According to the radio, the fire was caused by the guy below us flicking a cigarette out his patio door. It landed on a chair, which caught fire. Some people are looking into litigation options for us even though we don't actually want to sue. There's plenty of righteous indignation out there on our behalf, I guess.
In any case, now that the investigation is over, the process of salvaging what's left in the apartments can begin.
We won't know for a couple of weeks if our hard drives survived. This is because it's too dangerous to go into our apartment. Some construction people are setting up a support structure so that other people can get into their apartments and try to save their possessions, but we won't be allowed to do that. It's too unstable. So we have to wait until everyone else has gotten their stuff, and then the firemen will scrounge for whatever they can find in our apartment and the one below ours. After that, the building will be demolished.
I am really hoping that my hard drive(s) can be saved. I hold little hope for the external drive that had most of my Kyou Kara Maou on it...but you never know. The server, which was nearest to this window, had all our mp3s on it...while it would be nice to get those back, that's not very likely either.
Meanwhile, my main hard drive had everything else: chat logs, email, photos, writing, websites. This is a huge loss not just to me, but to the people who will write about me in the future! So, as you can imagine, I'm hoping that my hard drive wasn't completely incinerated, and that a professional recovery company can scrape at least some of the data off the platter.
(This brings to mind a quote from the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: "There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.")
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2 comments:
You probably would not have to actually file a lawsuit. If you file a claim with your neighbor's insurance company (should he have actually had insurance), they will most likely negotiate with you in good faith for a fair settlement.
You can retain legal counsel for this negotiation, but keep in mind that an attorney would retain a 1/3 contingency (plus costs) in most cases, and an attorney would probably not secure anymore money for you than you could have yourself. Insurance adjusters are generally quite reasonable to work with, contrary to popular belief, and you may find success handling the claim on your own. Should you attempt to negotiate with the insurance company and you are unsuccessful, then obtaining legal counsel would be prudent. If there was a question of liability, then an attorney would be most helpful; however, there does not seem to be a question of liability in this instance. Your neighbor did not use proper care in the disposal of his cigarette, and therefore created a hazardous condition.
A lawsuit should only be filed when all out-of-court negotiation attempts have been exhausted. If you have met with an attorney and that person advises you to file a lawsuit immediately without first attempting negotiations... I would seek other counsel. An honest attorney will only advise what is in your best interests, even if it is in your best interests to proceed pro se.
-al
Al,
Thank you very much for the information. I really appreciate it.
I don't know if the guy had insurance or not. I do know that "most" of the residents who were affected did not have insurance.
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