TikiKate , House and Collection disaster

I am posting this on behalf of Tikikate as she is unable to get online very easily . She was on shout today and told us what had happened to her.

Some of you may have heard that a car crashed through her house last night. It was a stolen car being pursued by police. One bedroom and a bathroom were destroyed. She has also lost half of her mug collection , Shag prints , Tiki farm mugs , Doug Horne and Tim Biskoff stuff. There was minor flooding as a water main broke.

No one was hurt thankfully!!

She is staying with her sister and is unable to go home until the insurance company says her house is safe to do so.
Kate will try to get online too keep us posted as to what is going to happen.

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

[ Edited by: rodeotiki 2005-10-09 15:53 ]

Kate, if there is anything we can do for you please let us know..We feel for you girl..glad you are o.k. what a weird thing..

Man that ReallyHurts. First as Ono said, we are very glad you are OK, that could have been very different, Whew! I also would guess that the insurance peeps will have a hard time evaluating the value of some of your things, Damn it.
I Hope everything works out OK. If we can help at all, just say the word.

I am so sorry to hear this. Tiki-Kate is a passionate collector and also a very nice person. She has 293 mugs listed on ooga-mooga. At least that may help in documenting her loss for the insurance company.

She very generously offered to help me get a mug I was seeking, and another time offered to replace a pendant.

When you're ready, I hope you'll let us help you rebuild your collection.

I think the Farm should help out as best as we can. Kate has been a long time collector of our mugs. I would like to donate 12 mugs of all new designs over the next 12 months with an additional 3 of those being limited editions. I hope this is a small sign of what our Ohana has to offer!
Mahaloz,
Holden

Holden,
That is very cool. We applaud all your efforts to help those who are going through some tough times right now.

Bravo to Holden and Tiki Farm!!!!!

:)

How bizarre! Kate, I can generate an inventory of your collection with estimated replacement costs for the insurance company, I've sent you a PM with details.

It's nuts what life can throw at you. I'm glad everyone is alright.

Its a terrible thing to loose all those mugs but it dose mean that Tikikate has taken PolynesianPop's crown in the most "tiki mug misfortunes".

I have something that I could also send, could someone pm with her info if they have it, mahalo.

I wanted to thank you all for the kind words of support and all of the generous offers that I've received.

Forgive me if I don't respond to all of you for about a week or so.

I haven't been able to even start assessing the loss of the collectables. What really broke my heart was losing so many things in that room that had belonged to my mother. Those can never be replaced. All in all, I'm just glad to be alive.

The police clocked the car thief doing 100mph when he hit my house.

My insurance company is taking good care of me so far.

I'm hoping the house will be inhabitable again in the next few days.

Thanks for letting everyone know what happened, rodeotiki.

You really are the best people.

Kate

OMG, that is heart breaking. So glad that no one was hurt.

Unreal. And Holden should be placed in the hall of the righteous. Do you own the house?

Kate:

You were one of my inspirations to get a digital camera to share my collection
on ooga-mooga. I am so sorry that this indescribable accident has happened to you. I am floored actually.
Our prayers are with you. I know how devastating this is to lose your Mother's things, which cannot be replaced. We had a fire at our ranch in Nogal, New Mexico in 1983, and all my Mother's photos of her family and our kiddy photos were destroyed.
Let us know how the insurance is resolved, and what we should do as far as supplemental homeowners.

Well, I'm back at home.

I've spent the weekend trying to salvage my books. Unfortunately, there was a lot of water damage, but not as much as I had expected. I've got about 100 more to try to save. Once I'm done with that, I'll start on the mugs. Everything that was in that room is covered in rubble. So it all needs to be washed before I can start to figure out what's broken or just gone.

I did get one nice surprise. Apparently the firemen had tried to rescue the mugs as best as they could. I didn't realize it at the time, but they had covered the tables in my dining room and breakfast nook with mugs. So some of the mugs I thought were reduced to shards are inside my house, just covered in muck.

I started putting comments into Ooga-Mooga about the mugs I know are definitely damaged or destroyed. Most of the damaged mugs are beyond the point of even "displaying nicely."

Right now, I'm just glad to be back in my own bed. I'm getting ready to start packing up the rest of the house so that nothing else will be damaged once the construction starts.

Thank you again for all of the kind offers. It's meant the world to me to have this much support.

Kate

Glad to hear there's a bit of good news. Three cheers for the firemen who tried to save your mugs!

What a heart-rending, and totally random, story? As someone fairly new to collecting mugs, I dread the eventual day in which one of my mugs makes the ultimate sacrifice to the tiki gods...but your situation is just crazy...!

I would like to offer a replacement mug, if I have any duplicates of the ones you lost. I have available:

• PMP peanut mug (hands on belly)
• Kahiki brown Moai
• Orchids of Hawaii coconut
• Trader Dick peanut guy
• Orchids of Hawaii Fu Man

Sorry for the poor selection, I usually do not buy duplicates of mugs I already have (spreading the tiki love you know!), but if you need one, just let me know and I'll get it out to you ASAP.

Good luck getting everything back together!

• Jason :drink:

I finally finished washing all of the mugs that were in my front room at the time of the accident. It took me the whole weekend. Luckily with lots of warm, soapy water, I was able to wash off all of the rubble (plaster, sand and glass.)

The total mug loss was not nearly as bad as it could have been, thanks to the Yucaipa Fire Department. I ended up with 30 mugs that were destroyed and 22 that were damaged.

I wanted to thank Humuhumu for adding so many templates to Ooga Mooga over the past several days, Holden for the amazing offer of help from the Farm, and everyone who has offered to help me replace my lost mugs and books.

I apologize for not having responded to all of your PMs yet, but I've spent most of the week dealing with contractors, adjusters and the county of San Bernardino who is dragging its feet on issuing me a permit to begin rebuilding my house. I promise to finish replying within the next day or two.

Thanks again.

Kate

All in all, it sounds like the mugs (and YOU) are doing okay! That's great... I've got your first package ready to ship but please email me with your shipping address to confirm that what I've got on file is correct.
Mahaloz,
Holden

How is the rebuilding process going ?

On 2005-11-16 18:55, rodeotiki wrote:
How is the rebuilding process going ?

Ummm. It's not. The city of Yucaipa has yet to issue me a permit to begin rebuilding. (I'm supposed to get it tomorrow, but I'll believe it when I see it.)

For now, I'm just trying to maintain my sanity. I've packed away most of my house in order to make way for the construction crew. I boxed up all of my mugs. That was a serious chore.

I'm working on completely tikifying my bedroom right now, since that's where I spend most of my time when I'm at home.

Still trying to replace the mugs that were destroyed. It's going pretty well so far.

I'd like to thank Holden again. He asked me to check out the Tiki Farm website and let him know what I didn't have. Took me a while, but I found some shot glasses that I hadn't picked up yet, and he immediately sent them to me.

I'd also like to thank tikivixen for replacing Jungle Boy.

This arrived today from Dogbytes. Thanks again Elicia.

And I can't imagine how much time Humuhumu has spent creating templates and getting price sightings to help me with my insurance claim. Thank you doesn't seem to suffice.

I'm still getting PM's all the time with offers of help. That's been the biggest boost to my spirits during this whole ordeal.

Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts rodeotiki.

Kate, I have that painted mug somewhere, too...did you have a set or just one? If you need it and I can find it it's yours...Just PM me

Progress Report:

I finally got my permit about three weeks ago. Strangely enough, I received it less than an hour after sending an e-mail to the mayor letting him know that I would go to the press with my story and pictures if I didn't have a permit by the end of the day. Guess I should have done that in the first place.

Here are some pictures of how the work is going.
The exterior

The bedroom

The bathroom

My new Shag drawing

Thanks to all the folks who helped me put the finishing touches on my insurance claim last week.

It's been three months now since my house got munched, so I thought I'd give a little update and send out some more thank yous.

Here's how the exterior looks now.

The interior still looks like a war zone.

I wanted to thank Holden for the swell things he's sent from the Farm.

A few weeks ago, I visited Erich Troudt, and he sent me off with a replacement for one of my destroyed mugs as well as this great tiki. (Plus I got a tour of his fabulous backyard.)

Thanks again for all the support.

Aw, JB looks so happy! :D

Glad to see he's enjoying his new home, and I'm happy to see how much progress has been made! Congrats!!!

I assume there're also plans for a three-foot-thick, eight-foot-high stone wall around the perimeter, too... :lol:

tikivixen

On 2006-01-08 15:16, tikivixen wrote:

I assume there're also plans for a three-foot-thick, eight-foot-high stone wall around the perimeter, too... :lol:

The sad thing is that I actually have a six-inch-thick, four foot high brick wall in front of my house. The idiot managed to completely miss it though.

Maybe a moat.

Everything is finally done, so this is my final update.

Please read my Big Thank You thread here: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=18843&forum=15&0

The exterior before

The exterior after

The bathroom before

The bathroom after

The library before

The library after

I still have a little unpacking to do, and I haven't found a big comfy chair to give the library that "cozy" feeling again, but I'm working on it.

The bathroom turned out exactly how I wanted it though. The floor and shower are tiled with black slate, and I finally took the inaugural bath in the 18" deep tub last week. It's a dark and moody bathroom with just enough light for reading in the tub.

With my deductible and depreciation, I wasn't quite able to replace everything I lost. It came fairly close, so I'm happy enough. (I'd be happier if it had never happened. Of course.)

Words of advice. Know your insurance policy. Go get it right now and read it. You never know when something completely bizarre and random is going to happen to you. I thought I knew what my policy did and did not cover. Wrong. If you collect anything, your home owner's insurance probably isn't enough.

Thanks again for all the support.

Kate

I set alot of slate and I gotta say...that bathroom looks pretty cool.Sorry it happened but glad it's better now.There are easier ways to get a bathroom remodel, though.