Three months after a quake that scored a direct hit under Christchurch, many residents are struggling with mountains of paperwork required to get their homes repaired and rebuilt.

Reference numbers, codes and Pin numbers permeate our daily living now as we deal with the aftermath of two major earthquakes in six months.

We get them from the Earthquake Commission (EQC) and from private insurers - we are swamped with them.

How do I cope? I have a big whiteboard on the kitchen wall on which I write everything.

The easiest way to record all the damage is to photograph it. So we have about 150 of the house and contents - well, photos of piles of broken bits.

In a nearby shopping mall is a temporary valuations table where we all queue with our boxes full of broken bits to get an official quote for replacement.

While we wait, we exchange "where were you when it struck" quake stories. The second question is always "where are you living now?"

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