NEWS - AFTER THE FIRE - END OF WEEK 2
The emails of support and warm wishes for myself and Parry Sound Books have been incredible – I am sorry for brief responses but one day when the grunt work of clearing the debris is done, and we are not struggling to reach an agreement on a settlement with the Insurance Company I will have time to call or send emails to those who have shared their hearts with us.
I noticed in the final few weeks before the fire that I was having much more meaningful exchanges with customers – that my usual sense of privacy and reticence was eroding and I found myself engaging with people who I really had had only a professional relationship with before. Perhaps it is because we are all feeling more vulnerable than in the past, before we began to worry about our own survival and the welfare of those we love. In our isolation we felt a need to reach out and share with others, all of us with the same concerns.
If there is an upside to the upheaval of my life caused by this fire, personally and professionally, it is that I have never felt so supported and cared for by my community and it really does mean everything.
All that’s left today
We have learned a lot about Insurance policies in the past 2 weeks. First, that the contents line and value really does mean CONTENTS, not inventory, it means EVERYTHING! You may not be as well insured as you think. Start adding up every bit on non-merchandise in any retail business.
Also, the cost of remediating things like bookshelves – contents all – may be far, far more than you could ever imagine. And, even if you chose to remediate YOU will be the one paying the HST on the bill – thousands of dollars down to you to pay.
28 years of accumulation in the basement of The Beatty Building
Oh, and you may have coverage with an extension for Debris Removal – and in a bookstore with smoke damage the books and all other merchandise are all debris after a fire – well, guess what, you’ll be paying the HST on that big bill too.
Spent time today with my partner of 48 years
This is the reason my husband and I – relatively fit senior citizens, but still not as young as we used to be - spent Thursday carrying things out of the basement in the Beatty Building and into a dumpster – all day and we’re not done yet. We need a break and will resume next week. It won’t be tomorrow as our old bodies need a rest, and also we are still trying to run a business, even if only 3 days a week. We need to serve our customers, and make sure that when we start negotiations about our extension for Loss of Business we can prove we are really, really trying to keep Parry Sound Books in business!
Who needs a gym when you have stairs!
And, the other extension for EDP (Electronic Data Processing) equipment or EPE (Electronic Processing Equipment) – that you might think means your ruined computers are covered – NO NO NO – they are not – what is covered by that extension remains a great mystery.
Look at just a few of things I learned this week!
Charlotte Stein