McCoy Residence

When most people move, they have to make sure that the previous residents of the house disconnect the utilities and then the new tenants have the fun job of reconnecting phone lines, power lines, gas lines, etc.

We thought we were pretty lucky moving into a new construction house. We figured there was going to be no drama and we can hook up everything easily. Of course as soon as I say no drama, lightening strikes and I hear a strong laugh from the heavens above. We actually lived in our house for 3 days without primary power. Our builder had a construction poll which was enough to run the fridge and a few lights in our house. When we called the power company, who will remain nameless) they stated they needed to wait on the certificate of occupancy to put the power lines up. No problem. We had that and provided it to them promptly. Then of course THEN they tell us it would take 7 days to put the power in. Well, we were already out of our apartment and OCCUPYING the house. Thankfully we were able to take cold showers, cook on the grill and get take out for a little. It really wasn't that bad and the power company was nice enough to come after only 3 days, not 7. No big deal.

The next fun item on our list was home phone. I called the phone company (again to remain nameless) and they were able to hook up the phone within a few days since we had an existing account. They gave us our new phone number and we were good to go! Well, we plugged in the phone the next day and got a dial tone!!! But of course when I tried to call the number they gave us, it didn't ring. So we called from the house phone to my cell to get the number...totally different number. But I figured the phone company just screwed up until we also realized we had caller ID, which I hadn't ordered. I decided to call the phone company because I wasn't going to pay for their mistake. They immediately realized their mistake and switched our phone line to the number they had originally gave me. (Yeah, I know. I should have kept my mouth shut and kept the caller ID. But the number they gave our house was actually an active line from our neighborhood. Woops!)

After a few days of memorizing our phone number, we starting getting calls for Gilbert McCoy. I very nicely said wrong number but that didn't stop the calls. We started getting calls from people looking for Gilbert and his wife Diane. I really thought that they didn't recycle numbers that immediately but I just kept telling the callers that we just got this number and the McCoy's have moved. But then things started getting weird. We started to get calls from creditors, cell phone companies and even lawyers.

We figured out that the McCoys had some type of construction business and skipped town. Sometimes people would call and wonder if Gilbert could do work for them. What was really messed up was when Gilbert and Diane's grandkids called looking for them. Who moves and doesn't tell their grandkids??? When we would answer the phone, we had to stop saying wrong number because the people would call back thinking they dialed incorrectly. So we had to tell them that this is our phone number and no one name Gilbert lives here anymore.

Over the years (we have been living in this house for over 4 years now) the calls have dwindled but not stopped completely. Even though the answering machine says "Rebecca and Joshua" people will still ask for Gilbert on their message. But alas, today, I got another call. Since I couldn't remember that Gilbert's wife was Diane, I said wrong number. So, of course, the person called back. I explained that we have been getting wrong calls for them for 4 years. The lady just replied "Thank you. I will call Diane on her cell". Why, if you have her cell, would you try to call her at home when obviously you haven't tried to call her at home for 4 YEARS.

I am just baffled that people are trying to talk to someone who they haven't spoken to in 4 years. Especially when you have their cell number or keep in touch with them any other way. It was very apparent that these people (not the creditors or lawyers) have not had a long relationship with the McCoys or haven't talked to them in YEARS. I swear I am not their personal answering service and actually wished I had a number to refer these people to. Do you have anyone you haven't communicated with in 4 years that you would just pick up the phone and expect that they would still be at the same number? I know that a lot of people have been in their house for more than 4 years but most likely you don't talk to people once every 4 years. I am just baffled.

Maybe I have to just answer the phone "McCoy Residence".