Dear PoPville

before

“Dear Popville,

I have inherited my grandmother’s 1965 Ford Mustang. Having not been driven in ~20 years the car is currently being restored. Once complete, I will have it shipped to DC so that I can enjoy it on Spring days like today.

I am begining to nagivate the process of insuring and registering the vehicle and am hoping that the PoPville community may have some insightful tips. It seems that DC allows vehicles to be registered as “historic” which, as a benefit, makes the car exempt from meeting any modern vehicular standards (e.g. exhaust, noise, fuel usage). As a drawback, I would only be able to drive my new/old car 1000 miles/year.

Additionally I am looking at insurance, and I believe the best option is to insure the vehicle as a classic car, which is less expensive and provides better coverage than standard insurance. However, classic car insurance that I have found requires each member of your household to already have a daily driver… so unless I force my bike riding wife out of our house that is a difficult requirement to meet.

Looking for some good pointers from people who have already gone through this.

Side note: Anyone in the H St area have an extra garage spot that they want to rent to a ’65 Mutang… seriously???”

“Dear PoPville,

Is it a common practice for private property appraisers to intrusively survey and document neighboring properties? We had an afternoon visitor (pictured) who didn’t knock, but came up on the porch and took measurements and then went through a closed gate and into a yard and took more measurements. All in all, about 12 minutes. I noticed because I’d been watching for package thefts on Capitol Hill by webcam.

On the chance it was a City re-appraisal, I checked with DC’s Tax and Revenue Office (Chief Appraiser Stephen Cappello was quickly responsive, thanks!) but determined the visitor wasn’t an OTR employee.

So, now I’m left to wonder who this person with a clipboard, SLR camera, sportjacket, rolling measuring tape, and possibly a nametag ID was. Have others experienced this? Do private appraisers do this? Big deal or fact of city life?”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Lindsey Robinett

“Dear PoPville,

I recently lost my job, so checked the healthcare.gov/DC healthlink options available as an alternative to a COBRA plan– Pretty expensive at $360 per month. I have multiple sclerosis but am in otherwise good health, so when choosing plans, the only two considerations were that my doctor and drug were covered. Here’s what I found:

1. There are only two individual plan carriers in DC: Carefirst and Kaiser Permanente.
2. Carefirst covers my doctor, but not my drug.
3. KP covers my drug, but not my doctor.

So, instead of having any of those more affordable, $115-150 plans available, I had no choice but to do my 3x more expensive COBRA option. AARRRGGHHH!!

Do you/anyone out there know of any resources to help me out, or advocacy groups? I’ve no doubt I’ll be gainfully employed again soon, but what if someone with less means found themselves in this situation?”

Photo by PoPville flickr user washingtonydc

“Dear PoPville,

Last week, a few of us went to Provision 14 for happy hour. Only three beers over 90 minutes, so definitely a tame night. I went to close out a different bartender from who had helped us earlier handed me the receipt but I cannot remember if he gave me my card back but when we left, the sleeve had no credit card (verified by someone else in our party).

I noticed my credit card wasn’t in my wallet so I just assumed the bartender never gave it back. I called them a few minutes after 5pm and was put on hold a couple times and the hostess asked me a couple times to say and spell my name. She said “no sorry” and hung up. I decided to walk over and ask in person. Mind you, there are zero people in the restaurant at this time. I gave her my ID and she goes “Oh i think you just called but this isn’t the name you gave me.” She whips out a box of maybe 100 credit cards that had been left. I was astonished and appalled that so many cards had been “left.” After looking in two sections at about 3 different cards, she goes “sorry, I looked everywhere and it’s not here. You probably dropped it.”

Not only was she rude and very flippant on even trying to help. I get that this is a sticky situation, but a little effort could have gone a long way.

I know that I can’t ask to look, but the fact that they made such little effort to look can only raise some suspicion that have those 100+ credit cards really been left behind? Is that normal for a restaurant to have that many stockpiled?”

Stock photo by PoPville flickr user DCbmyers

“Dear PoPville,

I’m writing to let you know about a strange incident involving MPD that happened to me Monday. A little after 3:30pm I was stopped at the stop light on First St. NW waiting to turn left onto New York Ave. NW. Another car ran in to the back of my car and, after the initial shock, I got out of the car and went to check on the driver to see if he was okay. As soon as I get to the car window, the passenger gets out and walks away and the driver PASSES OUT. I asked if he was okay in a really loud voice (I was scared that he was really injured) and suggested that we move our cars from the middle of the road and he wakes back up, says he’s fine, but immediately passes out again.

At this point I call 911 thinking that we definitely need a cop and probably an ambulance as well. I was on the phone with 911 for 7 minutes and in that time the driver that hit me was passed out. I kept trying to engage him and each time he would wake up and pass out again. There were a dozen or so cars that passed us on First St. during this time, and a few checked to see if I was okay and many of them commented that the driver was seriously injured or under the influence of something…he was totally out. I was really concerned and communicated all of this to the 911 operator (who was great, by the way.)

Once the officer arrived the other driver woke up and finally got out of his car. His eyes were glazed over and he wasn’t able to communicate well…he was either seriously concussed or under the influence of something. He was not alright. The fact that he only responded when an officer arrived led me to believe that he was under the influence. The officer asked me what happened, looked at both of our cars, and asked the driver to back up so that our cars were no longer touching. While the driver was in his car, I pulled the officer aside and told him about the passenger who bailed and that the driver had been asleep for the past few minutes since the incident. In response, the officer said an ambulance would arrive to check on both of our conditions. I didn’t think he was taking me seriously so I then intimated that the other driver was under the influence, because it no longer seemed like he was seriously injured. The officer then went up to the other driver and only asked him about the passenger who had left. The driver said that it was his cousin who needed to go buy something (this seemed like a ridiculous explanation to me). (more…)

Photo by PoPville flickr user Eric P.

“Dear PoPville,

This spring we’re considering replacing our entire backyard (presently a grave parking spotl and a small patio) with new vehicular rated patio pavers. To save money, we’re thinking of doing the work ourselves, but that means removing approx. a foot deep of dirt and gravel for the entire yard so we can lay the appropriate foundation — that means digging out a 13′ x 45′ area, so nearly 600sf.

Does anyone have any solid recommendations on removing the dirt/gravel? The DC dump claim they won’t take it, and if we used a dumpster we’d wind up covering 1/3 of the yard we’re trying to clear out. We’ve also looked at Bagster, but that seems like it will get expensive given the number of bags and pickups we’d require.

Does anyone have any experience doing something similar, preferably in a creative way that won’t break the bank? We’re trying to be cost conscious on how we approach this so we can re-invest that money into materials and the landscaping once it’s finished. We’re trying to decide the best approach for labor, transport for removal, and where to put it leading up to removal, depending on how we approach the project.

For anyone that’s used third party services, I’d be curious about costs as well.”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Rich Renomeron

First the Craigslist guy and now this…

“Dear PoPville,

We have received junk mail for a flooring company as long as we have lived in our house. Didn’t really think anything of it until yesterday when someone came to our house to see floor samples. We googled the company and, lo and behold, they are using our home address for their business on google but not actually on their website. It looks like they are a chain and just using our address to run their business in DC but get their billing and such elsewhere. Is there anything we can do?”