"Mom!", or The Heiress and the Heirless

Paris Hilton and I had something in common today: when things fell apart, we called for our moms. The only difference is that my mom took care of business and dropped some fools (and I didn't throw a hissy fit.)



We continued to war with Able Home Inspection (I'm using the name to try to warn off any would-be customers) to pay to so that both of our tubs and our shower didn't leak. Song, the Japanese plumber who came out, found a number of problems, including on the hall tub that Able's guys supposedly fixed. His bill was upwards of $900 and included problems with a jacuzzi motor power switch. Ralph from Able told us that we were on the hook for half the bill since the switch was electrical, not plumbing.

Angry and irritated as I drove to work, I called my mom, our realtor on the deal, and sent her to do battle. Despite stonewalling by Able, she got a copy of Song's proposal and reviewed each item on it with Song (I have no idea how she did this over the phone since his English is very limited.) Verdict: ALL of it was related to leaking, including the switch. My mom called Ralph back, and despite his efforts to weasel out, got him to agree to pay in full. . . before I was done with lunch.

Ralph's last throes of denial were saying that we couldn't find an inspection company in the state that would guarantee everything we were getting them to cover--well, they weren't stupid enough to mess with my mom.

Song should come tomorrow to fix all of the leaks. Knock on water-damaged wood, that will be the last of it.

Thanks, Mom! We couldn't have done it without you.


(Oh, and congrats Paris for making our blog--I never thought you'd make it on here. Since you've got some time to think in jail, your koan for the day is Don Henley's lyrical lament: "This year notoriety got all confused with fame.")

WATER!

Things were clipping along nicely on the remodel when we hit a small snag. With most of the upstairs finished, the contractor was ready to put the downstairs ceilings back. He asked us to do one more water test of the shower and tubs before we did. Monday night, we filled the master tub and shower up to their overflows and ran the various whirlpool jets. Water went all over our living room floor from both. This was particularly disturbing because during escrow we had paid a home inspector that the sellers’ agent highly recommended to certify that these fixtures didn’t have leaks.

I called the home inspection company, Able Home Inspection, and told them about the problem. The next morning they called to say they were sending an inspector out. Two guys with little to no English ability showed up to water test. El Gordo went upstairs and turned on the hall bath (which we hadn’t even gotten to testing yet.) El Bajito stayed downstairs with the Dewalt flashlight he could barely hold up. After approximately 10 seconds, he turned to me and said, “No leaks.” I told him that he needed to fill it to the overflow drain before he could be sure. He shook his head and said “No leaks.” I spoke more slowly this time, asked him if he knew what an overflow was, and used hand gestures to indicate that the water needed to rise to the level of the overflow. “Yes, overflow. No leaks.”

At this point, I called the office and told them these guys didn’t seem to know what they were doing. Ralph indignantly told me that this was what these guys did every day and that they were perfectly capable--I guess he asked them when he picked them up from the Home Depot parking lot. I told them they hadn’t even filled the tub to the overflow; Ralph told me he would call them. El Gordo and El Bajito then got on the phone, but still seemed utterly lost. So, I filled the hall tub myself. Shortly after the water got up to the overflow drain, El Bajito came to tell me that the hall tub was leaking and Able was sending an inspector out (which is amusing since these guys were supposedly inspectors.) Now I have three leaky fixtures. El Gordo and El Bajito then went and sat on the lawn for two hours waiting for the inspector.

Ralph called me and said that his company NEVER worked with whirlpool tubs. I told him that they had water-tested and certified both of our tub and shower, both of which have jets. He said that was impossible because they never did that kind of stuff. I told him that I had the final copy of his report that said there were no leaks. He said that was too bad, they were only going to fix the hall bath overflow. I verged on going nuclear: we paid $500 to have these guys certify no leaks and had bought the house based on that. But, every fixture they guaranteed leaked. They had even given us an estimate for putting the sheetrock back in place.

Two more “inspectors” showed up and the four of them fixed the issued with the hall tub overflow. They then left saying they weren’t going to fix anything else, even though at least some of the problems were basic plumbing, not the whirlpool jets.

I called my mom (who had been our realtor) and put her on the case. Then I talked through options with my contractor and dad. Basically, we decided we were going to have to get the thing fixed ourselves and then sue. Late in the day, Ralph called to say he was turning the case over to Don, the company owner, and that my mom had left a “stern” message. Candace and I both took heart at this because it was the first time it seemed like something had rattled Able.

The next morning, my mom called to say that Don had called her. Don had talked with the sellers’ agent, Anne, who said that the buyers (i.e., Candace and I) had told Able only to water test it up to a point. My mom told him this was ridiculous: why would a buyer ask that something not be fully tested? Don said it sounded a little weird, but said it was what he had heard. Regardless, out report had no qualifiers or limitations on it—it said the units didn’t leak. My mom got Don to admit Able was going to have to pay to have this fixed and Able sent over an affable, elderly Japanese man who is apparently an independent plumber. He spoke very limited English, but seemed to understand plumbing and wanted to take a methodical approach. These are both big steps up from El Gordo and El Bajito.

The plumber returned Thursday. Within a couple of hours he was stunned to note at least four leaks and he was still testing.

To be continued. . .

"A Government of Laws and Not [Garbage] Men"*

Here are a few pictures post-demolition. It was about this point that we turned things over to our contractor.

The stack of debris is probably twice this big despite us trying to throw away everything possible. We had a little showdown with the Sunnyvale garbage company the first week when they left all of our garbage. The note I found blowing across our lawn said our cans had construction material, were too heavy, were the wrong size, etc.

I called up the company and was told they didn't take concrete. Great, because there wasn't any concrete, just drywall pieces. Then they said they wouldn't take drywall or any construction materials, despite this not being on the website. I then talked with a supervisor. She said they DID take up to 200 pounds of drywall in the biggest can. I told her that our cans were within the posted weights. Her reply was that they wouldn't take it, regardless of the weight, if the garbage man thought he would hurt himself lifting it.

What happened to the rule of law? If you post maximum weights, that should be the standard, not the garbage man's subjective take on weight. After discussing this at some length, they agreed to send a special run to get our cans, but cautioned that they wouldn't be taken if too heavy. We used another can to reduce the load of the initial cans and waited. Not surprisingly, the garbage man who showed up was an elderly gentleman with white hair and mustache. He ambled over to the can, looked at it, and, without touching it, decided it was too heavy. He told C he wouldn't take them because they were too heavy for him when C raced out to meet him. CANDACE then carried the cans to the truck and threw them in. Apparently guessing weight by sight alone is in the job description, but lifting is not, and our "Unlimited" garbage pickup plan is DIY.

*John Adams, Massachusetts Constitution, Part The First, art. XXX (1780).

It is a period of civil war.*

Ok, nothing quite that dramatic--if anything, it is anticlimactic: we are trying out a blog. That said, we probably need a brief crawl to get some of you up-to-speed. (Apologies to those who don't need the backstory for rehashing. Apologies to those who do need backstory for not keeping you in the loop.)

(SPOILER WARNING: C complained this post was too long. My response? Make it longer. . .by adding a synopsis for MTV-addled attention spans.

1. In California working.

2. Bought house that we're renovating so we haven't gotten into it yet.
3. Parents moving to SLC, so living with them and no furniture.

If your attention hasn't wandered yet, feel free to peruse illustrative pictures below.)

We moved back to the California last year after I graduated from NYU Law. I work at a law firm, and Candace is a personal trainer and teaches kids who can't read good. Despite the gloom-and-doom forecasts for the real estate market, we recently made by far the biggest purchase of our lives and bought our first house. Something about the lavender, yellow, blue, and mirrored walls and popcorn ceilings didn't quite match our aesthetic, so we immediately began remodeling--what else would a young, broke couple who just dropped a fortune on their first place do?

In our defense, several large chunks of the ceiling were taken out due to some water damage testing. (The brown areas in the pic are pieces of paper put over the holes--see if you can find all four!) We could have simply patched the holes, but (1) where we patched would have been obvious and (2) we hate popcorn, so we didn't want to put the stuff back in. Hinc, upon taking possession of the house (which is a story unto itself), we promptly began ripping apart our dream home. First, we ripped out several sets of cabinets. One of them was a 30" deep, 4' wide, and 8' tall (i.e., floor to ceiling) oak kitchen cabinet. We also took cabinets out of the living room, master bath, garage, and hall. Some of these beauties have been placed on permanent display in our garage to replace the 1960s kitchen cabinets that were already there; the remainder are stacked in our growing trash pile with the battered baseboards and shattered remains of the giant mirrored wall (see pic above). Next, we tore out a wall and lowered duct soffits that gave a large area of the house a dingy cave feel. Most recently we completed the arduous task of tearing out painted over popcorn ceilings which the prior owners installed in 1999 [stet!]. Around this point, we turned the work over to our contractor, Kevin. Given all this work, you may wonder why we bought the house. We like the area and thought/think the house has potential. My architect father's unqualified response after going through the open house: "It's weird." Thanks, Dad.

Perhaps the high point of our demolition came when we had ripped out all of this stuff and I was removing the last of the popcorn. Around 7:30 pm the doorbell rang. It seemed a little odd, since almost no one knows we are in the house. Who should I have the pleasure of greeting at the front door? The former owner. He was back in town from North Carolina and wanted to know if we had seen a tent. His first comment: "Oh! You took the mirrors out." This was followed by "You took the wall out" and "You took the popcorn out." Feeling very awkward, I tried to give some response, but quickly gave up. After walking though the demolished interior and seeing what we had done to the kitchen, he stopped remarking on things we had changed.

My parents have been kind enough to let us stay with them while we were searching for a place. However, my dad was recently hired by the Church to design temples, so they are moving to Salt Lake City. Sadly, our timelines didn't synch quite perfectly. All of their furniture and belongings are now in their new house in Utah and they hope to put their house on the market any day now, but we can't get into our house because of the work getting done. (We did sleep at our new place on an air matress amidst tarps and heavy drywall dust, but after only one night we begged to return to sleep on my parents' floor.) They are likely going to stage the house starting next week, and we are gently prodding our contractor to finish the master suite so we can stay there.

We've been staying in my parentals' unfurnished house for about a week. We scrounged in our still packed belongings (which are in our new garage in Sunnyvale) and found a pot which has served as a pot/pan/toaster/misc. I also brought back a camping chair which is now the only thing to sit on in the house.

*First sentence from the storyline for Star Wars Episode IV's crawl, for those not keeping track.