Am I the only one that cares?

Thursday, August 21st, 2008 1:53 pm - Am I the only one that cares? OMG! I swear that I am just about ready to BURST with anger! Where I live there has been construction on the outside of the houses. There was a company hired to replace rotten wood. They were there from May till just last week, so that is three months. For three months they were parked in front of my house with a truck, a dumpster, assorted wood, a port-a-potty (that stunk to high heaven)and a very unattractive chain length fence that was covered with a green tarp. Finally they left, a piece at a time. First the fence, then the truck, then the port-a-potty and at last the dumpster. When these geniuses left, they just pulled out of there and never looked back. They of course left behind, in our parking lot, dozens of nails, pieces of aluminum, strips of wood and general garbage. The parking situation where I live is bad on a good day and the construction had tied up half of the parking for three months. As soon as residents saw that they could park there again, they would blindly pull into the spaces and puncture their tires on all the nails that were left behind. I took my push broom and went out there and swept up all the nails and small garbage. The mailman came up to me and asked me why I was doing that? The men will clean up their stuff. I said,"Oh, really? Do you see any of the men here offering to do that? They aren't going to clean it up because they would have done it right away if they were going to." A few days later, the painters were scheduled to come but first they were going to power wash the buildings to get them ready for the new paint. The windows of my house are old and not water tight. I started to think...if those power washer guys happen to hit the windows with a blast of water, it could very well fill the window sill and go who knows where. I called the company in charge and told them about the window situation. Not everyone has new windows and I am afraid it could be a bad thing if the sprayed the windows. The lady on the phone was very surprised to hear this... Come on woman, think about it! She then informs me that no other homeowner ,from where I live, has called about this potential problem. I told her I have turned the garden hose on my own windows before and the water just runs in the window. She told me that maybe I should put plastic up on the outside of my windows. I said no, maybe your men should do that. I am not going to climb onto the 2nd story of my house. So they came and powered washed on August 14th. Nothing bad happened except that Emily was supposed to go help Elizabeth with their dad's house. We were sealed into the house with plastic over the doors, and couldn't get out. Elizabeth called on her cell and said,"how are you supposed to get out?" Emily was secretly pleased that she was trapped, she didn't really want to go clean the new house. As I was talking to Elizabeth, began to sound like her voice was coming to me in stereo. "Where are you?", I said. "Outside your front door", she said. Elizabeth managed to peel the tape back and let Emily out of the house. The power washing was fine, no floods occurred and on the following monday, they were going to start to paint. On monday the 18th, the painters came and taped off the windows and doors again and started to spray the house it's new peachy beige color. The next day they started on the trim. I figured they were going to paint the trim an ugly brick red color that I didn't like, but oh well. When I pulled up in front of my house, I was a bit worried. Seems they had only painted around the windows and not the trim that runs up and down the building. They had left that part painted beige. I was thinking, no way could they be leaving it like that! It look stupid! I asked one of the painters, and all he said was that he was painting it the way they told him. I called the company in charge. The painter was right, he was not to paint all of the trim, just the part around the windows and doors. Wow, I told her that it looked like crap. She said the HOA was trying to "modernize" the look of the buildings. I tried to explain to her that the painting around the windows was never going to look right. It is always going to give the appearance that it is crooked because the paint goes over a raised piece of wood. Talking to her was a waste of time, because she was only having the painters do what the orders said. So I then called the management company for the HOA. The man in charge of my complex is a raging jackass. I told him that I wanted to talk to someone about the painting and in one long bored breath he told me the name of the man over seeing the project and what his phone number was. Ugh, I hate that man. Then I called the the man in charge of the painters. I told him that I was very unhappy about the paint colors and the general job that the painters were doing. That visually it will never look right and all that. All he kept saying to me was that he was sorry I felt that way about it. He said I should wait till they are all done with the touch ups before I pass judgement. That it really was going to modernise it in an artistic way. Now wait a minute buddy, stop right there! I didn't say that exactly, but I did stop him and tell him that I come from a very artistic family and that I know something about perspective, colors and the fact that you can not "modernize" a building by slapping some paint on it. All that does is change the color. These buildings are at least 30 years old and to make them look remarkably different you would have to strip the outside stucture and change it physically. I mean please, I watch Jeff Lewis's Flipping Out!!! I didn't say that. The conversation with him went no where. I'm sure he thinks I am a raving lunatic, but what can I say. Then on Aug 23rd, I looked out my window to see two of the board members looking at my house from the parking lot. Ahhh Haaaa! Here is my chance to speak to the people that are responsible for this monstrosity. I walked outside and said to goofball #1,"are you pleased with the way this paint looks?" #1 said,"well, it looks a bit different then we thought it would." That was my cue to go off on them so to speak. "Really?, I think it looks like crap." They both looked at me a bit horrified. #1 asked me why I felt that way. So I told her and told her and told her some more. Goofball #2 stood there with her arms folded across her chest and looked at me like I was the devil or something. I walked them over to my house so I could point out the crazy paint job in detail. I showed them how the paint would never look straight around the windows. I then showed them how the post that supports the roof was painted two colors, beige and chocolate brown. #1 agreed with me that the post had to be painted wrong, there was no way that was right. Then I showed them how the painters only painted the face of the trim and didn't go around the edge of the trim to the wall. I said that is just bad painting and wrong. #2 said,"not necessarily." I said,"yes necessarily. Are the door frames in your house only painted on the face of the wood or do you paint all the way around? Those are the rules of painting. You do it right or not at all." I showed them that the painters even painted over spider webs. I will admit that I was not very nice and didn't give them a chance to say much, but this painting thing has made me angry and I was not going to let my chance slip by without pointing out to them all of the things that bothered me. I also told them how unhappy we all were having to put up with the construction junk for three months. Then when they finally left, they left the place in a huge mess. Nails and aluminum garbage everywhere. I told them I had to clean it up myself. Then I pointed out that they had not replaced the cement stops in the parking places. Blah blah blah, that's horrible, they will come back and fix that. Whatever, I asked why there were three colors being painted on the house. #2 spouts up and said she had picked them and that she had not held them next to each other, she just thought they would look good together. WOW...oh my goodness. NO ONE with half a brain would do that! Turns out the #2 is the "president" of the HOA. I told them that I was sure that they were thinking that I should have gone to the HOA meetings before these decisions were made. I don't remember getting any flyer about a pick the paint meeting. I have more to say about this, but will do it at another time. Too many other things are happening to dwell on this right now.