It has taken until yesterday for the contractor's guy to come and look at the door, attempt to fix it, decide he can't fix it, take measurements for a new metal thingy, and promise to install a new metal thingy.
He did the final bit of painting in my unit, too, so I was basically thinking ... OK, he'll install the new metal thingy on Monday, and then I can finally put my condo back on the market.
Except it rained last night.
And we found another problem.
There's water coming in my fireplace wall. It's pooling inside the wall, making the paint bulge out a bit. See?
That line really shouldn't be there. It's cool and puffy and full of water.
And while I was emailing a member of the HOA Board about this problem, I got a call from my downstairs neighbor asking if perhaps, maybe, it was raining in my fireplace, as it was raining in hers. Four little drips in the fireplace and one inside the wall.
(Oddly, the guy upstairs from me has experienced no fireplace/water difficulties.)
The HOA Board is, actually, all over this. (I think everybody wants to put an end to our leaks as fast as possible.) The management company is sending out a roof guy today; and one of the Board members has also independently got a roof guy to come out today -- one or both of whom should be placing tarps or sandbags or whatever around the chimney (because, right now, we've got a break in what was promised to be three or four days of rain, so now is the time to take action). The Board President has also hired a Rain Leak Company, who will come out a week from Sunday (first available appointment) to identify the problem, and hopefully we'll get it fixed ASAP.
In the meantime, the puffy bit in my wall has gone down, but not completely disappeared, and I don't know if I'm going to have to do any more repairs before I can re-list for sale.
In the meantime, contractor's guy called me this morning (at 7:30!) and asked if he could come by today and work on the door. And I said sure, thinking that he'd bought the new metal thingy and would be attaching it -- so that at least THAT would be done. No. He was pulling at it with the claw part of a hammer trying to readjust it. At one point, he made it largely stop scraping, but then he did more adjustments and it kept scraping again. Then he started pounded with the hammer onto the metal track on the ground that it was scraping against (because, yeah, now I want big dents in the track under my door) and then he gave up and said if I'd bear with him until Monday, he'd fix it. Seems that every time he adjusts it in one place, it rubs in another, so he's pretty sure my door is out of balance and he can take the door off the hinges and stick a shim in there and then my door would hang evenly and the little thing will stop scraping. And I said, "This is an easier repair than just replacing the little thing?" And he says yes. And then he asks me if the door gives me problems other times. And I say it sticks when it gets hot, but not at the bottom where we're experiencing the scraping now. And he says that realigning the door will fix that, too.
And then I say, "what are you going to do about the metal thingy?" because now that he's been hammering and pulling at it, it looks like ... well, I actually told him what it looks like, but I think it's one of those words I'm not allowed to use in AOL-J. And he said he'd smooth it out and repaint it. And I looked at him all skeptical-like, and asked about a new one. And he said, yeah, he could do that, it's a $15 part, and if he goes and gets one and reinstalls it just a smidge higher than the current one, it won't scrape. (And I don't think he even has to install it higher, because the old one never scraped at all before his dude bent it, but I keep that to myself.) And he says he can come back on Monday and stick the shim in the door and replace the metal thingy.
And I while I appreciate the efforts to rehang my door all nice and perfect-like, I have visions of twenty more things going wrong while he's making this gratuitous effort to leave things better than he found them. So I tell him to forget about fixing the door and just replace the metal thingy that his guy broke. Honestly, I'd be happy if he just left my door as good as when he found it.
... and I just had to go answer thedoor. One of the Board members (Yay Sue!) said they were up on the roof patching what they thought the problem was. And she also brought with her a handyman who wanted to see the damage to my fireplace wall so he could bid the repair and (assuming the patches on the roof hold over the next few days of rain) he'd start this week.
Deep breaths. We might get this thing listed yet.
1 comment:
And to think you want to own a house! All set to be your own HOA, general contractor and QC dept in one?
Good luck with getting these repairs done. I see troubled waters in your future.
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