Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. - Cyril Connolly
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Good News, Bad News
The good news is that my floors are finally finished and look brand new, and that I should be sleeping in my own bed tonight for the first time in two full weeks.
The bad news is that my china cabinet is in my living room, my bookcases are in my dining room, the refrigerator is plugged into the outlet next to the garbage disposal, my land line phone is fried, and none of the outlets in my kitchen work - except for the garbage disposal. No lights, no stove, no nothing.
The flooring company called me around 4:30 on Thursday to tell me to be home on Friday morning to meet the movers who would put back the furniture. WTF?? I had meetings scheduled all morning on Friday and was taking a manager out to lunch to do her performance evaluation. They showed up anyway, and screwed up the furniture placement despite a little sketch I left them clearly indicating where the bookcases and china cabinet were to go. They also did not rehang any of the doors they removed, so there are a stack of doors leaning against the wall in the dining room as well.
The dust is EVERYWHERE and will take weeks to get clean, but it was the sheer audacity of not bothering to tell me that they had fried my entire kitchen wiring that left me speechless. By the time I got home around 7:00 on Friday, and discovered what was wrong, I was tired, didn't know where to begin with the cleaning, and without any lights except the dining room - it was going to be hard to see well enough to clean anyway. I went back across the street to the apartment, had some wine, watched a movie and went to bed.
Yesterday was a bit of a luxury problem. Dear friends of mine in DC had rented a stretch limo for the day so 12 of us could be ferried around the northern VA wineries all afternoon in celebration of their 5th wedding anniversary. Tough day. Needless to say, I didn't do anything about the house situation.
Today - I am going to make as much progress as the dust will allow, and tomorrow morning, I will call the flooring company to get them to send an electrician. Later this week, I will buy a new phone, and send them the bill for it. And once everything is fixed, they will send movers to put everything back where it belongs. I paid $400 for them to move the furniture as part of the contract.
I would readily recommend the company for the quality of their flooring work - but on their scheduling and moving skills? ummmm - not so much.
Anonymous: Oh yeah - I checked all the breakers first thing. Plus, there is a nice black electrical burn at the outlet in question.
I discovered by far the worst thing they left behind this morning when I went to the basement to start washing sheets and towels. The stench nearly knocked me over. I could not believe that the litterbox had gone so wrong. Turns out it was the basement guest bathroom. The toilet had two weeks of unflushed piss from the floor guys. The toilet chain to the water bubble broke during the family reunion weekend, and I hadn't had time to replace it. They would have noticed it didn't flush on the first try, but all you have to do is lift the tank lid and pull up the flapper to flush. They ignored this and pissed repeatedly till the bowl was nearly full. I nearly gagged cleaning it. Not happy.
Get a lawyer.