Drama update: one month later

Good news: no more leaks! We've had several rather massive thunderstorms and my bedroom remained dry! w00t!

Bad news: Remember that patch of carpet in front of my bedroom door that was removed? Yeah. It's still missing. They haven't replaced it yet, so the subfloor (plywood) is still exposed. Nor have they replaced the lock on my bedroom window from the break in. Nor have they started to deal with the fact that the gas company removed the gas meters from the property back in JULY so they heat won't work (gas powered furnace). Needless to say, I'm seriously considering typing up everything that hasn't been done and mailing it with my next rent check. If they cash the check, then I'll know they have the list.

In other news, the previous tenant in my apartment took my landlords to court. Why? From what I understand (hearing from both the previous tenant and my landlord), it's because they withheld a large amount of his security deposit related to replacing/repairing/patching the upstairs carpet. Well, that was never done. It wasn't even cleaned before I moved in (trust me...it was NOT cleaned). So the previous tenant sued them to get his money back and won. Now there's some legal arrangement whereby my rent is garnished by the courts to repay him. An officer of the court has been trying to deliver the paperwork to me since early August. Apparently he was told by my neighbors (my landlord's family!) that I had moved. This was about the same time that the flooding incident happened in early August. Yeah. I don't know the details of any of this, just what the previous tenant and my landlords told me, but I'll find out on Friday when I meet the officer to get the paperwork that tells me what to do with my rent (I had to call him to make arrangements).

OMG the drama just doesn't end. And this is in addition to an ongoing battle I have with them about them entering my apartment and NOT TELLING ME.

Last week (Wed., Sept. 9) I came home to find that someone had been in my apartment. How did I know? The lights were on AND my bedroom door was closed. What's worse they had trapped the cat in the bedroom when they shut the door. I called my contact and basically let her have it via voice mail. This was at about 4:30pm. I had heard nothing from anyone about WHY or WHEN they had entered my apartment. And then I waited. And waited.

Finally, at about 8:20pm, four hours after I called, my contact returns my call. Apparently, in preparation for the annual fire inspection, they were working on the fire alarms in the rest of the building and set off the alarm, which meant they had to enter my property to turn it off (the panel for the alarm is connected to the electrical panels, and access is via my bedroom). Great. That still doesn't explain why no one notified me promptly that they accessed my property (emergency - so no reasonable notification prior to entry). They're in violation of their own lease. I even read the relevant parts to her on the phone. This is the third time this has happened. I explained to her that it was UNACCEPTABLE and that I'm tired of having this conversation. I was told last time that it would never happen again and yet here we are, having the same conversation less than 2 months later (previous incident was around July 16th). She said she was unavailable so that's why no one called...I told her that was bullshit, it doesn't matter: four hours is NOT "prompt notification" by any definition and clearly they need to fix their communication issues because it's unacceptable. Someone has to contact me. If she's not available, there should be a backup plan. I should NOT be calling them to find out what's going on and WHY they've been in my apartment. There are no excuses for this. I repeated that they're violating their own lease, making it null and void (also per the terms of their own lease; violation = nullification). She acquiesced, and said they're meeting about it. I have yet to hear the report of said meeting, one week later. I'm not holding my breath.

But I have no doubt that when the rent garnishing begins that I'll receive a prompt phone call about it. Gotta love the drama. It's to the point now that it's ridiculous, like a bad sitcom. I'm just trying to weather the storm (so to speak) and not let it get to me too much. Some days I'm better at it than others.

Drama update

They came and laid new carpet last Friday. Poor Capri had to spend her first full day back in the house locked in the bathroom, this time with the window shut (the damaged screen she escaped through was finally replaced, only a little over a year after I reported it). Needless to say, she was displeased when I got home and let her out. But she was still here, so I was not sympathetic to her grumpy mood.

The carpet is a nice shade of neutral, and it's in. Well, all except for the small patch in the hallway in front of the door and extending to the bottom of the stairs. They cut a small square off of what they took out to try and match the color. So when the hall carpet gets patched is all dependent on when they can find something to match. So right outside my bedroom door is the plywood sub-floor for now. I need to find a small area rug...

Anyway, so about my bedroom furniture. It was offered for them to come move it back into my room on Saturday, but unfortunately my plans weren't working with their schedule. And I'll be damned if I was going to sit around and wait for most of the day for them to show up. Sunday didn't work either (they weren't available). Or Monday after work. Today, Tuesday, my furniture is finally back in my bedroom. My bed (and mattress!) is back where it belongs. And I can't wait to put fresh sheets on the bed and sleep in there tonight instead of my living room.

My bedroom is pretty simple. All I have in there is my bed and my clothing (in dressers). That's it. No radio besides my clock-radio-alarm, no TV, no electronics beyond a phone. And I did that on purpose. I've had a really hard time sleeping this past week. Partially because I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and partially because there was just too many distractions upstairs in my living room. I had a very hard time quieting my mind so I could sleep. Blinking lights, electronics, stuff. Too much stuff.

The drama is nearly over. There's been no more leaking when it rains. Believe you me, I've been freaked out with each thunderstorm we get. The new carpet is still dry. And I am overdue for a good night's sleep.

And the drama goes on...pt. 2

[continued from pt. 1]

Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009

I get up and get ready to head into work. My landlord promises to be here when they come to spray, so I don't have to wait. All I have to do is lock my cat Capri in the bathroom so she's out of the way. I do that, knowing that I will pay for it in the form of cat retribution when I let her out that evening. I head into work.

At 4:30pm I call my landlord to find out what's up. They came and sprayed around 1pm. They also left an industrial strength fan in my room to help dry things out. They will be back to pick up the fan on Thursday evening (so they say). The floor should already be mostly dry, it's just the walls. Still, it is recommended I shut the door to the bedroom to keep the cat out. No problem. I head home.

I get home, change, and shut the bedroom door. I then go to let Capri out of the bathroom. She's not there. She's not anywhere in the house. PANIC. I discover that she escaped via the bathroom window. I had left it cracked due to the heat, and she pushed the window open farther and got out. The screen in that window wasn't secure. It needed to be fixed. I reported this to my landlords LAST YEAR when I moved in. It was never fixed. So she escaped. Because ONCE AGAIN they didn't fix things in a timely manner (or, in this case, not at all, which is also not unusual...there are several other things that were never fixed too). Clearly basic maintenance is not something they actually do consistently, if at all, and now it's caused two major problems: flooding and my cat escaping. I am livid. And terrified. I have no idea how long she's been out or where she is. She's an indoor cat, just over 2 years old, and I've only had her about 11 months now.

What's worse I took her collar off of her before locking her in the bathroom. Why? Because the last time she caught herself on the corner of the cabinet and freaked out (fortunately I was home so I freed her promptly). I didn't want that to happen again, so I took off her collar. So now she's outside, running around gods knows where, with nothing but a microchip. MORE PANIC.

I call my friend Plum and freak out. She comes over and as soon as I see her I start crying in the middle of the sidewalk. I've been walking around the blocks near my place calling for Capri, meowing (she actually answers to my meows, really), and shaking a treat bag. I can't find her. Then we hear her meowing. I meow back, and she responds (typical, we have regular "conversations" in meows). So we start trying to follow the meows. Plum and I start looking in the neighbors' backyards and Plum spots her up a tree. OhMyGodsThankTheLordShe'sOK. I coax her down, and right as I'm about to grab her (I even have my hands on her), a car alarm goes off and she bolts. SH*T!! Plum and I take off after her, cursing the car alarm as we run. Capri runs for the street. Fortunately a nice woman out for a run (happens to be running in our direction) heads her off and the landlords' kid (elementary age boy) keeps her from going into the street and she turns around and runs back into the yards behind my place. Whew. She goes back up the same tree, only even higher this time, clearly scared and now panting slightly. DAMMIT.

So Plum and I camp out in the yard where the tree is. My ankles are a buffet for mosquitoes (really, they are now polka-dotted with bites and I'm using anti-itch cream like lotion). We wait. I try tempting her down with treats. No dice. So I try milk which she loves and is notorious for trying to trip me when I get the carton out of the fridge and shake it. Also no dice. Capri sits up in the tree, and looks at me, quite comfortably, meowing periodically, from her branch (a good 20 feet off the ground). After a bit, Plum goes to Fu-Wah Mini Market nearby to get tofu-hoagies for us to eat for dinner. I continue my stake out of the tree, fighting a losing battle with the mosquitoes. [Side note: the tofu hoagies from Fu-Wah Mini Market are fantastic. Definitely recommended...it's a vegetarian banh-mi sandwich!]

After waiting for over an hour, watching Capri move around on the branch 20 feet off the ground with no movement downwards, we give up around 7:30pm. Plum heads home to take care of her own 4-legged furry brood, and I head inside. I go back outside to the tree to check on her at regular intervals, and she keeps refusing to come down out of the tree and back inside. I try tempting her with wet cat food (a major treat) but still no dice. At one point when I look up the tree she's descended to a lower fork in the branches (now only about 10 ft. off the ground) but still looks far to comfortable. I am also alarmed to see a raccoon in a neighboring branch. They are ignoring each other and quite calm. I'm freaked out. I decide to not try another food temptation for fear I'll get the raccoon instead of my cat. Yikes.

Around 10pm when I check on her she's out of the tree and lying on the ground, but as soon as I walk towards her she runs from me. She climbs another tree, this one right in my backyard, and meows at me. For the next 3 plus hours we have regular conversations of meows, her in the tree and me on the ground, but she won't come near me or come inside. I call my mom and freak out at her on the phone for 2 of those hours (good thing she lives in Australia where it's mid-day...I can always call my mom at midnight and not worry about waking her up!). At nearly 2am I finally give up and try to get some sleep.

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

I wake up after only about 3 hours of sleep, and still no sign of her and now no meowing. She hasn't tried to come in. It's also raining. I head into work, hoping that when I get home later she'll be waiting to let in where it's dry and there's food. I spend the day surprisingly productive, fueled by coffee and worry.

I get home shortly before 5pm, and look for Capri. She's nowhere to be found. I meow. No response. I let my landlord (the father who owns the property) know that I'm extremely displeased with them because my cat got out because they never fixed the screen on that window that I reported a year ago. He looks shocked. I explain again that she got out because they never did a repair I reported several times and I'm really really upset about that and it's inexcusable on their part.

[Side note: I also notice when I get home that the Stanley Steamer people haven't been back and their fan is still in my bedroom. Wonder when they're going to come get that...]

I go inside and retrieve the milk carton, take it out back and shake it, hoping to tempt her. Nothing. No sign of her. I try shaking the treat bag. Again no sign of Capri at all. I meow. Nothing. I decide to walk around the block once, shaking the treat bag and meowing. There's absolutely no sign or sound of her at all. OMG. I'm afraid she's decided to go exploring farther away from home, has gotten trapped someplace, or someone has trapped her. I can't stand it! I just want my cat back home and safe!!

Now there's really nothing else I can do besides wait for her to come home. And it's killing me. I also print out signs to put up on the corners near my house, hoping people see them and if they've taken her in they'll call me.

My landlord (my regular contact) comes by to measure the bedroom for the carpet. She tells me people are supposed to be coming tomorrow to actually lay the carpet and then they'll put my bedroom back together. I also take the opportunity let her know about the window screen (since she's my "official" contact), and how upset I am that pretty much all of the recent problems could have been prevented if regular and basic maintenance/upkeep was done on the property, such as cleaning the drains/gutters, repairing exterior windows/screens, etc. All the little things you have to do when you own a house just to keep it standing. And I tell her I hope that they can see that specifically the flooding, etc. that's happened this week is an indication that maintenance is needed and I hope they use it as a learning experience and start doing said regular maintenance. We shall see. I'm not holding my breath. But I'm *this* close to putting a hex on their entire family, I swear.

I know all I can really do is hope and pray that Capri is OK and comes home soon. And try to get some sleep despite how worried I am. She's got to get hungry eventually, right?

And the drama goes on...pt. 1

There's no lack of drama around here lately. The Sunday flood issues (see previous post) are still being resolved.

Sunday evening my landlord finally called me back and said they'd be by again on Monday to work on drying the carpet some more. So at 9:30pm, I drag my mattress (futon) upstairs to my living room and put it on the floor. Somehow I manage to do this without getting the mattress wet by dropping or dragging it on the wet bedroom carpet. Chalk one up for anger-induced strength. Sunday night I sleep upstairs in my living room. This is strange, and confounds the cat, who keeps meowing at me to go downstairs to bed. On the other hand, she is also quite happy to have a giant soft surface to play/sleep on, so I don't think she quite understands that it's the mattress.

Monday, Aug. 3, 2009

Monday I wake up and call my landlord before 9am. I spend a bit of time explaining why the wet-vac ain't gonna cut it at this point. I convince her, and she's going to call professionals to come in and dry it and make sure all is well. I also have to provide her with the names of several companies (mad librarian search skillz FTW!) because she has no idea who to call. I give her three names and numbers. She makes calls and we settle in to wait. A little after 11am she tells me someone is supposed to be here between 11am and 1pm. OK. And we wait. My bedroom is now so musty and muggy I can hardly breathe and it's triggering my asthma (I keep coughing uncontrollably...a bad sign for me). It's been over 24 hours so I know the carpet is toast and will have to be replaced at this point. Cleaning it is no longer an option...the mold has set in.

At nearly 2pm we are still waiting. She calls back as well as calling the other places. She tells me all three work together and the first one she calls knows she's called the other two and is pissed off at her for calling them. Well, duh. If you don't show up as promised naturally people will look for other options. At 6:30pm I get another update from my landlord. They are still coming, the question is WHEN? A little later, the first company calls and says that a., they won't be coming until tomorrow now (but again, won't give a time) and b., they need at least $2000 just. to. show. up. OMG really? Landlord tells them to forget it, and she ends up calling Stanley Steamer. It's now after 7pm. Stanley Steamer doesn't come that night. Landlord brings by a dehumidifier to try and control the damp air if nothing else. I sleep in my living room again, my bedroom carpet still soaking wet and the air very musty/muggy, to the point I can no longer breathe in there at all (all I do is cough, which, again, is BAD and a sign my cough-variant asthma is kicking in).

Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009

I wake up and brace myself for the waiting game. Email various people at work to let them know and settle in with coffee and my remote desktop connection to get some reports and indexing project work done. Landlord calls Stanley Steamer people again and they say someone will be out that afternoon. I tell my landlord that the carpet is not salvageable at this point, it's been too long and there's no way to effectively clean it. What's more, because of my asthma any remaining mold could put me in the hospital with a severe respiratory infection and could kill me. She says let's wait and see what the professionals say. Grumble. I don't think she's really listening. MOLD = POSSIBLY DEADLY to an asthmatic, not to mention people with healthy lungs. No lie.

I see pictures of the flood in Louisville that devastated the public library via Twitter. OMG. The pictures make me gasp and are shockingly terrible. It's just an awful situation. And it certainly puts my issue in perspective. Still, I know my flood, while minor by comparison, needs to be resolved too.

Stanley Steamer shows up around 2:30pm. And thank the lords they back me and immediately tell her that the carpet needs to go. That they can smell the mold that's already growing in it. It's been wet too long now to be cleaned/dried and salvaged. It needs to be ripped out, along with the padding, and trashed. I am relieved. They want the room cleaned out, the baseboards, carpet and padding removed, and then they will spray the entire room and lower walls with an anti-microbial agent to kill any mold that's there. Once that dries, we are free to lay new carpet. OK. Sounds like a plan.

Landlord's dad (one who actually owns the property) shows up to get the estimate from them. He gets the estimate, and tells them they (landlords) will pull out the carpet. They make an appointment for them to come back on Wed. afternoon to do the anti-microbial spraying. The Stanley Steamer guys leave.

My landlord then offers me some lovely unsolicited advice in the form of a website promising a "natural cure" for allergies and allergy-induced asthma. I politely thank him and explain that my asthma isn't allergy related, but rather a portion of my lungs just don't work and I'm extra susceptible to respiratory infections and that said infections can get very serious and even deadly very easily if not taken care of. So, um, NO. Thanks but also "natural cures" like that one, well, it just doesn't work that way. Grrr.

He leaves and then people (more of landlords family, including my usual contact person) come in to move the furniture out of my bedroom. My bed is dismantled, and it and my dressers are placed in the hallway. Good thing it's a long hallway. They pull off the baseboards. I am disturbed to see mold on the backside of several of them, so I point it out and say that is NOT coming back into this room. Period. Landlord's daughter (my usual contact), says OK and promises they will be trashed instead (I'll be checking when they reinstall baseboards to make absolutely sure). They rip out the carpet, padding and tack strips, and clean up the resulting mess. The dehumidifier is put back in the now empty room in an attempt to start the drying process before they spray.

I realize my entire bedroom will be in the hallway and I'll be sleeping in the living room for the rest of the week. They won't be able to lay carpet for a good 36 hours after spraying, so the earliest new carpet will go down is Friday. GAH.

I go to sleep in my living room, cranky, but glad that things are finally getting done.

[To be continued...]

Time to build an ark, me thinks

I've been in my current apartment just over a year now. In that time I've been besieged by water issues. A useful detail to understanding things: I'm in a split level 2 bedroom apartment. My living space is upstairs, and the 2 bedrooms are downstairs in the finished basement. There are two baths, one upstairs and one down. My landlord is the member of the family responsible for this property, so "landlord" is somewhat misleading as it's not just her that I'm ultimately dealing with. She's just my specific contact person. Her family owns several properties that they manage.

Now back to the true tale of my water woes.

First it was a leaking pipe from the upstairs bathroom that was dripping into my bedroom right below it. It showed up within 2 weeks of me moving in. Various holes were created either by the water itself or to track the leak. I lived with holes in my ceiling and a bucket (plus a trash can at times) in my bedroom for a good 6 months until they found the source. I didn't use the upstairs bathroom either because why would I want to make the drip happen?!? So for the first 6 months I lived in this apartment I basically only had one bathroom, despite paying for two. Then I lived with the holes in my ceiling until they *finally* patched the holes over 6 months later.

Then the leak in the kitchen ceiling appeared. It was leaking from the same place it did previously, evidenced by the patch already there, so clearly there's been a leak in the roof before. For several months I had a bucket to catch the drips. Then the leak spread. So I added a trash can. And another. You can see the set-up here on Flickr. Eventually they fixed the hole in the roof (or I'm assuming they did as the drips stopped), but not before the drywall tape on the patch fell down so I had it dangling from my ceiling. When they finally patched the bedroom ceiling they put the tape back up.

I though things were finally calming down and the water issues had been finally resolved.

I was wrong. So very very wrong.

Now we have a new water problem. The Friday I got back from ALA (July 17th for those keeping track), we had a terrific thunderstorm. The drains outside the house couldn't handle the deluge. But instead of just sitting outside until it had a chance to drain, the water found someplace to go. It seeped through the foundation (or found a hole), and made a nice puddle on the floor of my bedroom. Specifically it soaked the area under my bed, and spread into the middle of the room. I called my landlord. The next day they brought a wet-vac along with the other supplies to make the final repairs as planned. They vacuumed up the water, and moved my dehumidifier into my bedroom along with an extra fan I have to help finish the drying process.

I lived with the dehumidifier in there for a week. Things seemed to dry out sufficiently.

Then we had another deluge. This morning (Sunday, Aug. 2nd, for those keeping track) we had a fantastic thunderstorm, just like the one a few weeks ago. The skies opened up and it just poured. I watched the water build up outside by the drain. So I went to check my bedroom. And my carpet was wet again. The water was clearly coming in along the base of the wall, so essentially through the brick/stone foundation. I curse and run down the hall to get the rag towels to try and soak up some of the water. I spread them out under my bed, specifically around the bedposts, and along the wall where it's coming in.

I head back upstairs and call my landlord. She starts making phone calls and sends someone over with the wet-vac. It's still pouring. I go back downstairs. OMFG I HAVE A SMALL LAKE THAT IS NOW COVERING HALF OF MY BEDROOM. The towels are completely overwhelmed by the amount of water and are useless. It's coming in all along the wall now, not just in a few small places. What's worse, when the water came it, it also brought debris, so there's dirt and crap all over the place.

I go back upstairs. I call my landlord back and let her know the magnitude of the problem. I let her know that this problem clearly needs a professional to come in, clean up the water and fix the foundation. This is way way beyond what a general handyman can fix.

A couple people from my landlord's family come by with the wet-vac. Since I had last called my landlord I notice that there's water coming in behind the fridge in the kitchen. I point it out and they pull the fridge out from the wall (partially blocking the doorway). One person goes outside to find out where it's coming in. The two young dudes head downstairs with the wet-vac and start vacuuming up the water. The rain is still coming down. The guy that went outside to inspect where the water upstairs is coming from finds that it's coming from next door. He then starts trying to speed up the drains. One is has debris partially blocking it. Debris that ran down the steps from the yard. The other is pretty much completely blocked in the pipe so there's no speeding it up.

The rain finally lets up. The dudes are still vacuuming. They leave around 2:30ish, saying they'll be back later to do another pass. I call my landlord to check in and find out what's going on. She tells me she's talking to others in the family and they're going to find someone to come deal with this and she'll let me know.

It's now 8:00pm. No one has returned to do another wet-vac pass. My landlord hasn't called me. So I call her and leave a message letting her know that that's NOT OK. I need to know what the plan is. And this needs to be fixed by a professional within the next week. One week is a reasonable amount of time given the magnitude of the problem and the amount of water that came in this time. If the water keeps increasing, eventually the entire basement will flood. Not only that, if the water keeps coming in every time we have a major thunderstorm (it is that time of year, mind you), things will never dry out, which will beget mold, which could potentially kill me given my asthma. And I'm really not exaggerating.

So now I wait. I wait for them to respond. I wait to find out the plan. I wait for some kind of action on their part. I #$*@%! hate waiting.

Oh, and to add insult to injury? My kitchen light is not always turning on. Sometimes it works when I flip the switch, other times it comes 1/2 way on, and sometimes nothing happens until I flip the switch off and on a few times. That makes me nervous. There quite possibly could be some sort of electrical issue stemming from the leak in the kitchen roof. Yeah, that's freaking me out a bit.

Is this balance?

So the weekend started with my massive disappointment in which I did not get NIN tickets despite being "in line waiting" before they even went on sale. Reportedly all the NYC shows sold out in 10 minutes.

The weekend then moved into the "are you f*cking kidding me" phase. We had a massive thunderstorm. Truly massive. The drains outside couldn't handle it. I even went out in the rain and removed debris from the drain to help and there still was a good 1 inch of water. The drain just couldn't keep up with the deluge. It rained like that for a good hour before it finally let up. When I went downstairs to go to bed (given my bedroom being in the finished basement), I thought the carpet felt a little squishy. So I leaned down to see what was up with my hand.

It was wet. WET CARPET IN MY BEDROOM. Clearly the deluge had overloaded the drains and the water table and the runoff had ended up in my bedroom, soaking part of my carpet. It had come in at one place along the wall, and then pooled under my bed. So I gathered up all the rag towels I had and started spreading them everywhere, lifting up the corner of the bed to put it under the bedposts. I also had to move my mattress to lift up the center support beam and put a towel under that leg given that was where the most of the water was. Much cursing was involved, and I think I bruised my knee banging it against the edge of the bed. Given that it was now midnight, there wasn't much more I could do so I collapsed into bed.

Then came the balance part of my weekend. My landlord was planning on coming by on Saturday to finish some repairs. Granted, several of these were repairs that should have been done 6 months ago (the end of the bedroom leak saga), but the timing ended up actually being a good thing. I was able to call her before she was on her way and let her know about the deluge induced bedroom flood, giving her time to find a wet-vac.

Saturday I had plans to meet up with my friend EM and hit the farmers' market in Clark Park and get breakfast tacos and Stumptown iced coffee from Honest Tom's taco truck. She arrived the same time as my landlord with the handyman (a different one this time...seemed to know more what he was doing, which made me very happy). I walked my landlord and the handyman through the apartment, reviewing everything that needed to be done to make sure we were all on the same page. Then EM and I headed out for breakfast and the farmers' market.

We returned a couple of hours later, bellies full of yummy breakfast tacos and bags of fresh farmers' market goods in hand, to find they were finishing up. They had to run out for a quick part to fix the toilet downstairs (the handle was being held to the plunger with a safety pin! which I discovered when it rusted through the other day), but otherwise they were done. Wow. The drywall mudding was done on the ceiling patches. He fixed the vent on my dryer that the gas company f-ed up recently. They had wet-vac-ed the bedroom, even putting the wet towels in the dryer. They moved my dehumidifier and my box fan in there to finish the drying process. Part of the carpet was still damp, where the most water had pooled, but certainly no longer soaked. They were really and truly done, the repairs completed in ONE visit as planned. This is new. I like it.

So EM and I headed back out to walk her bike down to the local shop (Firehouse Bicycles) to get a flat tire fixed. While we were sipping some nice iced coffees (from Satellite Cafe) and sitting in the park on the grass waiting for the flat repair to be finished, my landlord called to tell me they had finished replacing the flushing valve and handle and were now completely done. Miracles never cease.

EM and I had a lovely day. One random activity just kind of flowed into the other, no schedule, no plan, culminating in a gathering at Miss Plum's place for some grilling. The weather was gorgeous. The day overall was quite relaxing.

I'm guessing the lovely day was the balance for the hellish evening the day before. Went from high stress/frustration/anger to calm and relaxed. I'm not sure I like this flip-flopping stuff.

So, Universe, can we not do this one extreme to the other and instead just have some even-keel for awhile? I'd really appreciate it.

The great carpet debacle, part three: the END

They finished the carpet today. Showed up at 6:00 am and got it done by 10:00 am. My landlord was here to supervise. They even put all the furniture back where they were supposed to. And Aussie survived, although she was NOT happy to go in her kennel while there were strange people in her house.

I called him on Tuesday night to confirm that they were showing up the next morning. Also to let him know there was only one roll of padding and I needed "kick strips" where the carpet meets the hallway floor. Yes, he said, they're still coming, he's already on the supplies, BUT they want to get started an hour earlier than planned. If you remember, the original start time was 7:00 am, right before I would be leaving for work, and now they want to start at 6:00 AM. An unGODly hour. I normally get up between 5:30 and 6:00 am. But fine, get here and get it done. I'm willing to get up super-early because I want my house back.

So I spent Tuesday night taking apart my bedroom, moving anything I could into the guest room. First thing in the morning, after my shower, I unmade my bed, folding up all the sheets and piling them into the guest room as well so all that was left was my mattress.

Now tonight I get to put my bedroom back together and remake the bed. It's been a long day. I was at work a good 45 minutes earlier than normal (startling my staff, I think). I usually have only one cup of coffee in the morning, but today I needed a refill. But I have new carpet. And there's nothing living in my upstairs hallway anymore.

I have my house back.

[Insert relieved sigh]

The great carpet debacle, part two: this weekend

So part one of the great carpet debacle brings us to today. Sunday. And it begins again. To refresh your memory, my landlady, the handyman and I agreed during a phone conversation this past Wednesday evening that the handyman would be here at 11am to start work.

At 11:20am the handyman calls me and tells me he's running late (big surprise, this is NOT new) and he'll be here "within the hour." Fine.

Noon comes and goes. 12:30pm comes and goes. And then 1pm comes and goes. I start having flashbacks to last weekend when he was 8 hours late. I can't stand it. I'm going to lose my mind. I start pacing and muttering, once again scaring the dog. Aussie goes and hides in her kennel, preparing for my inevitable verbal explosion. Smart dog.

At 1:30pm I call my landlady. She's not available so I'm put through to her partner. He says he'll call and find out what's up. 1:40pm he calls back, tells me the handyman had a family emergency (wait...isn't that last weekend's excuse?!) and would be here in 20 minutes. OK, that's 2:00pm. He also tells me the handyman is supposed to call him when he shows up.

At 2:20pm I start cursing. In several languages. The inevitable verbal explosion has begun. Aussie continues to hide in her kennel. Definitely a smart dog.

At 2:30pm I call my landlady's partner and tell him that the handyman still isn't here. And that I'm done with waiting this weekend and the handyman as a whole and new arrangements need to be made because this is ridiculous and completely unacceptable. I don't want to deal with this handyman anymore at all, not just for this project of the new carpet but for anything in the future as well. I'm tired of the lack of communication from the handyman and his perpetual lateness. I just can't deal with it and I shouldn't have to. Period. This second weekend has crossed the line and I'm done. My patience with the handyman is gone. He agrees and tells me he'll call me back with the new plans.

At 2:45pm the handyman shows up to work. Are you f*cking kidding me?!?! He's 4 hours late. Four hours. So he starts work on the office, which I'd really like to have back in this lifetime. And I told him to NOT do anything in the bedroom. Just get the office done and get out. I'm not exactly polite. Aussie comes out of her kennel and gives him a piece of her mind. She starts following me around the house, and watches the handyman whenever he leaves the vicinity of the office.

At 3:00pm my landlady's partner calls back. He's surprised the handyman is here, because apparently he didn't call him like he was supposed to. He tells me to go ahead and have him work, so I can at least have my office back. He also tells me I won't have to deal with this handyman in the future, and that he's done with the handyman too. Even though I don't particularly want him here now, I agree to let him work because I want my office back. And I thank him for understanding that I don't want to deal with this handyman in the future.

He also wants to schedule someone during the week (someone new) to re-carpet bedroom. Assures me either he or my landlady will be here to supervise. I say fine, but I need at least 24 hours notice to prepare the room. I explain that I cannot move the furniture myself so to make arrangements to move stuff when he plans for the carpet. And the dog has to go in her kennel for the day. Aussie is NOT going to be happy to have people in the house when I'm not home AND be stuck in her kennel during it. But in the interest of getting my house back, I agree to it. I want this done. I want the carpet and supplies OUT of my hallway.

I want my house back, dammit.

I can't say I was nice or really even polite to the handyman while he was here working. Not mean or overtly rude to him, but definitely NOT friendly. I guess you could describe my behavior as curt. Terse. Abrupt. Brief. Even rudely brief. Basically, I've just ignored him, only talking to him when necessary or if he has something to tell me. I'm not necessarily proud of the fact that I haven't been all that polite, but my control on my temper and my patience with him is thin at best right now. So in the interest at not losing it altogether, I'm ignoring him and being rather curt when we do have to interact.

At 11:15pm the handyman finally finishes laying the carpet, cleans up and leaves. Yes, it's after 11pm on a Sunday night. That's way way past my bedtime because I have to be up by 6:00am to get to work. But I have my office back. Now comes the fun part - putting everything back in it. I'll leave that for tomorrow night. Right now I need to make my bed and get some sleep.

And the latest from my landlady's partner on the rest of the carpet (which is still living in my hallway)? The bedroom will be done on Wednesday. They'll be here at 7:00am. Thank the heavens. This should all be over soon.

The great carpet debacle, part one: last weekend

As many of you know, I'm getting new carpet in two of my rooms. These rooms already have carpet. Carpet that needed to be replaced or seriously cleaned before I moved in. The carpet in my office is supposed to be pink. It's not. It's puce, or brownish-pink at best. My bedroom has black carpet (black, in a bedroom, I know, awful), which is filthy and has paint and sticky spots. My mom spent 30 minutes getting the gum out of one spot when she was here because I just couldn't deal. What's worse, it doesn't fit the floor. It was obviously a remnant because at one end of the floor there's a good 6-8 inch gap to the wall. And neither one was actually properly laid. There's no glue, no padding, no tack strips, and it just lays against the walls...the molding wasn't pulled up so it lays on top of it in parts. Whatever, it's a rental. But the cleaning of it, yeah, that needed to happen.

So my landlady came and checked it out. She decided that it was in bad enough shape that for her interests, laying new carpet would be better. Great! Fabulous! She chose a charcoal gray obviously industrial carpet. Good quality, it will last, and who am I to complain? Remember, it's a rental.

Last weekend the new carpet was supposed to be laid. Here's the proposed chain of events:
Friday night - remove old carpet from office, prepare space for laying new carpet on Saturday
Saturday - new carpet in office, then move to bedroom
Sunday - clean up and do finishing touches

It didn't happen.

Not only did it not happen, but things went horribly wrong. Horribly. Friday night, my landlady's handyman calls at 6pm, when he's supposed to be here, and tells me he's running late, but will be here within the hour. Fine. Friday night traffic, whatever, I can deal with that. I'll just eat dinner and wait. And wait. And wait.

He doesn't show up until 9pm. Needless to say, no work got done, but the new carpet and some supplies were dropped off and he "checked things out" to see what needed to be done. We set a time for him to be here on Saturday morning: between 10 and 11am. Not too early, it is Saturday after all, and that gives me enough time to run an errand to the post office.

Saturday morning. I get up, run my errand, and arrive back home by 9:30am. I take the dog for a longer walk, and then wait. At 10:30am I call the handyman to let him know I'm home and waiting. He tells me he's just getting up (what? you were supposed to BE here by now, but ok) and would be here within the hour. Fine.

Noon comes and goes. 1pm comes and goes. I attempt to reach him at 1:30pm and don't get through, not even to voice mail. 2pm and then 3pm comes and goes. I'm still waiting and rapidly losing my patience.

At 3:30pm I've lost my patience. I haven't heard anything from the handyman, and he's not here. So I call my landlady and fill her in on what's going on. I stress the fact that what I'm most upset about is the lack of communication. I have stuff to do. If he had called and told me he would be late, I could have taken care of a few things instead of sitting here on my butt at the house waiting. She's not happy either. She wants the carpet done so she can move on to other projects. The laying of my carpet is just the first of many things that need to be done to her properties. She says she'll call the handyman and get back to me.

At 4pm my landlady called back. Handyman had an emergency (family related), and will call me and show up to start work within the hour.

4:30pm the handyman calls. Makes lots of excuses. Whatever. I really don't care. What I care about is the lack of common courtesy shown me. When you're going to be late, you call. Duh. So what it comes down to is that someone needed to call me and let me know that he was going to be late. And not just late, but over 5 hours late at this point. He asks me if I can "salvage" the day. It's 4:40pm on a Saturday. Um, no. It's a bit late for that. My errands will have to wait until tomorrow. He says he'll be here within the hour. I don't believe him at this point, but say, fine, and hang up.

5:30pm comes and goes. 6pm comes and goes and so does 6:30pm.

At 6:45pm I call my landlady a second time and leave a message that he's STILL NOT here. I stress that once again, the lack of communication is the real problem. And at this point, we've moved into the realm of UNACCEPTABLE. This needs to be dealt with. I ask her to call me back so we can discuss the situation and figure out what needs to happen.

6:55pm the handyman calls. He's in the neighborhood and wants to drop stuff off. OK. Fine. Drop it off and then get out of my house. At 7:00pm he drops the stuff off and proceeds to give me more excuses. Not only did he have a family emergency [Note: said emergency occurred at around 1pm, a full 2 hours after he was supposed to be here], but he just "couldn't get going" today. Apparently the full moon affects him because he's a Cancer. If you believe in astrology and know this about yourself, then you should know better than to make commitments on days you know you'll be affected. Duh. And ultimately, SOMEONE NEEDED TO CALL ME. I tell him I'll call the landlady and reschedule.

At 7:10 he leaves. I scream. Literally scream at the top of my lungs. For a good 5 to 10 minutes. It scares the dog. Aussie goes and hides in her kennel she's so frightened by me screaming like that (doesn't happen very often, obviously). I'm so frustrated I can hardly stand it. I've taken my office apart, everything is back in boxes, my modem is living in my hallway, and I now carpet, padding, tack strips and supplies have taken up residence in my upstairs hallway. For at least another week until he comes back next weekend to actually do some work. I spent 8 hours on a gorgeous Saturday waiting for someone to show up and do work and it didn't happen. If he was my contractor, I would have fired him by the time I called my landlady at 3:30 and would have called someone else in to do the work. You don't just not show up for a job and expect to get paid. Seriously.

Sunday I call my landlady and leave a message, reiterating that we need to talk about what happened and figure out what happens now.

Monday night my landlady calls and we talk about what happened. I stress AGAIN that the real problem is the lack of communication. And that the handyman is perpetually late. PERPETUALLY. I'm always waiting for him. We're not talking 30 minutes, we're talking hours late. HOURS LATE. And it has to stop. I can't deal with it anymore. She agrees. She also agrees that if he knows the full moon affects his ability to "get up and get going," he should make appropriate arrangements and not plan things that day. She tells me she'll call him and have a conversation and then she'll let me know what's up. She also thanks me for my patience and for dealing with things so calmly. She didn't hear me scream on Saturday night.

Tuesday she leaves me a message that she was still trying to get a hold of the handyman. Wednesday night she calls, tells me she has him there, and that we're going to try this again Sunday. We agree to 11am on Sunday to arrive and start work. I'm not holding my breath.

So the great carpet debacle continues.