my daughter decided to give the the remaining donations to another family who had a fire at Collingswood’s Parkview Towers a couple weeks ago ( and that’s still a hell of a lot more than what normal donations would be). Its a shame that the girls won’t be going there next year because it’s another town. But I wish I had the money or the juice to give that school something major for a big thank you.

Just want to say Thank You to this Rutgers community. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

 
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