Laura and I were looking. Our camper we’d bought for cheap second hand had sprung a leak its second year of use and we’d been told it wasn’t repairable. The salesman had said it was as good as new but when the insurance agent opened it up he said it was all too damaged to repair. I had to take a $1000 to have it towed away by a retired guy who said he had all the time in the world to fix it up.
« We really liked our camper but we’re afraid to buy another one second hand because insurance companies are unwilling to pay pre existing damage. » I said
« It’s a bit of scam here in BC because all the RV’s have condensation damage. Even the new ones have preexisting water damage from being in a rain forest. It’s not like the dessert models. We make our campers here and they’re made for this weather so we don’t have the problem of water damage. We inspect every aspect of the unit before we put it up for resale after we’ve rented it.’
‘So there’s no pre existing damage on this unit. »
« Good as new. «
«How can you be sure. »
‘We make them so we know where the water damage is. We’re even drill a little hole or lift a panel to make sure there’s no damage. Because we make them we can guarantee when we sell them new or used they’re as good as new.’
It was a lot of money. Laura had come camping with me up by Pemberton and not been happy when I took the quad away for the morning to have the neighbours pull out because of grizzly bear warning. She was sitting in the truck and not too keen on camping after the bear in the campground . She’s a real trooper and had been camping with me for a decade. Like my mom did with my Dad. But she’s older and though she has her gun license and a rifle she just doesn’t like being alone in the woods with grizzly bear in the neighbour hood. She’s not fond of black bear or any bear either.
i love camping. I live in Vancouver so I can be close to the BC outdoors. We joke and say Vanvouver isn’t much of a city but it’s in God’s country, skiing, sailing, camping, hunting, fishing all within a short drive. That was then as now the price of gas has made the BC Outdoors too far from Vancouver and people are moving to Calgary, Kamloops, anywhere closer so the cost of travel isn’t prohibitive. Poverty is rising in Canada as every year the government mismanagement and corruption destroy the country’s once great wealth. All the talk of environment and it’s mainly the campers and hunters and fisherman that pay for the management of the outdoors. The logging companies and mining companies provide the roads and wilderness campgrounds while the glory seeking fools in Ottawa and the media claim in their endless gala anting world trotting parties to be the saviours of the environment. Meanwhile they never leave the cities.
Laura and I spend every weekend we can camping. Our favourite places now is Princeton and Merritt since Laura didn’t like the grizzly bear warnings. Grizzly bear can be anywhere but they’re rare and bear are rare in the ranch lands too. I like them for fishing and. The trout fishing is great. Also I love taking my cockapoo out with the Honda 420 quad or before that the Honda 250 enduro shooting partridge that take off from the side of the road when you motor by. With a 22 rifle I can shoot them out of the trees.
We bought the Frazerway Adventurer camper only a year or two old, 3 years ago because of all the promises of the salesman. It was $60,000 whereas new they’re $80,000.
Being an off shore sailor who ‘d sailed 34 days solo in the winter Pacific San Francisco to Hawaii through a hurricane I know about seals. Erik who had worked in the RV production companies for years before starting his own repair and service company had come out a year later and checked the seals. He’d check them each summer. Each year I’d have him do projects like installing the 360 camera series, new lights at the back that came on with movement. I’d bring it into town and have work done each year before the season when it was reviewed. I’d store it in the winter in the really good and safe Chilliwack RV Storage. I’d check the seals myself. I’d do walk around like on the boat. Laura checked out the inside cleaning always.
Nothing was wrong with the Camper till last fall driving slowly up the West Harrison Lake road which was incredibly dusty I hit a pot hole that lifted the back of the camper three feet in the air breaking the chains that attached it to the hitch at the bottom of the Ford F-350. I had to pull a ways ahead to pull over because I had a train of 6 cars and trucks and RV’s following me close on. I was going that slow. Mainly because I couldn’t see the road for the dust and sure enough there was this huge pot hole that my back tire hit.
I saw that there was damage in the front right side but figure the whole thing was damaged by the force of crashing. I called insurance when I came home.
They did an estimate. I had to go to a wedding in Ottawa. When I got back I arranged with Frazerway to bring it in. Last October.
When I raised the jacks to unload the truck I raised them as I normally would to the height I’d normally raise them. The bottom however caught. The staff were watching. No one said ‘stop’ and I was going really slowly. I got out to see what the problem was and couldn’t see any problem . It seemed I had clearance. But when the camper came off the bottom split off from the jacks and fell. The staff at Frazerway said. It’s really uneven here. It’s much lower on a slope .
How very strange they told me to unload on a slope without telling me that there was this differential that clearly contributed to the following damage.
Now I had another claim. The insurance guy came out. I think they’ve insured it now with two claims amounting to $30,000.
Frazerway however says they can’t go ahead without a blank cheque from me for the repairs because they say that to fix the ‘pre existing damage’ could cost me $20,000.
It’s an impass. I say I could see paying something like $5000 for extras’ but not $20,000 when they in fact sold me a ‘defective’ unit’ and contributed to the damage since it’s been sitting un repaired for 9 months. I believe the damage was either there or a product of the damage the insurance company said was pre existing. The idea that it was suddenly occurring over the couple of years we owned and used it very little because of Covid restrictions on travel is a bit strange. I’m in between having acted in good faith, done all the due diligence in buying and insuring the camper only to now be in this quagmire of profit driven shenanigans.
I don’t know what to do. I’m past retirement age and still working as I always have in the area of greatest need. I am paid the least and passed up on the high paid jobs to serve as a flyin doctor in the north and to work with the most difficult least service poorest most dangerous populations. I haven’t thought ‘smart and clever’ like these business people seem to pride themselves on. I don’t have a pension and I’m not looking at a bright future. I didn’t expect to live this long. I expect to live in an RV since the ex wife got the house and left me with her debts after she refused to get help for her addiction. I feel overwhelmed at work and then to have this is so tiring. It’s bad enough we have a fool as a Prime Minister and that inflation is off the chart and we’re being turned into a third world country by the businessmen and financial greed at the top. It all just bears down on you and my problems are little as so many of my patients are being evicted because of their fixed pensions and inability to pay the rent. I’m treating more and more homeless and people living out of their cars and shelters. It’s obviously depressing and my treatment has been camping and solitude. Physician heal they self. Back to tenting perhaps, Laura a grand mother and me with a back injury from a plane crass when I was flying into isolated reserves no one would go to. I don’t even know if I can get up off the ground. I may have to use a cot.
Here I am not doing my job but thinking about this ‘resentment’ . I’m supposed to love an let go, Trust God. Surrender. This too will pass. Well I’ve shared it. It’s always just he microcosm and microcosm. I see the spirit of what is destroying all the old patients I have whose pensions were stolen by Trudeau and they’re now unable to survive in poverty. They come depressed and suicidal and they’re offered Medivally Assisted Suivide. I see and feel the callousness in the system and fear for the future. It’s the attitude. I don’t care. It’s the lack of honour and character. I’m sad and afraid. It’s been a long haul listening to the constant appalling terror of covid times and knowing so many are getting rich off of others suffering. I say this is a ‘cadillac problen’ but it’s the war in the Ukraine. People trying to take advantage and the bullies getting ahead.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment