[sub]Or the day Bunnymom began her killing spree…[/sub]
My family has lived in the same house in Lake Jackson, Texas since mid-1973. In 1977 my father passed away, making my mother the sole bread winner, head of the household and the homeowner. In 1997, planning to retire in November 2002, my mother began rennovating her home, getting repairs done that she’d not been able to afford before (she’s not exactly wealthy now), and trying to make her home a nice place to spend here retirement in.
Though my brother and I helped her as much as possible with things, in the end all the contractors and workers etc. made their agreements with her, as it was her (retirement) money that was to pay them. What ensued was to be quite an education on what its like to be a woman homeowner in Lake Jackson. I wish to share our experience with other female homeowners (both current and prospective), so that they can go ahead and resign themselves to the (apparently) inevitable.
Her first project was to get the house leveled. She took bids on the leveling from several local companies, finally taking the most reasonable one from a company that is now no longer in business. This was where we learned our first lesson:
1. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, you must be prepared for folks you hire to perform a service in or to your home to NOT do many of the things they say they will.
For instance, if the leveling company owner says that he will bring in an auger to dig holes in the backyard, expect to see that instead of an auger there are several men with shovels performing this task. Also, if the owner says he will replace the parts of your concrete patio that his men remove, and make it like it was, expect them to just dump quick-setting concrete in the gaps, and not bother any more with it.
After having the house leveled, my mother’s next project was to get the house remodeled inside, replacing the cracked sheetrock, getting new paint, carpet and vinyl, etc. She waited 6 months after the leveling, just as she was instructed by the leveling company to do, and then paid several thousand dollars (of her retirement) to have the new walls put up, new carpet put in and new vinyl installed. It was lovely and everyone was quite pleased with the look of mom’s “new” house. It was not till a few months later that we were to learn lesson number 2:
2. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, be prepared to have companies not tell you all the facts about their work.
For instance, if you level the outside of a house, you MUST level the inside also. Otherwise, the inside will continue to shift while the outside holds straight, and will cause all your nice new sheetrock to crack, plaster to fall from the new ceiling, and the new vinyl to buckle and warp. It will also cause you to have to spend another chunk of your retirement money to have another company level the inside, and repair all your ruined new sheetrock and flooring. And you get to buy more vinyl, too, as its not reusable.
So my mother hired another local company to come in and rip up her new flooring and finish the job the first company “started”. She then paid the remodeling company some more of her retirement money to fix the cracked sheetrock, and bought new vinyl and paid to have that installed.
After leveling, we understood that there would be some plumbing to be done, as the shifting had broken a number of the old clay pipes. My mother hired another local company to replace ALL the plumbing under and coming from the house. Here we learned lesson number 3:
3. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, you need to be a trained plumber. If you are not a trained plumber, the plumbers doing your work will not do things right because they know you wont have any indication its wrong untill its buried and they are out of there.
The toilet would not flush, there were pipes above ground on our patio, there were access pipes (clean-outs) all over the yard, and nothing was vented. There was water leaking out from under a wall in the bathroom whenever someone bathed or showered. Whenever we tried clear the line (to avoid mother having to pay even more money to have the pipes snaked) we always got the hose stuck going around the many, many corners. Which brings us to lesson number 4:
4. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, do not expect the contractors to return any of your calls after they have been paid. Especially once
they know that you are having a problem with their work.
So again, my mother hired a different company to do the job correctly. Here we learned lessons 5 and 6:
5. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, be prepared to have nearly every home repair or improvement done twice. And be prepared to pay each time.
7. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, understand that even though the city inspector will nitpick you to death over codes when you want to pour a concrete floor for your shed, do not expect them to be overly-critical about what a ‘company’ does, or critical at all. All the work described in this letter passed inspection by the city.
Once the house plumbing had been repaired, a sink hole appeared in mom’s front yard under the sidewalk. When we called the city, they sent out two men to have a look, who then told us that they would come out with a mechanical tamper and fill the hole in and tamp it down. Please refer to lesson number 1 here. Instead of a mechanical tamper, we observed two men with sand and shovels fill the hole in and pat it with their shovels. The sink hole soon reappeared and remains to this day.
Also after the plumbing repairs were complete (the second time), we began having problems with the line clogging where it connected to the city line. We repeatedly paid a local company to come clean it out, and were told that the problem seemed to be that when the city replaced the sewer lines, something did not get connected correctly and that we should let the city know so that they could fix it, as the problem was on their easement and was due to their connection. We called the city again, and described the new problem, pointing out the sinkhole (most likely caused by the free flowing sewer that was not draining into the main). They hemmed and hawed and told us to call the plumbing company, have them send a man out and have him wait till someone from the city could be bothered to meet him here in order to hash out whose problem this was. As of this writing, the problem still exists, because we cannot afford to pay a plumber more money to just stand in our yard and wait for a city worker to get around to coming over. Which brings us to rule number 7:
7. As a female homeowner in Lake Jackson, know that while the city will act with lightning speed to inform you that you have too many bikes in your yard, that your sons project truck must be moved or they will fine you, or your grass is too high and you must mow or they will fine you, they will take plenty of time getting any problem you have with them resolved. And if they can find or think up any rule or regualtion to stall or stymie your request for help, they will do so.
To conclude, there are many things a female homeowner in Lake Jackson needs to know, and I hope that spelling things out like this will help others. One has to wonder though, whether after learning these lessons, any new female homeowners would even want to own homes in Lake Jackson.
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By now I’m sure that you’re all wondering why we haven’t taken anyone to court to over all this. Unless one of our esteemed legal dopers knows otherwise, there is nothing we can do. The first leveling company is no longer doing leveling, the first plumber seems to have a ‘relationship’ with the city inspector who approved his work, and the city is, well, the city…can’t fight city hall and all that. Additionally, when mom spoke with her lawyer (who is now a judge) he was not at all enthused about helping her, and she does not really know who (or what) else to try. And she does not now have the funds to pay a lawyer as it is.
I’m just so damned pissed off that my mom keeps getting fucked, and when we kids try to help out we get fucked too. Its not as if we are morons, we genuinely try to be informed consumers. It just seems that when the work gets started, and my mom and myself are the only ones around to observe things, that the contractors just do whatever the hell they want, knowing that us women won’t have any idea whether its correct or not. And now, mom has been diagnosed with breast cancer, so we’re just a tiny bit busy addressing that. But the absolute worst part has been watching my mother be so elated with her nice “new” house, and then be saddened and dissapointed and finally defeated when everything she tries to make nice goes to shit.
I swear, when hubby and I are in the market to buy a house, we will never, ever buy a place in Lake Jackson, and we’ll do our own damn home repairs, or die trying.
