Hurricane Ike hit southeast Texas with a vengeance. Every hurricane is different, almost like personalities. Some have strong winds, while others cause flooding. Ike was unlike any storm in history. It brought in a storm surge that left normally high and dry houses under water. We had evacuated to our lake house the night before. With my family, minus my son who is a first responder, safely 125 miles north of the storm, we waited for the news.

The day after the storm, my son called me. "Mom, I'm at the edge of your subdivision, and I can't get to your house. The entire subdivision is under water, but I can't tell how deep it is." Not the news we had hoped for, but there was no way to tell the extent of the damages.

The following day, he called back with an update, "Mom, good news. I'm sitting in your driveway, and it looks like you only got about three feet of water in your house."

"What part of that was the good news?" I asked.

"That I'm sitting in your driveway. The water went down."

I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but three feet of water in my house for any length of time is not good news.

The following day, three days after the storm, we drove home to assess the damage. The first thing we noticed was the stench. It is a smell we will never forget. It was a combination of stagnant water, mud, garbage, and decomposing animals. The stench was only in the neighborhoods that had standing water, and it lasted about a month.

The second thing we noticed as we opened our front door was displaced furniture. The storm surge had been so forceful that it moved furniture and other objects around, sometimes from room to room. Although the water had left the house, it was still in every crevice imaginable. I opened the oven and was hit with the smell and sight of standing water. The same with the dishwasher and lower cabinets in the kitchen. Looking around, my husband said, "I don't even know where to start."

Immediately I thought of our neighbor, a contractor.

Our neighbor informed us that he had hired a contractor to clean out his house. We hired the same contractor. Two days later, there was a rusty, stinky 20-foot container in my driveway. It was a beautiful sight to us. It meant the beginning of reconstruction. Later that afternoon, the crew showed up to clean. Twelve men and women started throwing things from my house into the container. My husband and I gave them instructions and returned to the lake house. We had no other place to sleep, and besides, being away from the smell was a relief.

Two days later, we drove back to the house, opened the garage door and saw through to the other end of the house. All possessions had been removed and sheetrock stripped from the studs. The crew placed huge dehumidifiers in every room of my house. The tubes ran outside through doors and windows. For two weeks, we could see water being pulled out of the studs. It was amazing how much water they held. Then every stud was sprayed with a solution to retard mildew. I later learned that if this is not done properly, mold will grow.

Another contractor was hired to rebuild the inside of the house. He promised to be finished in two and half weeks. We were ecstatic. Two weeks later, reality hit when we began to notice a pattern with the workers. They usually worked about four hours a day. The rest of the time they were on break. Some days they didn't come.

My husband would fuss at the contractor, and they'd show up for one day. Then they'd be gone again. They did great work — when they worked. It took more than three months to complete the project. There were still things to be done, but I refused to allow the contractor back in the house. We did the rest of the work ourselves.

If I were to do it again, I would put a clause in the contract stating that the contractor loses $100 a day for every day he goes over a specific time period. In this case, I should have agreed to four weeks for completion, allowing for bad weather. After that, the contractor should have been fined.

A year after we finished, we learned from one of his previous employees that the contractor had been sanctioned by the state for using money from one project to start another.

My advice — be firm with contractors. They work for you, and you have a right to demand that the job be completed to your satisfaction. Don't settle for inferior workmanship or wasted time.