156 Thoughts to “Letiecq’s Citizens’ Time”

  1. anon
    May 23, 2008 at 5:37 pm

    Red Dawn – I had pet insurance for my former dog who died last October. She developed breathing problems at age 16, and our vet referred her to the animal hospital in Vienna. We took her there, and they had her on oxygen for 48 hours, and kept trying to ween her off of it and of course were giving her antibiotics, etc. She was perfectly fine and happy when on oxygen but her blood oxygen level would drop right away to the danger level as soon as they took her off oxygen. After 48 hours there was just no hope.

    Anyway, the total bill came to $5000 roughly, and the pet insurance only paid $1000 – since no surgery was involved. Most of it was just hospital costs, oxygen costs, etc.

    I guess the pet insurance was better than nothing, but I had hoped it would have paid a bigger piece of all of that!

    I haven’t yet decided to take out pet insurance on the new dog, who we got shortly after our old dog died (well, she was euthanized, but there was no hope of getting her off oxygen so there was really no choice). Anyway, she was 16 years old, and up until that time had lived a very happy healthy life, so probably longer than normal for many dogs.

    But glad you have the insurance and that it is helping. Before that, believe it or not, I had not had any major health crises with my old dog – just a few minor ones that weren’t that expensive and the insurance did pay most of. But those were in the $300 or so range and nothing major. I had hoped for a major problem that was thousands of dollars they would have paid more than basically 20%. Again, it was better than nothing I guess, but kind of disappointing. It soured me a bit on it, let’s put it that way. So I haven’t made up my mind if i should get it for the new dog or not.

  2. anon
    May 23, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    Censored by BVBL: Regarding peacocks – one time in a park in New Jersey I saw a male peacock strutting around a female peacock, showing its feathers and making that horrendous shrieking sound. That was the worst that I’ve heard with peacocks, and it was quite funny as the female was ignoring him and turning her back on him. He kept making that awful noise and displaying his feathers to try and get her attention. Anyway, lots of people were coming over to see what all the racket was – it definitely is a real attention getter! It’s hard to believe one bird could make such a loud racket.

  3. Red Dawn
    May 25, 2008 at 4:40 pm

    Anon,

    I don’t have pet insurance and was regretting not having it but rest assured you put my guilty conscience aside by telling me you had it and it didn’t cover that much. Helped but not really) We have decided to just closely monitor her thru Deepwood and see how it goes.
    The specialist was suggested with the thought of POSSIBLE cancer. We just could not justify paying 700 to 1k for a 50/50 diagnosis when they say it could be that or an auto immune disorder. My heartbreak and aggravation came out of where we had taken her and for what we spent ( blood test that we did on her were showing no plat lets and Deepwood said she would be dead if that were the case…the kicker is they did that test and were prescribing medicines for a test that was actually reading wrong all the while being rung up at check out and NOT just once), we COULD have taken her to the specialist and would have the diagnosis.
    There is hope and she is still sweet and spunky as ever.

    As far as ms13 tagging, that is going on all over the place. I see it on fences in upscale neighborhoods too..sad but they are out there and the wanna be’s.

  4. anon
    May 26, 2008 at 10:29 am

    As far as pet insurance, it may be better for something like cancer, or anything involving surgery. But when no surgery was involved (as in the case with my dog) and it was just administering oxygen, antibiotics and hospital stay for a little over 2 days, it only paid about $1000 toward a $5000 hospital bill. Unlike people insurance, the pet insurance has amounts they pay for specific diagnoses and procedures. If expensive surgery is involved, it may be worth it, but in my dog’s case where no surgery was involved, for that diagnosis (some kind of severe lung problem) it didn’t pay out much. And it doesn’t really cover a hospital stay very much at all, as I found out. It is better than nothing, but it really depends on the specific case.

    Anyway, glad there is still hope for your doggy, and hopefully Deepwood will get her on the right course as opposed to the other place you took her to with the wrong diagnosis and treatment. For me, my vet in Manassas referred our dog to the animal hospital in Vienna, and I wasn’t that impressed with that place in some ways and their charges were very high – given that in just a little over 2 days we ran up a $5000 bill there. Quite shocking! Anyway, having been through this just last October, it is still very fresh in my mind, so I can definitely relate to your situation and how nerve racking it is with large bills and not being sure what the final outcome will be. While my dog was 16 years old and I knew she was getting really old, she had been amazingly healthy right up until that point, but it appeared her lungs just basically gave out, so it still was not a fun experience. With her, she was great while she was on oxygen, but it wouldn’t be practical to keep the dog hooked to oxygen for the rest of her life, obviously.

    As far as what happened in my neigbhborhood, they didn’t just tag the playground area with MS13 graffiti, they utterly destroyed it. Every piece of playground equipment has been totally destroyed – they smashed it all into pieces basically – not sure quite how they did it. It will be quite expensive to replace everything they destroyed, and undoubtedly make our homeowner’s association dues go up. Nevertheless, it is just another nail in the coffin for this neighborhood for me. There’s too much evidence of just people having no regard for other’s property, and caring less about the neighborhood. There’s too many renters in this neighborhood for one thing, and its only going to increase with all these foreclosures. The banks will sell them on the cheap to investors, who will not care who they rent to. It will be like the house next to me and look at the crime that has spread from that house. I’m just glad I’m getting out of here -the sooner the new house is ready, the better – I’m already counting down the days to the worst case date of mid-December. Hopefully sooner than that though. What was once a nice neighborhood, in the past 3-4 years has really gone downhill.

    As far as MS13 wannabes, maybe, but I’m sure it was some Hispanic gang (not necessarily MS13) that did it, and not anyone else trying to make it look like such. Either way, authentic MS13 or not, it is another sign of this neighborhood being on a downward spiral.

  5. Red Dawn
    May 26, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    Anon,

    That is a damn shame about the destruction of the playground. I stand corrected, I thought it was just tagging. I would say there is definatly a precence of gang activity around here and it is on the rise.
    I agree with you that things will not change as more and more investors buy up the inventory of foreclosures only to rent them out.
    I bet you are ready to move and I hope that you are able to find a decent renter that will take care of your town home until you can sell it. You are in a tough situation and I hope it all works out for you.
    I am still interested in the thought of redeveloping the Manassas area. I am not sure of all the pros and cons but I would not mind looking into it and seeing it discussed.
    I hope you enjoying the beautiful weekend….man, I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow 🙂 I hope this day goes by slow 🙂

  6. anon
    May 26, 2008 at 7:31 pm

    Yes, I’m not sure what the logic is behind destroying a playground and the equipment in it. I guess there isn’t any logic to it, actually. Every piece of equipment is smashed to pieces, and then the wooden fencing around it is where the graffiti was spraypainted. I suppose late at night since it is in a separate area a little away from sight, it probably was an easy target for them.

    I do agree with you about redeveloping the Manassas area. Although this neighborhood – parts of it were built in 1985 such as where I live, there are older parts built in the 70’s. So there are older and newer parts, and of course other neighborhoods not far from here are older yet. Actually, there is also a brand new (built in the last 5 years) neighborhood just around the corner, which was one of the last remaining farms around here before it was sold to developers back in 2000 or 2001. Walking around that neighborhood, it seems a world of difference from this neighborhood, unfortunately (for this neighborhood). Anyway, it does seem to me the Manassas area as a whole is ripe for redevelopment.

    Yes, I am worried about finding a good renter – so that part is going to be challenging for sure! However, hopefully it will work out somehow. I still have a little fixing up to do here in the next few weeks. The builder has a guaranteed lease program, and hopefully their agent will help screen renters – if I don’t manage to sell the house which is unlikely given the timeframe. I would really like to just sell it and be done with it, but I think that is wishful thinking. There is a foreclosure house directly across the street from me, and many others on adjacent streets. I am definitely nervous about renting it out, but think that is the most likely outcome. There’s too many houses for sale here – either “short sales” or foreclosures, and the prices are half of what they were 2 years ago! Although, even if I sold for a foreclosure type of price, I could afford the new house – but would prefer to get a better price than that obviously. It probably makes financial sense to rent it out, and hope in 2 years prices will rise somehow in this neighborhood, although I’m not sure if that isn’t wishful thinking. It is a bit of a difficult position to be in, then again the way I look at it, interest rates are low and prices on the new house are low too, so maybe somehow it isn’t as bad as it seems – even if I still get a low price on the house in a year or two.

    I did enjoy the weekend – actually spent a lot of time over in the new neighborhood yesterday and Saturday – and enjoyed walking around the large park attached to it with our dog – just to get a feel of that and to see what the dog thought of her future new surroundings! It has lots of walking trails and is one of the features of this neighborhood I really liked. Then again, my current neighorhood borders a park, and that’s why I bought my house here in 1985.

    I am definitely not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow either! It was nice having a 3 day weekend for a change. Although, it won’t be that long to 4th of July and another 3 day weekend – so that’s one way to look at it!

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