I can tell by the emails I’ve been getting that many people are nearly as impatient to see this house completed as I am. (“WHEN will the #%$!* house be ready?” is typical of the missives I’ve received of late.) If you’ve been following this blog, you already know that 1) there is never an easy answer to what would appear to be a very easy question and 2) no progress can been achieved in this situation without attendant nonsense, chaos and stupidity. Ready for the September version? Yes? OK, here we go. There are a lot of moving parts that collide in a spectacular *#^@%-up mess toward the end. There’s also a lot of math involved. So get out your pencils so you can draw a diagram and run the numbers simultaneously, just like I had to do.
The first item on the agenda is that the estimated completion date slipped from early September to “sometime in October.” A small part of the blame goes to Glenn the contractor, but he and I have already had a verbal slap-fight about it and then made up, so I won’t go into the details. The primary culprit – shockeroo -- is the city.
Let’s see if I can explain this issue with the city without causing some blood vessels in my brain to burst. If you recall, the city required me to install fire sprinklers in my house. This cost about $25,000 and while it was covered by insurance, I couldn’t be reimbursed until that part of the construction was done. (Start drawing diagram and also write down “$25,000.”) In order for the sprinklers to actually function in accordance with current building codes, the city required that a larger water line be installed beneath the street to my house. Glenn started working with the city water department on this almost three months ago (add to diagram) and up until two weeks the city had made no discernible progress EXCEPT to submit a bill for yet another $25,000 to install the water line at some point. (Write $25,000 + $25,000 and compute subtotal.) I paid that bill to keep things moving but as with the first $25,000, I cannot get reimbursed until the work is done, paperwork submitted to insurance company, tense negotiations initiated, etc., etc., blah, blah.
You may also recall that the house must be 100% complete before the city will issue a certificate of occupancy. This work includes the new water line. So the city won’t issue a certificate of occupancy if its own work isn’t finished. And not only is that work not finished, it hasn’t even started. (Please continue drawing your diagram.)
You may also recall that for the last six months the insurance company has been giving me a very hard time about paying my rent, usually waiting until mere hours before I would have to give notice on the rental house before providing funds for another 30 days (continue working on diagram). They stopped paying as of September 1st and so I paid this month’s rent myself, hoping I would get reimbursed but again getting stonewalled by the insurance company. You will be shocked beyond your wildest dreams to learn the market rental rate for a furnished house in my neighborhood. It is – wait for it -- $6,000 per month. My neighbors and I have talked about this ad nauseum because none of us ever suspected anyone would pay even half that amount to live here and if someone had only told us we could charge $6,000 a month we would have fled the neighborhood immediately and become cash-rich landlords as opposed to mortgage-poor locals. So here’s the irony: I can afford to own a house in my neighborhood but I can’t afford to rent a house in my neighborhood (add $6,000), so Jon and I are moving out by October 9th.
Am I tapped out financially? Yes. (Do the math.) Will construction of the house be finished by October 9? I seriously doubt it. Do we know when it will be finished? No. Do we have a place to live? Not really. Do we know if the water line will be installed this month as the city’s subcontractor promised? No.
Do I care? You know what, I really don’t at this point. After living in a stranger’s house for more than two years and spending the last six months conducting a low-level freak-out over the fact that I might get displaced before my house was ready, now that my worst fear has actually been realized I’m too exhausted to worry about it too much. There’s that line in the Bruce Springsteen song that goes, “You can get used to anything, pretty soon it just becomes your life.” I don't universally agree with that notion, but in this case it is spot on. We are packing right now – the rental house is overflowing with bubble wrap, packing tape and boxes that we have pilfered from various local merchants -- and I’ve arranged to store our relatively few possessions with friends (thanks everyone!). We also have some potential back-up locales in which to crash for however many weeks we need (thanks again everyone!). So let's load up the SUV and head on out to wherever. We’ll figure it out as we go.
What you also need to know is that while all this bull**** is going on, my new house is looking fantabulously great. I just love it. Cabinets and tile are being installed and yesterday they secured the floating staircase leading to the second floor. The floors (walnut!) and stone surfaces will be coming soon. It’s an airy, light-filled, modern thing. The colors are muted (blues, grays, creams and browns) and then there are those white walls I love so much. The views are great and a seriously badass Wolf range is en route as I write this. Maybe not the thing for you but man, is it the thing for me. It’s very weird to be preparing for yet another transient phase while watching the new house come together, but like I said, I am too wrung out at this point to get upset. It also doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of fun with it.
So here’s the deal. (Don’t put those pencils away yet.) You have the facts above about the current state of affairs. I’m also providing some pictures below that show you the state of the house as of yesterday. If you can correctly guess the actual date we get to move into the new house you will win a really good bottle of wine. If you can guess the month and year I get reimbursed the amount I’ve discussed in this post (check your addition one more time) you’ll win a bottle of vintage champagne. It is the more expensive prize because at that point I will actually have some money. Here are some additional facts to help you:
- The subcontractors work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday without fail, but they do not work overtime because after all insurance doesn’t cover that.
- Installation of the new water line was supposed to start this week but that hasn’t happened. Remember, this is the city that took four months to complete what should have been a four-week process to approve the building plans.
- All of the materials needed to finish the house have arrived. There won’t be any delays because, say, a faucet is on back order.
- Assume I will keep paying all the bills to keep things moving.
- Don’t forget: Even if construction is completed on a certain date, the new water line has to be installed by the city or the city won’t issue a certificate of occupancy. Bad city!
Good luck! You can forward your submissions to the comments section of the blog or to my email address.
