Have name changed for this because I need to keep the details accurate, but I'm a long term MN reader and poster.
DD is 15, autistic, getting an assistance dog who is due to move in with us permanently on Wednesday. This was already a huge deal and quite stressful all round (the dog will help her enormously in due course, but the first few weeks and months will be tricky with all of the extra demands and routine changes). But we were just about on track to be ready with doggy preparations.
However, our upstairs toilet has become blocked. Fortunately we have another downstairs, but DD isn't coping well with this as she normally avoids the downstairs loo like the plague. She's also waking me in the night to take her for a wee, scared to go downstairs on her own.
We've had the drain guy out today and the soil pipe is blocked and cannot be unblocked because it's damaged. Looks like we will have to pull up the conservatory floor, dig down, fix the pipe, get a new floor etc. I am freaking out, I've contacted the home insurance but won't hear back until tomorrow and have no idea what they're going to say. I've never even made a claim before.
I think I'm going to have to postpone the arrival of the dog, I can't see how we can stay calm and get her settled into her new home when we've got workmen in digging up the conservatory. The cats are going to freak out about the dog, and also about the work, and I'm worried about the impact on them of having both things happen at once. Even getting the dog outside to the back garden to toilet will be tricky, as the way to the garden is through the conservatory! DD isn't happy. But I don't think IABU to say we need to postpone.
My actual AIBU though is to ask - AIBU to not know how how this stuff works, and please can you offer any advice?
Will my home insurers promptly organise everything for me, and quickly?
Or are they going to tell me to get a bunch of quotes and send them in and then have delays while they fanny about deciding what/whether they're going to pay?
And if they do expect me to get quotes etc, who do I even contact to get a floor pulled up and a concrete dug out and a soil pipe fixed?
And how do I generally stay sane with all of this?! We have no family support locally. Can't just move out and stay elsewhere anyway even if we haven't got the dog yet, because we can't leave the cats. I just feel like I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown.