HOUSE DRAMA

I am going to keep a list of discrepancies on this post and add to it as things happen during the two years that we live here. We've had a very negative experience with moving into this home and I feel like if I write it all down on a piece of paper it will get lost or forgotten about. If I keep track of it here I will always be able to refer back to it easily and add to it as needed. 

April 2nd - Moved into our home. It was filthy. We were told by a woman named Elizabeth that our house would be professionally cleaned. She stated this when I asked about the moth ball smell in the house and she said it should be gone by the time we move in because it would be professionally cleaned. It wasn't, it was dirty. The owners hair was on everything from walls, to light fixtures and all over the bathroom. The top of the fridge was gross, the microwave vent was coated in grease and when touched fell to the floor (ended up being bent and will not probably secure down). There were a few dead roaches laying around. The back door of the house that leads to the back yard was locked but was left wide open. The gate to our privacy fence is broken and also left wide open. Our grass was a forrest and hadn't been cut in a while (it took TJ two trips around the yard to cut it). The latch to the screen door was broken. We were not left with keys to the garage door, the back door or one of the bedroom doors that has an external knob installed on it.

Peyton's door knob didn't work right and the door was too long for it's space and would drag on the carpet when trying to close it. Both the trash can and recycle can were filled to the brim and the trash had just been picked up a couple days before so we had to way a week to be able to throw anything away and 2 weeks to put out any of our recycling. Water damage on the ceiling and on walls.

 The washing machine was turned sideways in a small closet and we are almost certain it was turned correctly when we looked at the house but to be turned correctly it can not be hooked up to the hoses in order to make it work. The dryer vent goes out into the garage which we were told is not a good thing and it will cause mold and rust - after we run the dryer the floor in the garage gets wet.

When I complained about the cleanliness of the home I was told that a house is always very clean when a renter moves out because they are responsible for getting the home professional cleaned but that when you move in behind a home owner that they can leave the home in any condition they would like and there's nothing you can do about it.

 When we complained about the yard we were told they would provide us with one free lawn care service. If we want keys to the 3 doors missing keys we have to take the knobs off and bring them to Lowes and get keys made and submit the receipt for reimbursement. 

April 3rd - The non working door handle on the back screen door fell to the floor and broke. TJ bought a new one and replaced it.

April 4th - Peyton shut her bedroom door while she was in her room. TJ tried to get into her room to put a lamp in it and her door wouldn't open. The doorknob would turn but the door wouldn't budge. The inner workings of the knob had some kind of rod sticking out and it wouldn't go back in. TJ tried to pry it back inside the knob with a screw driver and it wouldn't budge. Then he tried to take the door knob off, he unscrewed all the screws but the metal rod still wouldn't come out of the wall.  Peyton was screaming and crying. TJ pushed in the door and it broke. We called and explained what happened and we were told that we broke it and we have to fix it. We had to buy a new door and door knob and my Father in law brought up a saw to cut the door down to fit so it didn't drag on the carpet anymore.  Pat told us that if we would have left Peyton in there and called the fire dept and let them break the door then we wouldn't have had to pay but since we broke it we were responsible.

April 7th - TJ and are were woken up by a GIANT loud crash downstairs followed by the kids screaming and crying. We ran downstairs and apparently the tabs under one of our shelves in a kitchen cabinet broke, causing the shelf to fall forward and out of the cabinet. This shelf happened to have all of our glass dinner plates and glass cereal bowls on it which all crashed to the floor and broke. Glass flew all over the house. Tyler and I were the only two that got cut with glass. That was a very traumatic morning.

April 16th - Found something that looked like a termite in Tyler's laundry hamper. It was a whitish yellow bug running around.

April 17th - Found 5 pieces of roach poop...hoping it was roach poop

April 18 - Someone rang the doorbell at 10pm. I didn't answer.  I'm hoping it was someone for the home owner because they just went away and didn't try to wiggle the knob or anything.

Picture of the horrible decking in the back yard, large deck is coming up too and I trip on it all the time.

Are these bullet holes? BBs?

4/26 Talked to VA Bch city and was told that the dryer venting into the garage was against code and it would need to be fixed.  I informed our property manager that same day and was told she would set up a maintenance guy to come look at it.  5/2 Still haven't heard anything yet.

4/29 - Our master bathroom is infested with ants and I saw a baby possum run under our shed.

4/30 Talked to the property manager about the possums under the shed and she said she didn't know what I wanted her to do.  That once they mature they will most likely leave the area.  I am concerned about my kids and the dog.  Especially since the adult we ran into a couple weeks ago had no fear of us whatsoever!

5/2  Another breaker tripped today.  The AC isn't working and it's currently 82 degrees in our home.  I called the property management office and they called the owner to ask her if there was a trick to turning on the AC.  They were just sitting around waiting for her to call back while we are all cooking in here.  I called her back and asked her to call the electrician and she agreed but seemed upset about it.  UPDATE:  The property manager called off the electrician because she heard from the home owner and the home owner has a warrantee on her AC unit and they have to be called first.  They are coming out tomorrow to look at it and if they can't fix it then they will tell my property manager they can't fix it and then the property manager will call the electrician back.  So it could be days without AC.  We are all sweating and miserable.

5/2 As if the AC wasn't enough I think we have a leak in the bathroom.  Our grout is wet.  This isn't the first time I noticed it but wasn't sure why it was wet the first time.  Today it was a larger area and it's definitely wet.

5/2  Opened the windows because of the AC issue and noticed a rip in one of our screens.

5/4  It was hot today.  It's 11pm and it's hot and muggy in the house.  It feels terrible.  The kids have been crying all night, they are completely soaked with sweat and red faced and cannot sleep.  I feel horrible for them.  I don't understand how this is legal to make us live like this.  

This is a video of Brooke at 10pm.  

http://youtu.be/ZBv8u9325ZE

Here is a video of Tyler at 11pm.

http://youtu.be/R8sEBwKgXmE

5/11  After tons of back and forth between the warrantee company and AC company we finally got our AC fixed today.

5/19  Today TJ opened the front door and the knob came off the door and flew behind him.  He fixed it but in addition to notifying them about this we want to ask permission to add a hotel lock/chain look to the front door and to fix the outside handle because it twists and sticks and wont open the door.  Also found an outlet by the fish tank that does not work.

5/20 We noticed these water damage spots on the ceiling in the kitchen and front room when we moved in.  We noted them with the property manager.  Looks like they were painted over.  Turns out that they still leak - All the cereal boxes that I recently stocked up on and have in our pantry in the kitchen are wet.  The kitchen pantry is directly below the master bath.  Also found an outlet in Brooke's room that doesn't work.  Did I ever mention that the ceiling fan in the master doesn't work?  This place is a nightmare!

5/22 Found our leak! The shower drain is cracked and has been leaking in the walls for quite some time. The ceiling just crumbled in his hands and chunks of it and moldy wood fell out. It smells so awful in our house right now. We cannot use our shower until it gets fixed, who knows when that'll be.  What really upsets me is this area on the ceiling was painted over, you could see it, so it was almost like they knew about it and were trying to hide it but never fixed it.  The downstairs toilet was leaking due to the seal being broken and the plumber fixed that.

6/11  Man came out to look at dryer vent, front door handle and non working outlet in Brooke's room.  He said he might be back today to fix the door handle and the outlet in Brooke's room works fine, just needed to turn on a switch.  He said that our dryer situation was an ugly one and that it was going to be a HUGE job and very expensive.  He also said that if the house was built before the code came out about not venting dryers into your garage than the city could not mandate it be fixed...really???  And we both agreed that the dryer vent was altered from it's originally area and moved out into the garage but that there was no documentation on when it was done so since they couldn't prove it was done after the code was in place then we might not be able to get it fixed.

Long & Foster has sent out 3 different men to look at the dryer vent.  I was told by the 3rd guy that they are pricing people to see who would do the job the cheapest.  I called the city about the dryer and the person I spoke to told me it was against the code to have the dryer venting into the garage.  They said if the property management wouldn't fix it I could request that someone from the city come inspect my home and they would mandate that the house be brought up to code.  I mentioned this to Pat and she told me that would be the worst thing I could ever do, making me feel threatened that there would be repercussions if I pushed to have it fixed.  Based on the last guys evaluation of what needed to be done to fix the dryer vent and the fact that my husband is deployed I decided against having it fixed and told Pat I would just drop it.

6/16 Man came to repair the door handle, it works great now.  It's smaller than the last one so there's two different colors of paint on the door now.  I don't care about that as long as the door works.  He said dryer request still hasn't been approved yet.  We also still haven't gotten our ceiling fixed from the leak or the mold checked.  We were told to wait 2 weeks, it's been a month.

6/19 Our freezer defrosted today.  No idea why.  The door wasn't open and we didn't use the freezer at all yesterday.  There is a lot of water in the freezer and on the floor (all the ice is melting).  I had to throw away all the kids popsicles and ice cream but I moved all of the meat and veggies to our deep freezer in the garage.  I called our property manager at noon and they told me to wait on a call from a repair company.  It's now 1:30 and I haven't heard anything yet.

It's now been an hour and a half I called the property manager office back to find out what was taking so long and she said it's the home warrantee process.  She said it takes along time for them to process the call, check to make sure the bill is up to date and such before they look for a contractor to come out and fix the problem. 

7/19 Today I called the property manager to ask when my fence would get fixed, when the cord would be put in my ceiling fan and when my ceiling in the kitchen would be painted from the leak.  I also told her we were having a problem with mice and flies.  We believe the flies are getting in near the bay window and there are literally hundreds!  And they wont go on the fly paper we bought!  Mice are in the garage and we can see where they are digging into the walls.  She was extremely rude and told me that the poor owner was getting nickeled and dimed and that I could buy mouse traps and a fly swatter in a very snotty tone.  Nickel and dimed  REALLY!!!!!!!!  Because the broken AC and fridge and shower leak and broken front door handle are all minor things!  I hate this woman and this house.  I wish there was an easy way to get out of here!

Mid October Today I called to report that our guest bathroom upstairs wouldn't flush.  This is the toilet all 3 kids use, plus any company.  Since I knew I'd have TJ's parents and grandparents home for the deployment I was anxious to get it fixed because there would be a lot more people using that toilet and we couldn't have the whole house coming into the master bedroom to use the toilet.  The property manager never scheduled the plumber to come out and fix the toilet.  I called her several times and she would always say "oh he hasn't called you yet?"  TJ's family showed up 3 weeks later and guess what?  The toilet still wasn't fixed.  My father in law had to fix it himself.

1/27/14 Today I had to call L&F because our bathroom shower drain was leaking again into the kitchen.  It was supposedly fixed last year but now it's leaking again.  The plumber arrived 1/28/14 and fixed the leak, did not repair the ceiling and charged me $75 to be reimbursed by L&F.  I think I forgot to mention this in all the other posts but when the maintenance people come to fix anything I have to pay them out of my pocket and then scan a receipt to L&F and wait for a check to be mailed to me.  When I had to pay for the fridge/freezer last year it took weeks and I had to keep calling to check the status.  What a headache!

2/5/2014  We're moving!!!!!!  We finally were offered a house in military housing and we accepted!  We move around St Patricks Day which is less than 2 months away!  I will blog about the new house once we move in but now all I can say is GOODBYE to toilets that don't flush, a backyard that stays flooded and a property manager that does not handle things in a timely manner!

What the floor looked like when I came downstairs

water is pouring out of the water heater

carpet and padding being dried after steam cleaning

2/19/14 Today I came downstairs to a flood!  A large portion of our front room carpet was soaked!  I was running around trying to find where the leak was coming from and shutting off all valves I could find.  I finally found that it was the water heater leaking and it was pouring out like a waterfall!  I got it turned off and called Pat the PM.  The carpet cleaners called me that same day and came out to steam clean the carpet and left a fan for two days to dry out the padding underneath.  The plumbers told me they couldn't come out the same day because they were too busy.  They didn't schedule an appt with me and didn't know when they could come but told me that when they arrived it would only be to diagnose the problem, then they'd have to tell the home warrantee company what parts they needed ordered and once they had the parts they'd schedule another appt with me to fix it.  They made it sound like it would take a week and at that time I had all water cut off to the house and we had no use to faucets or toilets or drinking/bathing water.  I asked them how I was suppose to live like that and I got no answer.  I called Pat and told her what they said and she told me that if that's how the home warrantee company did business then that's how they did business and there was nothing she could do about it.  Hours later the plumbers called and said they had a cancellation and could in fact come today.  When they showed up they told me that L&F owed them $570 in previous work and would not fix anything until they were paid their outstanding balance.  They also told me that the cut off to the water heater wasn't holding so we had to keep our main water line shut off until the hot water heater was fixed.  They said there was a way to give us water (not hot) from the street but that it cost extra and they'd need to hear from L&F that they would pay this extra fee before turning it on.  They were going to leave knowing we had no water!  I called Pat and had her talk to them so she could approve the extra work to get us water from the street.  TJ came home from a 3 day hunting trip right about this time and found out we had been without water the entire day and they wanted us to wait longer and he had a few choice words with the PM and plumbers.  They gave us water from the street, charged us $200 and said they'd be back the next day to replace the water heater.

2/20/14  The plumbers showed up but stood by our front door until I could get ahold of Pat.  They said they weren't doing anything until they received payment that moment.  I got ahold of her and it appears that she paid the $570 with her personal credit card to be later reimbursed by L&F.  The water heater was fixed today and we were grateful to Pat for using her personal cc to make it happen and let her know.

2/21/14  The carpet cleaners came by to pick up their fan and put our carpet back down and steam cleaned it again.  Pat showed up today as well.  She said she was there to take some photos for the home owner so she could see any damage the water may have caused.  She took one photo of the carpet and that was it.  She walked into the kitchen because I told her about the hole in the ceiling from the leak that no one fixed, while she was in the kitchen she looked out into the living room and said with disgust "ack we need to get rid of that red, I'll need to call &*% to come and paint"  She told me the flood wasn't my fault and it looked good around there and left.

2/24/14  Pat called TJ's cell today and told him that when she walked through our home it was filthy, especially our baseboards and walls.  She told him we needed to clean the house for the prospective renters walking through.  Before the realtor came a couple weeks ago I had Peyton scrub the baseboards with my supervision while I scrubbed the walls.  We were trying to get a head start on the checkout list and she actually enjoys doing baseboards.  She did a fantastic job and they looked great.  Our house is not filthy and I feel like Pat noticed the walls needed painted and claimed they were dirty to TJ so when we move out she can try to make us pay for the painting.  Pat walked through our home a few months back for an inspection before we could resign the lease (when we thought we were staying) and said our house looked great and how pleased she was and said we should have no problem extending our lease.  I really feel like something fishy is going on and L&F is going to try and keep our security deposit.  I am thinking about calling housing and finding out our renters rights and the steps we need to take if this turns ugly.  I cannot wait to get out of this house!!!

3/14/2014 Pat,

We were told that we would receive phone calls when the house was to be shown so we could be home during the showing.  This was important to us because it would greatly upset our dog if strangers enter our home when we aren't there and because the first showing we experienced, the agent was injured and allowed 4 people to tour our upstairs without her being present.  That concerns me.

We had an appt to show the house on March 11th at 11am.  A family of 4 knocked on my door at 10:45am and I let them in.  At 11:20 when there was still no sign of the agent, the gentlemen walked out to his truck which was parked right in front of my home and called Janice to find out where she was.  Janice told him that it wouldn't be her showing the home but it would be Mary and she couldn't reach her on her cell and had no idea why she was late.  Since the realtor never showed up, I allowed the family to tour the upstairs and they left around 11:45am.

On March 12th I called you and complained that I didn't have time to be stood up with these appts and that I never received a phone call with an explanation or an apology and I didn't appreciate it.

On March 13th Janice call us and told us that Mary stated she was here all along and waited outside for the family and they never showed up so she left.  This statement is false and Mary should have knocked on my door and she would have found out that the family was inside the home and if Mary was in fact outside the home she would have seen the gentlemen exit the residence at 11:20 and walk to his truck to call Janice.

This morning (March 14th) we received a telephone call that there would be a showing at 10:30am.  No one showed up and again no calls.

This email is to also make you aware that after the last storm me had our storm door split in two and pieces of particle board are falling out of it.  (photo attached)