Lawd a mercy Monday

I don't have too much for y'all other than:

we closed on our old house today (finally! amen!);
I was finally able to write and widely disseminate my scathing thoughts about the environmental remediation firm that gave us a $4000 estimate for an imaginary problem (see below in case you live in the DC area);
I made a lovely rhubarb-almond coffee cake and got to share with my neighbor who just returned home from a week with her grandkids and I was so happy to see her;

AND I found out that yet again, my identity was used to attempt to get a credit card, this time at Kay Jewelers. Because I'd alerted Equifax, Trans Union and Experian after last week's JC Penney's and Toys 'R Us episodes, the credit card was denied to the thief at Kay. Jack immediately sang, " 'Every Kiss Begins With Kay' and that is a lie because you and Dad have never kissed at Kay." That cracked my business up. Still is.

May.Mercury(in retrograde).Monday. That's all I can figure.

PSA:

Now that we've finally closed on our old house (yay!), I wanted to alert you to a very bad experience we had with an environmental remediation firm, Envirotex, LLC, based in Virginia. Following what turned out to be a wildly wrong and dramatic claim by the buyer's home inspector that pigeons had turned our attic into a waste-filled "biohazard" that needed immediate remediation, we had Envirotex (the firm recommended by the inspector; interesting) come out to assess the situation and give us an estimate for clean up. They stated that the following was needed:
-Set up work area include 6-mil poly barriers and 2,000 CFM negative air machines to provide for four air changer per hour.
-Clean up pigeon waste using the proper EPA approved chemicals.
-Remove the affected insulation located by the attic vent.
-HEPA Vacuum and wet wipe the work area.
-Encapsulate with an EPA approved White Encapsulant to prevent future bacteria growth.
and that they would happily do the job for $4000.

Subsequently, we called two different trapping companies to come out as we had never heard birds in our attic, had had squirrels removed last August and suspected they'd have noticed the "biohazard" then AND because Tom went up and saw no evidence of bird waste.

Both firms confirmed our belief that not only had our attic NOT been breached by pigeons, there was NO waste to be found. Not even a feather. The only evidence of disruption in the otherwise pristine insulation was human footprints. There was a nest of sparrows (parents and babies) ON THE OUTSIDE of our attic. Not pigeons. Not even close.

We suspect that if the inspector isn't criminal, he's at the least very incompetent. We're considering filing a report to the Home Inspector licensing board but in the meantime feel most taken advantage of by Envirotex who would have done an unnecessary $4000 job seemingly without qualm.

I urge you NOT to use this firm or to at the least get a second opinion should you need this type of work done.