Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Do not read if you don't want to know all of the petty details of my life...Besides, it's pretty boring.

I am so frustrated with the whole repair-man system here at the new place.
Three weeks ago, I took a bath for the first time here. I come down at three in the morning after finishing studying, and find a puddle of water on the first floor under the vent, and waterstains on the ceiling. It took me a while to realize that it was because of the bath, and so when I did, I went and told the office, and made an appointment for my next day off for them to come and fix the leak.
After much internet searching, I suspected already that it was a leak in the overflow pipe (the silver round thing on the wall of the bath right underneath the faucet) which is meant to keep the water in the bathtub at a certain level if the water is accidentally left on.
So on my next day off, I wake up early and first, the plumber comes to tell me that there's no need to fill the bathtub so high in order to take a bath. He points to a level two inches below the overflow pipe that should be acceptable, in an attempt to make it so that he doesn't have to fix anything, while I relegate myself to taking baths in three inches of water. I decline. So, two workers reluctantly come to remove my linen cabinet from the wall in order to figure out where the leak is. I hate standing over people that come to work on the house, because I know it would make me uncomfortable, so I just stayed downstairs (the bathroom is upstairs) and listened to the banging. That was probably my first mistake. In any case, the plumber looks at the pipe, and sees that it is too long, and therefore a proper seal is not made between the overflow tube and the edge of the bathtub. He fixes it within ten minutes, and call the workers back to put the linen closet back into the wall. When they leave, I realize they knocked a hole in the corner wall while trying to either remove or replace the cabinet. I go back to the office. They call more guys over to fix it, and to regrout the tub because the original grout is cracking due to them using incorrect grout in the first place.
The same guys show up as before, and I point out the corner hole and the grout problem. The worker decides to kill two birds with one stone and grouts up the corner hole (with bathtub grout, no less!) with his finger after grouting the tub. You cannot imagine the horror and disgust I felt when I saw him do that. I felt like vomiting. In fact, if I had, I might as well have just stuffed the vomit into the hole to fix it, it would have been just as appropriate.
In any case, after that, I took a sigh of relief (after pulling out a few hairs over the technique) because I thought I was finally done with condo repairs.
But then that night, when me and Aaron start making dinner, we realize, "Hey, there is now absolutely no water pressure in the kitchen faucet."
The next day, back to the office I go, where some random lady writes my complaint down on a legal pad while talking on her cell phone. This is a Thursday. I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt and leave her alone until the next day, when I went in to make sure something was being done. She tells me, "I'm sorry, this cannot be fixed until next week."
Catastrophe, because I had a sink full of dishes I could not wash, and my parents were due to arrive the next day to stay the weekend.
In any case, I make an appointment for my one free afternoon, today.

I ended up washing the dishes in the bathtub.

And today, I talk to the lady again when I get home from class, and she tells me that she talked to the constructors, who said that they won't fix my faucet bc I'm a homeowner and therefore responsible for my own repairs.
I tell her that the kitchen faucet problem only occurred after the bathtub problem, and therefore should not be my problem.
She says she will call the constructors and see what she can do.
I assume that "what she can do" is probably pretty close to nothing, so I go over to the office again after an hour. I run into Steve, the guy who sold the place to us in the first place. He makes ONE call, and has a plumber over within ten minutes.
Now, I'm waiting for another plumber to show up and try to check under the house or put in a new faucet.

Ok well that was long and drawn out, and I'm sure no one is reading at this point (if you still are, send me your address and I will mail you a Reese's peanut butter cup for getting this far.), but still, I'll summarize my complaints:
1. I'm sick of spending my free days stressing about this fucking condo.
2. I'm sick of the office people, namely, the woman who is apparently the new HOA person, not getting things done.

2 comments:

Rachel said...

i read the whole thing...i want a reese's! i'll send you my address when i actually have one...

Elissa said...

hey, if rachel gets one I get one too. I totally read and enjoyed every bit of it...well, as much as I can enjoy your misfortunes.