Christmas Times A Coming Part 2

If you have already read part 1 then this is a continuation of that. 

So, the water pipe that burst a few floors above us of course caused our apartments to flood. And of course, with flooding comes a lot of water cleanup. In our case it could have been much worse, but we were fortunate that the water didn't cause any damage to our personal belongings. But however, that water was soaked into our laundry room and kitchen floors and had soaked a small section of carpet. 

In my opinion it was way less water damage than what I originally thought it would end up being. Which was a good thing, but it did not make the cleanup process and flooring replacement any quicker or easier. And I thought that I was going to lose my mind before it was all over with though. 

This incident all happened during a time that was already a stressful time of the year since it was during one of the busiest Holiday times of the year and also during a time in my life that was a very trying time for me with my Meniere's Disease in full swing. And I guess that being a little stressed than normal didn't help with that either. 

So, after evaluating our apartments for any damage caused; the apartment complex determined that they wanted to replace our carpet and flooring. That was great, until it wasn't. They told us that they were going to come replace the flooring, which really did need to be replaced because I do believe what we had already, had been in the apartment since it was first built which has now been over 20 years ago. And they told us that they were going to replace the carpet which was fine because at that point it had been in the apartment for 8 years at least or more if they didn't replace it when we had moved in. 

So, we started preparing for all of the new flooring that we were getting by first taking down all of the Christmas decorations and the tree to get it out of the way. And then we started working at getting as much of the small things moved out of the areas that they would be working in. This meant that we needed to move all of it to the bedrooms since they would not be replacing the bedroom carpet. That was fine, I could live with that for the next week or so. Or at least I was under the impression that it would take about a week. But a week ended up turning into weeks. Sighhh. 

In the meantime, they came back to the apartment to give us a choice of whether we wanted carpet or plank wood flooring. We gave it a quick thought and decided on plank flooring. And I thought that wow, this disaster we had endured was turning into a blessing instead. But then that dream was short lived when a few days later they announced that the Insurance was making them replace the carpet with new carpet instead of us being able to get plank wood flooring. So, okay whatever, we continued to make sure things were being moved away and kept out from the areas that they would be replacing. We moved everything except for the larger furniture. 

And then we waited! And waited! Which by the way we had already been waiting several days by this point. And waiting patiently may I add. Or at least trying to. So finally, we had a couple of floor guys come in and they stayed approximately an hour. They ripped up part of the carpet. And then they told us that they would be back the next day and I thought it was kind of odd since the next day would be a Saturday, but I figured they must work on Saturdays, that's cool. But Saturday came and went, and nobody showed up. In fact, it would be about another week before anyone showed back up to do about 30 more minutes of work. In the meantime, we are trying to keep stuff picked up and out of the way just in case they were to show up and do some more work and we were planning our days around a possible day that they might show up. By this point I was getting a bit perturbed and just want this to get done and out of the way so that I could go back to living a somewhat normal life again. It was tiring and stressful to try to keep everything picked up and out of the way each day just for no one to show up. 

So, as we were waiting for someone to come back and there had been days of waiting without any word from anyone, all of a sudden, we receive and email from the office telling us that the work crew had come to our apartment, and we refused to let them in to do any work. And it was imperative to let them be able to do what they needed to. 

WHAT!!!????

At first, I thought this email was sent to all of the ones of us who were having work done in our apartments, but I went ahead and responded to the email anyway to let the office know that we had been waiting patiently for them to show back up and had not seen Hyde or hair of them yet. So, then the office manager responded back to me saying that they were told by the work crew that we would not let them in. I told her that that was not true and that I had proof on my door camera that no one had shown up yet. 

Anyway, by this point not only had they not shown back up after only doing an hours' worth of work so far, but some fans and dehumidifiers had been installed in our apartment to help draw out as much water as possible. Well, these were industrial size humidifiers and fans, and eventually even more were added within the living room, kitchen and laundry room. So, you can only imagine all of the noise that these machines added. Now imagine 6 people including 2 small children living with all of this. And now imagine someone who suffers with Meniere's disease living with all of this. And if you have not had a chance to read about my Meniere's Journey blogs yet, please make sure to do so. It explains about what I have dealt with since developing it. So, remember I had all of this taking place at the same time. The mix of extra noise, stress and all really amped up my Meniere's. Making for unpleasant situations. And bad thoughts going through my head of wanting to tell them all off. lol

One fan and dehumidifier turned into several more before it was all done and over. And for approximately 30 days we endured all of this before everything was completed. Our neighbors had to endure it even longer. Bless their hearts. 

They eventually came and tore up the remaining flooring and carpet, but I can tell you that they took their sweet slow time. And they wanted to blame it on the Holidays along with the cold freezing weather that we were having that was putting delays on this company that they had hired to complete everything. But in my opinion, they should have hired someone else after the first week when they weren't showing up and then telling fibs about coming and us turning them away. 

So, as I tried to hold my tongue and keep my cool and be as patient as I could about this whole ordeal and thought that I was going to lose my mind over all of the noise from these huge machines running day and night, I started typing my email to the office manager and it was long too. Just like my blogs are. haha. But right as I was proof-reading my email before I hit send. A knock comes on the door. It was the field office manager and the owner of this particular company. They were stopping by to check on everything and to I guess make sure their men were doing what they were supposed to, and do you think that they didn't get an earful from me? Well, of course they did. lol. I made sure to let them know that I didn't appreciate their men trying to say we would not let them into our apartment and made sure I told them that we have a door camera, and we save our footage so there was at no time that anyone showed up while we were not around, nor did they show up at any time to work and we turned them away. So, their answer to that or excuse or whatever you want to call it was oh, they probably had you mixed up with another apartment. 

Okay, so when are your wonderful men going to finish the work at our apartment because at this point it was nearing a month and they had only been for a total of about 4 working hours so far to do anything. So, the excuse to that was that they had been so tied up with other jobs prior to us,`+  and we were not the only ones who they were doing work for. So, my reply to that was well, you should have never accepted this job if you knew it would be difficult to have your men come and do in a timely manner. I received crickets back on that. And of course, I expressed my displeasure of all of the noise I was having to endure from the humidifiers and fans running day and night and not to mention the fact that it was 20 degrees outside and 80 inside and we had to run the AC nonstop which of course that was the wrong thing to do because we needed to be running the heat in order for the machines to work efficiently and do their job in drying up all of the water so that the work could be finished up. 

We also had different parts of the ceilings that needed to be patched from water stains. Which to this day if you look at our ceilings and where the water ran through, you will see the patch work. A good contractor or maintenance person would have covered it up to blend more in with the remaining ceiling, but with the fact of us only renting and it being an apartment and us not having to pay for the repairs being done. Which by the way, our apartment complex was not paying for this either because they filed a claim through the Insurance that we pay a part of each month. So never mind, we did pay for the repairs after all and continue to do so each month and have been for 9 years now. But anyway, yes it looks ridiculous but at least we did finally get our new carpet and flooring installed. 

And that day that I sent an email to the office manager after having enough of everything and after letting the repairmen's manager and owner know how fed up, I was, they came and took out all of the humidifiers and fans. Hallelujah. And it only took about a week to completely finish everything up. 

I do want to add that I have high respect for our Maintenance Crew at the apartment complex (Although they don't need to get a full-time job in repairing ceilings which by the way they should have never been obligated to have to finish up the other men's jobs they were supposed to have done) they worked through the holiday and endlessly until everything was completed. 

I don't know if the apartment complex just ended up firing this company (I wanted to) or what because I never saw them again and like I said the maintenance men came back to finish up the ceilings and a different work crew came to put down the new flooring and carpet. And I have to say they were awesome! Within a 4-hour window they came and moved all of our big furniture out of the way, put down the new carpet, and the flooring in the laundry room and kitchen and put all of the furniture back, they were pleasant and there were no issues with them. I don't know who they were, but I would hire them again any day. 

So that was the story of how our 2022 ended and our 2023 began. Eventful indeed but like i had said, it could have been way worse, and I am thankful that it wasn't, but we survived and here we are almost a year later.