Ignore them, and maybe they will go away

I was just thinking yesterday that Fulton has continued to fail to address our problem with the soft water. You see, the soft water loop includes the cold water in our kitchen, even thought the sales agent and the soft water people insisted that it didn't. Finally we bugged them enough so that they tested it, and sure enough...we're drinking soft water.

We've asked them to fix this I'd say at least 5 or 6 times, and each time they blow us off somehow. What a pain. We've been buying bottled water for months now. We can't even water our plant with this tap water...the salt kills them. (And we suspect the outside hoses are softened too, essentially making the water useless for yard stuff.)

I guess I'd better get on them again about this. So frustrating!!! I know they are just hoping we'll go away.

Transitioning to Customer Care

We're now being helped by the Customer Care people instead of the construction guys on site. They seem to have their act together more. It takes a really long time to get an appointment to have someone come out and fix things, but so far there have been a lot fewer cancellations. (Although we almost lost it when we had to go out of town unexpectedly and called to cancel two appointments and the Fulton guy said something to the effect of, "Come on buddy, don't cancel on me if you want the work done." He obviously had no idea how often people had cancelled on us. Or maybe he did and he just didn't care. I think he was trying to make a joke, but at this point it really, really wasn't funny.)

So we're happier with the service, but we're still not sure about Fulton and/or the community. I think Fulton is out of here, but there are still many, many cracks in the new stucco walls all around the develoment that have been primed over but not painted. It looks terrible, and it's been that way for the last two months, so I'm starting to think they aren't going to fix it. Also, we learned that our community is 70% investors. When we bought we were told they were limiting it to 30%, so we feel pretty deceived. I know that is a hard thing for a builder to control if people lie, but there is a huge difference between 30% and 70%. Also, I'd say half the plants in people's front yards are dead or dying because the sprinklers aren't set up right, but that is probably the landscapers fault and not Fulton.

No hot water for you!

Our microwave stopped making things hot today. It makes all the running noises (with the addition of a springey sounding "boing" every once in a while); but no hotness inside. It's only two months old. I've never heard of such a thing.

Anyway, it's supposed to be covered by our Whirlpool warranty, but their office was closed when I called (they knock off at 6:00 p.m. eastern time).

Sigh. I didn't realize how dependent I was on the microwave until it went out. I needed to reheat some leftovers in the oven and I didn't really know how. In what kind of container? For how long? And when I boil water for tea, I keep forgetting to go get it since there is no "ding" when it is ready.

Freedom!

Yesterday afternoon was the first time all week that we weren't stuck at home waiting for some worker to come over the "fix" something. (I use the word fix loosely, since that is only what they are attempting to do, and often is not what they actually accomplish.)

So we suddenly realized our state of freedom and ran to our car for a short outing. Joy! Freedom! It's so sad how low the bar has fallen for happiness these days.

Trapazoid is the new square

Side note: While the windows guys were here, we had them look at our upstairs window that is nearly impossible to open. They said it is because the window framing isn't square. Of course! This all makes sense! We've already noticed that the walls aren't square in lots of the rooms, and the glass block window frames are really off-square too (so much that you can see the screws).

Fulton must have decided that trapezoid is the new square, and they just forgot to tell us!

Anyway, apparently the only way to fix the window is to rip the whole thing out and reframe it. That should be fun.

I've had workers in my house for at least half the day all week long. We've been in the house now for five or six weeks, and it seems never ending.

I don't mean this personally against any of the individual guys; but I hate them. I hate that my house is not my own. I hate that they come by whenever works for them. I hate that they make dust and fumes. I hate that whole rooms are not useable. I hate the inherent waste of the entire process. And I especially, especially hate it when they aren't friendly.

And I can get high for free!

They came to replace our scratched windows today, so I had to vacate my office for a while. But now the whole room smells like some kind of sealant or glue. I opened the window and tried to work for a while, but ended up feeling pretty loopy and decided the laptop on the couch would be better for my remaining neurons.

Then a really grumpy guy from Adams Brothers came by to investigate the lumps under our carpet. (He was supposed to come yesterday, but well, I guess that just didn't work out for them.) So, because some idiot left two scraps of carpet padding under our carpet when they installed it (and Fulton couldn't possibly fix it before we moved in), we had to move all of our furniture out of the living room (and back in) so that grumpy guy could pull up the carpet and get the scraps out.

Tip to grumpy guy: I don't know if you were pissed at the people who screwed up our carpet, or pissed at us for being so darn pickey as to want a living room without topography, but either way drop the attitude. We were nice and personable to you, and I expect at least the same in return.

I'm so tired....

Sleeping on an air mattress in my "new" home=tired and grumpy.

Laminate guy came today with the correct size flooring. Yay, we have flooring. Boo, he can't install a toilet and the room still isn't functional (plus the toilet continues to reside in the middle of the room, making the sinks, etc. nearly unuseable). (He was a nice guy though, nothing bad about him personally.)

Tom came to do painting, filling of dings, etc. So we spent a lot of time this morning going through the house and pointing out the many, many things that the painters missed or did wrong yesterday. What a complete, irritating waste of time. I'm so glad the painter left us his number in case we need more painting work later. I'll definitely call him....when hell freezes over!

Piecing it Together

The mold inspection finally came in, and we are in the clear. So a few days ago the laminante flooring guy (from Adams Brothers) came in to finally put some flooring back in our master bathroom. (How long has it been now that we haven't been able to use our master bathroom? Weeks, I think.)

Unfortunately, they gave him a piece of laminate that was too small, so he couldn't finished the job. But after he got done with the prep work, our bedroom smelled so much like glue that we had to sleep in the living room on an air mattress. Ah, the comforts of home.

The painters were here all day touching up all the stuff they did wrong before (and covering up all the new drywall). I'm never lonely with all my new "friends" from Fulton dropping by whenever it works for them.