Surfside III is Shitty (or at least Sewage-y)

A picture is worth how many words?


And how did we get here?

Well, there have been some "issues" with the condo since we've moved in (beyond the patchy paint job... and the fact that we're paying more for this "by the beach" hovel than we are in our mortgage):

• both toilets run
• the master bath shower has no pressure (as when the faucet pull thingy [a technical term, I'm sure] is pulled, not all the water is diverted to the showerhead... like only half)
• the master bath sink leaks above the counter (and below we learned today)
• both showers' handle controls are very hard to move
  

All annoyances, but liveable for now. But then on Monday, the kitchen sink backed up... wouldn't drain. So we sent Wes (the owner) an email:

Wes,

tried to contact you, but your voice mail did not pick up.

There's a couple of issues needing fairly quick attention:
kitchen sink is backed up
both toilets run
master bath shower (when the shower is on, only about half of the water comes up from the faucet into/through the showerhead... while the rest drains directly into the tub

We have a plumber that we've used in the past, can we call him? or can you call us back asap?

bw

He called Lisa back with the name of the condo plumber (Pipe Dreams... yeah, that about sums it up)... and replied to the email.

Hi Bill / Lisa -
Sorry to hear about the plumbing issues; as we discussed - go ahead and use the plumber you know for the non-drain work; for the drain work see if the association's plumber can resolve. If the garbage disposal is marginal (I think it was replaced at least once since) it may be a good idea to replace.
Schedule the service work when convenient for you and obtain a receipt. Let me know the invoice number, amount, and who / where to send payment. If they want immediate payment let me know and I'll stop by. Keep me posted - again, sorry for the inconvenience and hassle.
Thanks -- Wes

[NOTE: Lisa corrects me... based upon her conversation with Wes, talked to Marcy, who gave her the name of the plumber.]

Lisa called the plumber and had to leave a voice-mail. In the meantime, Joni and Jason had had good luck with their plumber Martin, so we got the number from them... just in case.

By the time, Pipe Dreams got back to us, it was yesterday afternoon, and he told us that without an emergency authorization from management, the earliest we could get them to come out was late next week. Well, we have to do dishes now (especially as I forced Lisa to pack only bare essentials for the move)... so we called Martin... and left a voice-mail. By the time we got to talk to each other last night, the best he could do was get some guys to come out this afternoon. Whatever. We'll take it.

So I wait for the guys and they show up, pretty much on time. I rattle off the list of stuff we need done, and show them around the worksite. The take notes and come up with a list of estimates... ewww, this is going to get ugly:

• fix the kitchen drain and snake it: $145 (and that must be done...)
• remove mix valve stems and plate handles on both showers (as they are hard to turn): $385 (this can wait)
• repair MB bath faucet to fix leak/corrosion of plug plunger (pop up assembly): $260 (and so can this)
• remove toilet tank to reset flush valve and flapper in both bathrooms (as they run): $140 (and so can this)
  

So they get to work doing the sink, and it all goes SEEMINGLY well. I pay them. They leave. I then go into the boys' room to put something away, when a smell hit me. Something nasty. Ill. Putrid. I opened the boys' bathroom door, and the smell got oppressive, and I pulled the door back and looked into the shower and there it was.

Three inches of black goo... water... drain and pipe junk... sewage. The stuff had small bubbles in it that would pop every so often.

Shit.

Maybe literally.

I called Martin back up, and left a voice mail, telling him that in fixing one problem, a second more smelly one had been created. Then I left for the office, thinking that this must AT LEAST meet the criteria of emergency.

I started to explain to the two people who were in the "greeting" area of the office (one of them asking midway through my tale, "What floor are you on?" and then frowning with -- what? knowledge? commiseration? at my response)... then three-quarters of the way through, simultaneously, the "greeters" told me that Marcy should hear this, and Marcy came through the inner door of the office, saying "If this is plumbing, I want to hear this."

So I started my story again. Again, the "what floor" question. And when I got to the point about Wes telling us to contact Pipe Dreams, she cut me off. "Well, that's where you went wrong. Not you, but your landlord. You should have called Lordon Management immediately."

Who?

They're the overall management company. They dispatch the "emergency" plumbers. Great.

So I continue my tale, uninterrupted to the end. She invites me in the office (all this time, I had been leading over the half-door that separates the office from the supplicants). I go back into Marcy's office. And she says that some of the stuff we found was our responsibility, but the drain stuff was theirs. What's the dividing line?

"The paint. Anything on your side of the paint is yours. Anything on our side (including the pipes and drainage) is ours." And at that she picks up the phone and calls one of Pipe Dreams' plumbers. She outline the problem, saying that with the sewage overflow, he needed to get there now. First floor, she says.

Again with the fucking floor. When she gets off the phone, I begin to ask her, but she holds her hand up, and dials again. She leaves a message for someone to call back immediately. I'm figuring this is Lordon, but she tells me that it's the owner of Pipe Dreams... seems the first call to a grunt plumber had not been meet with the requisite urgency on his part.

So I ask about the floor. She goes on to explain that all three floors use the same drainage pipe, and the first one to overflow will be, of course, the first. The pipes are thirty years old, and need to be redone, but the cost is 20K per unit, so the Association is a little slow on the uptake on that one, but because of this delay the pipes that were once this big (she holds both hands together, touching index fingers and thumbs to one another) are now this big (one handed, thumb to forefinger), and if that third story guy runs rice through his garbage disposal, well, we might see a little backup in that shower. But a full shower pan, she admits, is a little much.

"But you're only here a couple of months," she says.

"Six," I correct.

"Oh, then you may have rough couple of months."

GREAT. JUST FUCKING GREAT.

Then she pauses and says, "749, right? Next to the elevator?" Yep (next to the loudest damn elevator I've heard, but I keep this to myself). "Eww. Where do you park? Not next to the elevator, right?" No. "Thank goodness. We're repairing the elevator, and the six parking spots next to your door will be taken up by equipment. And those spaces will move to the guest parking adjacent." There goes parking the Cabrio within this zip code.

The hits just keep coming. This everlasting moment of bliss is interrupted by a call, a return from the Pipe Dreams head. She goes over the situation (again noting the floor). He'll be there by six, she says as she hangs up. "That's an hour and fifteen," she says in a tacit admission of lameness, "But at least we'll make this right tonight."

I head back to the condo, and within minutes Lisa arrives from a goodbye luncheon. I fill her in. She takes it in much more calmly than I (not surprisingly), but she seems numbed by it all. Within minutes, the phone rings and she picks it up. Pipe Dreams, asking about the state of the shower. Overflowing yet? Water or goo? Black or brown? They want her to go upstairs and ask the neighbors to cut down on water usage in the next couple of hours. She feels really uncomfortable about this, but does it anyway.

THIS IS WAY FUCKING BEYOND THE SCOPE OF BEING A TENANT, but she does it anyway. And she tells me to take Kyle to water polo practice... she'll take care of the plumber. I had told her to go (especially since the Coreys were going to the same pool as Kyle has practice for recreation open swim), but I think she fears me killing the plumber, so she send me on my way. And I go.

But before I go I send the following to Wes:

Had our guys from Martin's Plumbing come in today to check and estimate work, plus snake the kitchen sink. As I had them work on only the sink, I've enclosed a picture of the estimates.

Once the snaking of the kitchen was done, water flowed fine (and the guys left), but then I went into the boys' bath and found the shower overflowing (almost to the brim) with what had been snaked and sewage.

Spoke with Marcy at the office, and she called Pipe Dreams with an emergency authorization for a fix... they'll be here (they say) within the hour. I hope so, as it's pretty nasty in there.

When I was describing the situation to the folks in the office (before Marcy stepped in), I was asked repeatedly (and again by Marcy when she worked with me) if we were on the first floor. She said we were in for a rough couple of months.... I hate to say it, but this is all very much less than optimal.

Just wanted to keep you apprised of the situation.

bw

PS, if you can't make out the estimates, they are as follows:

[and I put the estimates I quoted above]

I sit here at practice, typing this in, occasionally watching Jack do the water slide, occassionally going over to peek in on water polo practice, slowly calming down. The fact that the guy didn't arrive until 6:30 doesn't help my attitude, but knowing now (at 7:30) that the mess is cleaned up and everything is working properly for the time being, does. (as does the promise of rum when I get home)

One thing is troubling, though. The plumber told Lisa that he thought the trouble was caused by the dishwasher and the laundry.

We had run neither today. It only happened after the snaking (the guys from Martin's went into the bathroom to check it out before the snaking and there was nothing there). But he claims that's the cause.

If that's the expert opinion, it may be a "rough couple of months" indeed.