The joys of moving into a new abode

The BBQ Pit
1

Pardon me for this longish mundane rant, but I’m feeling the urge to vent right now about some accumulated niggling things. Feel free to chime in with your own move-related gripes so I don’t feel so lonely. :stuck_out_tongue:

To the previous occupant:

Dad said you used to be a model tenant up until about 2 years ago. What the hell happened after that? There isn’t a thing in this apartment that doesn’t have to be repaired, replaced or refurbished apart from a section of the bathroom wall. Granted it’s nice for me to have new things but damn it’s expensive. A brief summary of assorted purchases:
[ul]
[li] new carpeting throughout the apartment, to replace the ?cola and dog-pee-stained one you had[/li][li] for the bathroom: a new sink & bathtub to replace the ones that you chipped the glazing from; repairs to the wall where you apparently tried to do your own repairs (for what? God knows) and screwed up; and a new tile floor to cover the one that you apparently never cleaned so that all the dirt became permanently embedded[/li][li] for the kitchen: a new countertop to replace the one you burned and let get warped because you never closed the kitchen window when it rained; new faucet to replace the one you broke; and a new stove to replace the one you beat the crap out of[/li][/ul]
There are other wonderful things you did, such as paint partially over outlets, switchplates, cabinet knobs, and apparently live like such a slob generally that there were fleas in the carpet and roaches in the kitchen (and likely elsewhere). And you were miffed when you left that my dad didn’t give your security deposit back? :rolleyes:

To AT&T:

About 3 weeks ago I went onto your web site to open an account for a land line. I got a phone number and a message that my service will be activated on October 6. Geez that’s a long time but since I was nowhere near ready to be in the apartment I didn’t mind so much. Fast forward to this week, when the (new) phone jack is wired in place and I get no dial tone. Apparently there’s no record of my order, and now I have to start with sales over again. Can you please tell me WHY it will take 7-10 business days to get my phone line activated? I have no doubt you were able to close the previous tenant’s account post haste, so why can’t you just flip a switch and get me connected?

The joke of this whole thing is that I had no intention of having a land line at all since I have my cell phone, but the building’s intercom works through the phone line. No phone = I can’t buzz people in, which has been a real nuisance this week in particular with the various contractor/delivery people coming by. Oh what fun, hanging around the building lobby for hours because said contractor/delivery people can’t buzz in and won’t (or can’t) specify when they will come. Which brings me to the last group.

To various contractors:

Please explain to me how you folks manage to stay in business/hang on to your jobs. I would love a job where the concept of time is so elastic. I really like how you told me that you’ll be there in the morning, with your secretary providing repeated assurances that yes you will arrive shortly, and then you don’t show up until 3 days later at 4:45 PM, without all the necessary tools/supplies so you’ll need to make a return visit “tomorrow morning” (insert meaningful glance at plumber here). Or how you told me that you’d come on Tuesday evening to start preparing walls and then you went incommunicado for 5 days, surfacing with a sob story about having to tend to your own rental apartment which the tenants trashed (long look at the painter here). Or after you said that you’d be done in 2 days with replacing the kitchen counter and the baseboard moulding around the apartment, you worked for 3 hours one evening and then let a week go by before you are “available again,” when I’d seen you head out for the golf course virtually every day of that week (stare at my carpenter/neighbor here).
Whew! I feel just a little bit better now. What’s that, Mom? Yessssss, I know I have to get my stuff out of your attic… noooooooo, it won’t take me until Easter to move the remaining 6 boxes out of there… sigh [sub] it will be over soon, it will be over soon, it will be over soon…[/sub]

2

Oh man, I know what you are talking about.

**The people who owned my house previously **

What is wrong with you? I am still finding your half assed repairs a year later, I 'll give you this, you were creative.

[ul]
[li] My favourite was when you needed to fix a copper water pipe. So instead of fixing the joint thing, or soldering the pipe, you tried to use some strange glue filed down one pipe so it fit inside the hard water deposit in the other pipe?[/li][li] What were you thinking when you painted this place? Hospital blue with big globs of white paint?[/li][li] Why did you leave all your garbage here? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn’t want your old nasty underwear?[/li][li] Why did you rip down half of the wallpaper, and leave the rest up?[/li][li] And when you moved out, where you really that hard up for cash that you had to take all the light bulbs?[/li][/ul]

3

Aaah yes strange people lived in my houses too:

[ul]
[li]If it required 4 screws there were only 3 and one was stripped.[/li][li]When there is a hole in the wall you really shouldn’t plaster OVER the wallpaper to fix it and then just shove a big piece of furniture in front of the mess.[/li][li]Hanging wallpaper should be illegal. If you hang it upside down you really are too stupid to be allowed to own property. The flowers don’t go stem up![/li][li]Exactly how much water do you need to splash out to rot the floor under the linoleum (which was moldy - ick!)[/li][li]Who in their right mind combines orange pineapple wallpaper with blue carpeting?[/li][/ul]

sigh

4

Oh, man, I can sympathize with you guys! We are remodeling our kitchen, and I swear, those builders/contractors were on crack! There is not a square corner in the place, and nothing is flush! Spacers and molding covering up every stupid measuring error—it is hell trying to rebuild/replace counters and cabinets.

But it will be beautiful when(ever) we are done!

5

People who paint over cabinet hinges, doorstops, drawer handles, cabinet knobs, outlet covers and switch plates need a high pressure hot semi-gloss enema, preferrably kept in place until dry by an appropriately inserted paint brush handle.

6

Yeah, but its so much work to install/replace latches and hardware to keep the window from opening, or to make sure that all that junk like switchplates and whatnot is actually screwed into place. Much easier to just slather on the paint like its frosting on one of those crappy supermarket cakes. And you’ve got to be careful about cleaning up that “load-bearing paint.”

And to all the respondents to this thread, it sounds like all of your have moved into the house I lived in during my senior year of college. If in fact you ARE talking about the big pink house on West University in San Diego, please allow me to offer my most profound apologies… for everything. Particularly the kitchen. If its any consolation, we were usually drunk when we broke stuff. As well as when we “fixed” it. A thousand apologies.

7

I moved into an apartment with built in drawers in the living room. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that one of them had approximately 50 toenail clippings in it!

Who saves their toenail clippings???

8

I’ve got some of these.

First, my mom painted over paneling. Yea, let me tell you, that looks amazing.

Now, to the apartment…

Why the hell is ONE WALL in the bathroom wallpapered? Who fucking wallpapers ONE WALL?

Would it have been too much trouble to ensure the doors actually close? And stay closed?

Did you have to paint over EVERYTHING? Surely the phone jack didn’t need covered in Kilz?

Would it have been too much trouble to ensure the toilet worked before we moved in?

9

The fellow who did the tiles in our bathroom had the tiling skills of a deranged aardvark. And I’m not saying I’d do any better, but this fellow theoretically got paid.

Every single one on the side closest to the tub broke within a month, and now water has infiltrated and they’ve started to heave.

But things are so hectic around here that I don’t have time to clean up enough for the landlord/contractor to come.

10

There is a certain sect of Buddhist monks who save all nail parings and cut hair so as to be rejoined with it during their final rites. And yes, their night soil is used in the food gardens. These chaps may qualify as the ultimate retentivists.

11

Is this a thread from the future? Some of you people seem to have moved into my apartment after I moved out. Only I haven’t moved out yet. :slight_smile:

12

I can’t believe it either. Seen it been there.

Painting over light switch covers Seen that to much. One of my biggest pet peeves. How lazy can you be. Why don’t you paint the couch while your at it? GRRRRRR.

Every one should be given a small tool box at birth. Nothing special, but some basics to keep them from using a spoon as a screw driver.

I feel for you sunfish. I’m putting a 2 story addition on my house. I himed and hawed about just doing the design and hiring a General Contractor to do the work.

So I got some bids from GC’s. Or I tried to. Got one, verbal. Most of the people I called never showed up (I took off work to meet them).

So I’m doing it myself. I did find an electrition that will at least call me if he is going to be late. He’s good. Everything else I can do myself.

I thought that it may be faster to hire this stuff out. But at this point I doubt that I wouldn’t even have a hole in the ground.

To all G.C.s and Subs - don’t tell me you are going to bid on a project when you have no intention of coming by.

Basically (since this is the PIT). Fuck you. If you can’t do the job, tell me. I don’t want to wait around for you if you can’t make it.

Out of 20 General Contractors and Sub Contractors that I have made APPOINTMENTS WITH, 10 actually showed up at the job. From that I got TWO bids, out of the 10 that showed up. They said they would send me a bid, but I never got anything. I took off work and waited for these guys.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I’m doing this myself.

Don’t want the job? Tell me. Call me back. Over price the hell out of it or something.

Don’t expect me to wait around with my thumb up my ass.

ENIPLA - two stories, dried in for the winter, I did it on WEEKENDS.

13

Unless they also tear the molding off the doorframes and leave food stuck to the walls, I don’t think they were the ones living in the apartment. Anyway, it would be too late for them, since the toenail clippings have already been sucked up to Hooverland.

14

I lived in a place that had carpeting in the kitchen.

Even stranger:

Friend of mine took went on a vacation a while ago. When he came back, he found his landlord had installed ceramic tiling in his bedroom.

-Apoptosis

15

Well, in the place I’m currently at, the previous owners have…

…used carboard to fix holes in the walls (where outlets, etc. used to be).

…put the stain and finish on the kitchen cabniet doors, right on top of the hardware.

…said hardware wasn’t coated properly, and so has left rust marks on the wood underneath.

…put wood paneling on two out of four walls, in two rooms.

…and wallpapered over one of them (both the paneling and the non-paneled walls), in a deep 70’s kitcshy blue pseduo-floral checkerboard pattern.

…did not prep any of the walls that had wallpaper on them. And they used extremely durable glue. No way to remove the wallpaper without damaging the wall behind it. (With the possible exception of the walls that are also paneled. That’s the next project.)

…put stick on tiles on the kitchen floor, directly over un-prepped vinyl.

…‘built’ a counter top directly over the washer in the laundry room, so that you can’t service the washer without remvoing the counter top. And, needless to say, in order to put in a new washer the counter top will need to be removed, leaving no counter space in that room.

…painted all the windows shut, and didn’t use masking tape so that there is also paint all over the windows themselves. (Don’t know if they themselves did this, or if someone did it for them.)

…whomever redid the roof didn’t clean up all of the crap from the attic areas, so when we put in more insulation we had to clean up a bunch of shingles, etc.

…used pale grey tiles for the shower floor, and light creme ones for the walls and ceiling. Net effect: a shower that always looks like it needs to be cleaned.

…installed all the outlets in the newer part of the house upside down, and some of the light switches as well.

…and so on.

And this house actually isn’t the worst place I’ve been in, for oddities. The worst was owned by a guy who loved to DIY. But never finished anything he did. (Partially dug out wine cellar under the house… added a second story, but never put the siding back on the house…)

<< The Definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in. >>

16

What pissed me off in my last apartment was, it looked like a crackhouse when I moved in. I mean this place was messed the hell up. So I cleaned up the best I could. A couple years later I’m doing the move out check, and the brat from the office is giving me hell.

“Hey, what’s that little stain over there on the carpet?”

“You mean the carpet I had to pay to put in because you wouldn’t replace the last batch, which was stained all over with what I can only hope was animal feces? It’s where I spilled some coke. Steam cleaner will take it right out. You’ll note in my rental agreement you were supposed to bring one in after I’d lived here two years. It’s been four, and you never did, so you can just chalk it up as normal clean up after a move out.”

“That’s coming out of the security deposit. Why is this paint peeling?”

“Because you painted this place in a single layer of cheap paint. And now, several years later, it’s peeling. That’s the thing with paint, you have to come back and do it again every so often. And the cheaper the paint you use, the more often you have to repaint.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

And so on. I mean, I know I’m not the cleanliest guy on the planet or anything, but this place needed an exorcism when I moved in, and I left it with the odd incidental smudge. Didn’t get cent one back from the deposit.

17

Dear former owner of my house,

I love how you installed an ice machine. It was a pretty nifty touch!
My favorite thing was how you decided to not drain the machine.
Nay, instead you just drilled a hole in the floor and let the machine drip down there, rotting out portions of the floor!

I also love how we got you to go down in the price of the house because of it. Didn’t think we’d check, didja?

In closing, I would also love to tell you how swell it was that you never paid bills apparently. I love STILL getting "final notice’ bills for you from businesses (3 years later). I loved when the Sheriff came looking for you, too!

Your pal,
Babs

18

I had a private eye come to our house looking for the daughter of the previous owner. He didn’t seem to like that I would not admit to being her. When he finally got it that we had bought the house from these people a few months ago and that I was not her he demanded to know where they moved to…

We bought the house from them. They are strangers to us. We did not form a meaningful relationship. I do not know where they live. You’re the PI … You figure it out!

Sheesh! :slight_smile:

19

To the carpenter who owned my house prior: Yes, you were amazing with wood. But WTF was your problem with electricity? You avoided anything remotely electrical by Amazingly Extrenous means.

For Instance:

I love having a light in my bedroom closet & upstairs hall closet. And yes, its a nice touch that they are mounted to door switches (they turn on when the door opens, off when it closes). But I have to tell you, I wasn’t too thrilled to see the wires stapled along the inside of the door molding from the ceiling down to the floor. Why didn’t you run it through the wall? Well, I guess I found out the answer to that question when I found that the end of the outside wire had a plug and was plugged into a closet outlet. I have to tell you, I haven’t seen that kind of craftmanship outside of a Fraternity. Where the Hell did you apprentice: Bozo’s FunHouse???

And the fireplace! I Love the way you painted the mantle around the fireplace white. Its very pretty and it looks nice next to the red brick of the fireplace. Looks nice, except for the spots where you * painted onto the brick!*. Honestly, is the technology of Masking Tape beyond you or what? Do you even know how hard it is to get white paint out of porous red brick?

And the Dishwasher! I love the kitchen dishwasher. I’ts cute & goes with the cabinets…and you obviously built the kitchen around it. So just one question: Why is it a Portable dishwasher??? Was it too hard to run pipes up to and down from a Real diswasher? Well I’m so sorry. Because to fix it, I’ll not only have to run the pipes, I’ll have to now rip out all of the kitchen’s wood cabinets, because nothing will match if I don’t. Best of all, that Portable Dishwasher leaks like a sieve.
And No, my Dishrack and I Don’t think thats very funny.

20

And windows. Don’t forget painting shut the windows. Although the only ones that were painted shut were the ones that had the window screens cut out - not removed properly, someone took an exacto-knife and cut along the edge of the screen, leaving a scraggly edge the whole way around. Nice.