Insects, floods.....what's next????

Okay where to start.  I realize I have been missing in action for a while!  Life has a way of "throwing" stuff at you especially when you're already trying to dig out from under.....I mean that literally!  Approximately 2 maybe 3 weeks ago I got up early like normal, had my coffee & took Molly for a walk, during  which I never turned any lights on in the house.  When I got home Jessie came upstairs & wanted to know why there were BUGS flying around the house. I turned on the kitchen lights & started freakin out!  There were flying ants everywhere....it was like something from a horror movie.  They were mostly down in the man cave & when Popster went to investigate there were hundreds ...maybe thousands of ant crawling out of the outlet above the fireplace.  He started vacuuming them up & I'm yelling "Not with my good vacuum....they'll be laying eggs in there!"  We were able to get an exterminator in by lunch time & he sprayed the nest which they had built behind the brick of the fireplace.  He said in the 16 years he had been doing this he'd never seen so many flying ants come out of one nest.  They are the queens that are looking to lay eggs & start a new nest. 

We managed to survive the insect attack!

Next came the flood!

A week ago Thurs I got up at 3:00am to go to work & as I'm standing in front of the mirror putting my makeup on I could hear a funny noise.  I finally checked it out & discover the water feed to the toilet was leaking before the shutoff, of course, & there was at least an inch of water on the floor.  I threw down some towels & yelled for Popster to go turn off the water to the house.  We then discovered it had been leaking for a while because when we checked out the laundry/bathroom down stairs we discovered the ceiling was about to fall down.  I had to leave for work & on my way out noticed a note on the kitchen counter from Jessie.  It said "Dear Popster.  There's something wrong with ceiling downstairs but I think it's too late."  She had thrown a hand towel on top of the cabinet & gone to bed!
You gotta love her!

Anyway Popster managed to fix the leak & we called our insurance company who sent someone out to look at it.  He said we needed to get a restoration company in to assess the damage & see what needed to be done.  We couldn't get anyone to come out until Monday & they tore out half the ceiling, the back wall & half of another wall.  Then they sent in another crew with two giant dehumidifiers & big fans that sounded like jet engines.

This is what I came home to Monday night.There was barely enough room to squeeze between this machine & the tub to use the toilet

Then you had this "jet engine" blowing hot air at you.  Fun!  We had to close the door just to drown out some of the noise so it got extremely hot in there.  By morning I was freaking out from listening to the noise.  It had to be 150 degs in the room & the mouthwash was like luke warm tea & my lipstick was melting.  I left the house early & prayed things would be better when I got home.

This is the laundry room which had two "jet engines" & a dehumidifier.

Thank god when I got home late Tues night the upstairs bathroom was declared dry so all we have to do in there is replace the baseboard.   I was so relieved that I didn't have to sleep with that noise again however when I went to bed I discovered we had a house full of japanese beetles.  I spent the night with a bottle of windex in my hand!!..  Got up on Weds morning & found ants all over the upstairs toilet so the exterminator had to come back again!

The downstairs had everything running until Thurs morning when it was declared dry & we now have to find a contractor to put everything back together.

What next???

PS.  I have planted another "money tree" in the back yard as the one we've been using isn't cutting it!!!

Love