More Stuff Goes Wrong

Ah, home ownership.

So as you know, The Brick is run by thieving, moronic chimps without one brain cell to share between them. 

We moved into our new home eleven days ago to find that not only were our appliances unceremoniously dumped and left in our living room, but that they were the wrong appliances anyway.  After requesting the correct appliances, we were promised delivery no less than three separate times, all of which proved fruitless.  We finally received all of the appliances we were supposed to get, but none of the correct hookups for them, and as such I currently have a dishwasher in my kitchen which cannot, technically, wash any dishes. 

I demanded some kind of compensation from Jessie, the account manager at The Brick who is in charge of the appliances provided to my development.  Jessie feigned sympathy and promised to speak with customer service about the issue in order to get me compensation.

Not at all surprisingly, I did not hear from Jessie again.  So today, I emailed him, and here is how it went:

Carly Jay to jfarmer
show details 10:22 AM (5 hours ago)

Hi Jesse,
 
I hope you had a good weekend.
 
I am still waiting to hear back from you re: compensation for the mess that was our appliances delivery.  Could you please update me on the status of this situation?  Obviously, I am of course still very upset about how this was handled and I am hoping you have some good news for me.
 
Thanks,
 
Carly Jay

Jessie Farmer to me
show details 10:30 AM (5 hours ago)

the only thing i can offer you is  discounts if you wish to purchase  furniture  25 to 30%   please advise 

Carly Jay to Jessie
show details 10:39 AM (5 hours ago)

Are you kidding?  I was hoping you could provide a black range hood at the very least.  We have to purchase something to get compensation?  That makes absolutely no sense.

Jessie Farmer to me
show details 10:48 AM (4 hours ago)

its not my  decision to make that call  only customer service can do that  905-265 2812   iam sincerely  sorry for all the  headaches caused but thats all i can do 

So I shat twenty feet of top-grade aluminum siding.

Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?!  I have to PURCHASE something… to get COMPENSATION… for their screwup?  I mean, surely to God they understand that I will never, ever in my life, purchase anything from the Brick ever again, EVER.

And let’s pretend I did.  Let’s pretend that I went ahead and purchased something from the Brick, perhaps because I got a lobotomy and lost more than half my current IQ.  What do you honestly think the chances are that I would actually receive what I had purchased, as promised, and on time?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME.  Of course no matter WHAT I purchased, be it a couch, a TV or a goddamn range hood, it would show up the wrong colour, damaged beyond repair, and dumped into my living room, scratching the new laminate and doing untold damage to my home.

So that was my fun with the Brick today. 

I’ve also been trying to get ahold of the developer of my home for the past week, for several reasons.  One reason is the giant hole in my heating vent in the basement, which is currently leaking quite a bit of our heating into the basement so that the rest of the house is always freezing.  As you can imagine, this will likely result in a shockingly high gas bill, but the developer has been ignoring all my phone calls and emails, so I guess they aren’t interested in helping us out there.  We have not, as of yet, received any kind of schedule as to when the roughly 5,372,790 things that need repairing or completion in the home will be done, so we have no idea when to expect anyone.  Except today a man rang my doorbell and said he was here to install my shower, which I found odd since we already have a shower.  So they’re at least trying to finish stuff, albeit stuff that’s already finished.

Did I also mention that they lied about garbage collection?

Oh yes.  Check it out:

Seriously. WTF?

So after calling the City of Toronto to get a recycling bin, I found out the City charges a minimum of $39 for garbage bins.  Clearly, I canceled my order for a garbage bin, since, you know, garbage collection is included in the $100/month I’m paying to the developer.  But just to make sure, I emailed Jennifer, the Service Person with our developer, to find out exactly how garbage collection was going to work.  Like, could I just buy the regular old-school garbage bins, and we’d have curbside pickup?  Or do I just use bags, and haul them out to a communal dumpster?  Here is her response:

For now, you are to use our dumpster for your waste disposal and when the City does assume the site, they will notify the homeowners as to how the garbage will be collected (door to door or mass pick-up). The garbage pick-up is not part of your condo fees though. The $99 per month in Condo fees is for the maintenance of the common areas and the road way within the site and to build the reserve fund. It also includes the building and maintenance of the Gazebo and Play Land areas.

 

Sorry, what?

That’s right, despite what was clearly written on their sales sheet, which they were handing out to all potential buyers who come to see the development, garbage collection is NOT included in the $100/month I am paying.  Where, HOW, does that make any sense at all?  I am so, so confused.

Add that to the fact that I still don’t have screens on any windows, that my lower deck door is blocked off by a giant piece of plywood, that we are the only house in the entire development that STILL doesn’t have a patio, and that two massive holes in my basement leading directly outside were filled with expandable foam only at my request and with a warning that mice and other animals can still chew through the foam to get inside, not to mention the fact that our dishwasher STILL hasn’t been hooked up, and you have one very cranky pregnant lady.  And I’ve only just mentioned a FRACTION of the stuff that still needs fixing here.

Now granted, we are still very blessed and we know it.  I’m healthy, baby is due tomorrow and has very considerately not come early so we can get ourselves settled, and hey, at least we have a house, right?  So I’m not complaining about life in general, just these things, which of course I understand are piddly little things in the grand scheme of life.  But I’m allowed to be enraged, because for the amount of money we paid for this place, I was sort of thinking maybe we would have a house WITHOUT gaping holes in the vents and walls, you know?  And one that included all the standard parts of a house, like, for example, window screens.  Just a thought.  And when the developer has decided to ignore all of my emails and phone calls, it can get a woman pretty snarky, is all.

Once Again, Smoke Signals Seem Like The Best Course of Action

So here’s the deal. 

All of my family –all of them– live far enough away from me that calling them means a long-distance charge.  I talk to my parents and my grandmother every day, which means I need a really good long-distance plan.

I used to use Bell long distance.  I even went so far as to buy into one of their “plans”, which was a huge waste of time considering my phone bill was consistently more than $100-200.  Recently, I discovered that Bell is changing their long-standing “10 cents/minute” long distance, and now they will calculate your charges based on how far away the person you’re calling is from your home.  Anything over 80 miles away = FIFTY-FOUR CENTS PER MINUTE.   Naturally, this is a tactic on their part to sucker you into buying into one of their ridiculous long distance plans, which as I’ve already stated are a waste of time.

So for the past five years or so, I’ve been using ACN.  ACN is a weird company.  In order to sign up for their long-distance, you have to be “referred” by an existing customer.  So my parents got into the system through a friend, and got the rest of the family into it that way.  ACN long distance is by far the very best option for me, because ACN-to-ACN calling is absolutely free.  I can call my parents, my grandma, my brother as many times during the day and night as I want, and it doesn’t cost me a penny.  And I can call anyone who isn’t an ACN customer long-distance and it’ll cost me astronomically less than Bell would charge, from 5 cents/minute.  The monthly fee is nominal, usually costing me less than $5/month.  So clearly, it’s absolutely the best bet.

But wait, you’re saying, that sounds too good to be true.  What’s the catch?

I’m so glad you asked.

The catch is that ACN has, very possibly, the worst customer service of any company I have ever dealt with in my entire life, and I’m including Rogers, Bell and The Brick in that statement.  It’s not that their Customer Service Reps are rude or mean or stupid, because often they’re quite cordial, which is more than I can say for Rogers, Bell and The Brick.  The problem is that for some reason, ACN just isn’t set up in any logical or reasonable way.

For example, I called them about a month ago to let them know I was moving, and that my phone number would be changing.  I explained that I would like to transfer my long distance account to the new number.

“We don’t do that,” said the CSR.

“Pardon?”

“We don’t do that.  You’ll have to cancel your current account, and then when your new line is active, you call us and we’ll set up a new account for the new number.”

“But… okay… but… how long will that take, then, after I call with the new number?”

“7-10 business days.”

Now, I don’t know if you recall the last time I moved and tried to get my ACN account set up, but the term “7-10 business days” still gives me nightmares.  If you want a reminder as to why, check here, and then here, and then here and here and here.  It’s literally that long of a saga.  I can’t even begin to explain how incredibly frustrating this company can be.

So fine.  I waited, and then I called them the day we moved to set up my new account.  They took my information, thanked me for my time and told me my long distance would be ready in 7-10 business days.  Fine.

That was last Thursday.  I checked that day and confirmed that my long distance was, by default, Bell Canada as they provide my home phone service.  Okay.

So two days ago, I tried to call the 1-700 number that verifies your long distance provider, and was surprised to get a “broken” tone.  This is a one-note tone you get when your phone is broken.  I tried to call my Mom, and got the same tone.  Looks like my long distance is totally broken.  I cannot call out long distance anymore.  THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR.

So we know how this goes.  I called customer service, and they had me answer a whole bunch of questions, and then randomly they asked me to hang up and call three long-distance numbers, any numbers at all, to see if they worked.  Then, call customer service back and tell them the numbers and the time I called, and they can open an investigation.

So I hung up, I called some numbers, I called back and got a different CSR who:  1.  Had no interest in the numbers I had called, and didn’t seem to think the exercise had been at all necessary, and 2.  Was really confused about everything I said.  Like, he made a lot of assumptions, then was confused when I would correct him, it was just totally surreal.  But at the end, he said he had opened an investigation and a technician would be calling me within “24-48 hours”.  We know what that means:  It means no one will call me, and I’ll call THEM on Monday and they will have no record that this ever happened.

Last time around, it took about two months before my long distance was working.  At least this time I’m prepared for that.  After the last move and now this one, I’ve gotten to that regrettable place where nothing surprises me anymore.  I just don’t have the energy to fight it.  No long distance?   Yeah, I sort of expected that.  No appliances?  Yep, par for the course.  A huge, gaping hole in my heating duct in the basement, which is thereby upping my heating bill by probably 500%, and no sign of the builder ever fixing it?  Surprise, surprise.  No screens on my windows or doors, scratched floors and windowpanes, randomly changing terms to my common elements fees?  Sure!  What else did I expect?

It’s funny, but I’ve had at least 5 or 6 different people comment to me that I have absolutely the worst real estate luck they’ve ever seen.  And it’s true.  There’s just something about me that invites this kind of thing.  Last time we bought a place it was the same story.  I’ve learned to accept this.   At this point, I just make the necessary phone calls and then sit back and thank God that I’m blessed in other ways.

It’s tough to settle in when The Brick is sh*%$ing the bed.

We’re moved in an 95% unpacked, but it’s still been tough to settle in to the new place.

First off, we didn’t have a fridge or stove for the first few days, thanks to The Brick, which I am firmly convinced is a company run entirely by dryer lint.  Seriously, there’s not a lick of sense to be found in that place.  We ordered BLACK APPLIANCES.   The appliances were delivered…and they were 100% white.  And they were dumped into our living room and left there.  What good will a fridge, stove and dishwasher do me in the middle of my living room?  But there they were.  Squatting unpleasantly in my living room, white as the goddamn snow.

So on Thursday we called up The Brick and told them they had made a mistake, and they promised delivery of the correct appliances on Friday.  Fine.

Friday came, and at the end of the day we got a call from the Brick informing us that our appliances would arrive on Sunday.

“Are you kidding me?”  I asked, incredulous.  “But we have nowhere to put any food.  I can’t even buy milk for a tea.”

“Well why don’t you just use the white appliances?” asked the Brick guy, as if I was a total moron.

“And how exactly shall I do that, when they’re currently sitting in the middle of my living room?”  I shot right back.

“Why are they in your living room?!”

“I HAVE NO IDEA.  THAT’S A REALLY FANTASTIC QUESTION.  IF YOU FIND OUT, LET ME KNOW.”

A black hole where appliances are purchased but never delivered.

So the appliances, predictably, did NOT arrive Sunday.  We waited around all day long, D even made a trip to the Brick that has our account, and was told they’d arrive “sometime before 6pm”, which of course was a huge, complete, incredible lie. 

I called the Brick guy and left a message, demanding an apology and some kind of compensation.  He called back on Monday morning, and I swear to God, this is what he said:

“Why didn’t they deliver your appliances?”

I almost shat a yellow-winged cockatiel.  “I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY DID NOT DELIVER THEM.  I WAS EXPECTING THEM ON THURSDAY, AND HERE WE ARE, AND IT’S MONDAY, AND YOU’RE ASKING ME WHY I DON’T HAVE APPLIANCES.”

So he promised me, promised me, they would be delivered in full on Tuesday.  Bear in mind, while all this was going on, I was also trying to find someone to install the appliances, because apparently the motherf%$ing Brick doesn’t do that.  OF COURSE THEY DON’T.  And the handyman who works for the development company agreed to do it, save the dishwasher which apparently has to be installed by a certified electrician and a warlock shaman under a full moon when Saturn and Venus align.  So fine, the handyman (whose name is Steve) goes to the basement to install the washer and dryer ONLY TO FIND THAT THE BRICK HAS NEGLECTED TO SEND ANY OF THE HOOKUPS.  No hoses, no vents, no ducts, no wires, NOTHING.  Just two ugly hulking appliances that already have stains on them.  Seriously.  So Steve says he’ll have to go BUY the hookups and he’ll have to come back the next day to get the washer and dryer installed.  Fine.

So Tuesday rolls around, and we get a call at 7:30am from The Brick saying they have our appliances and they’ll be delivering them before 11:00.  Fantastic.

They show up, and they remove the godawful white stove, and then the white fridge.  And as they are removing the white fridge, water spills out from the undertray all over the laminate floor, and I’m talking buckets of water, just an incredible amount of water, and these guys are traipsing through it in their muddy shoes on which they have placed blue booties that they have then walked through mud in, so what the hell was the point of the blue booties?!  So now my entire kitchen and living room floor are covered in a giant mudpuddle.  And the Brick guys don’t even bat an eyelash, and so I have to run upstairs and grab the towels from the bathroom to try to mop it all up.  And D is running around looking for a mop, and I, 39 weeks pregnant, am shuffling around on my hands and knees trying to clear up the puddle before the new floor is ruined forever.

So the Brick guys, still wearing muddy hospital booties over their shoes, bring in the black fridge and stove.  And we ask them to plug in the fridge, at least, before they shimmy it against the wall, which is when they inform us that they can’t do that, the appliances have to remain unplugged for at least two hours before we can use them, or the warranty is voided.  So I’m looking sadly at my perishable food, knowing there’s another hundred or so bucks wasted as the food is already thawing on my kitchen table.  And then I look at them and say “So there’s a dishwasher coming in today too, right?” and the one guy looks at me and says, “There WAS.”

There was?

Apparently, my dishwasher has somehow arrived at my home damaged.  There’s a huge dent in the front, so they can’t deliver it, they’re taking it back to the warehouse.  And if it is in stock, I might get another dishwasher tomorrow or the next day.  Maybe.   And I say, “Okay, wow, that’s horrible.  That’s really unfortunate.  But you’ll at least take this white dishwasher out of my living room, right?”  And they look at me like I’m a moron and tell me no, they won’t, because they don’t have room on their truck.  After all, they already HAVE a dishwasher on their truck, and since they can’t drop off the black one, they don’t have room for the white one.  So at this point I’m totally incredulous, and I just sit down, boggling at them. 

It just so happens we had Shari from Budget Blinds in doing an estimate at that exact same time, and she has been witnessing this whole exchange with what I can only describe as “awed disgust”.  And you can tell she just became ttoally fed up at this point, and blasted the guys, saying, “You realize you’re lucky this woman isn’t screaming at you.  She’s 9 1/2 months pregnant, and she’s been waiting nearly a week for her appliances, and you’re giving her more bad news, and most people at this point would be screaming in your face, but she’s not.  Do something nice for someone and take this dishwasher out of her living room.  You’re lucky she’s being nice.  Nice people always get shat on.  Take the dishwasher.”

And the guys just stand there, looking at me, as if they’re waiting for me to say “No, no, it’s okay.”  But it’s not okay, and I say “I want you to take the dishwasher away.”  And they shrug and mutter and take the damned thing away.

And then they come back with a bag of hoses, and they say it’s for my washer hookup.  “Like, washer/dryer?”  I ask.  “No,” they say, as if I am the stupidest person they’ve ever seen, “the DISHWASHER.”  Oh, the dishwasher I don’t have.  Okay.

So today, they call at 7:30am again, saying they’re bringing us a dishwasher and it has to arrive between 9am-12pm.  And I have an obstetrician appointment at 10:45, and D has an audition at 9:30, and we only have one car, and both our appointments are in downtown Toronto which takes a half hour to get to now, so D has to cancel his audition and miss the OB appointment to stick around and wait for my shitboxmotherlicking dishwasher. 

So I come home and LORD HAVE MERCY I HAVE A DISHWASHER.  I almost cried.  I was so happy.  And the handyman comes in to take a gander, see if he can’t hook up the plumbing part of the dishwasher at least, until we can get an electrician in who can hook up the rest of it, and Steve discovers that the bag o’ hoses I was handed is NOT for the dishwasher, it’s for the everloving WASHER/DRYER.  AS I ORIGINALLY ASKED AND WAS THEN TREATED LIKE AN IDIOT.  So we have no hoses, no hookups, no wires with which to install the dishwasher.  Nothing.  Nothing AT ALL.  So there it sits in my kitchen, looking as miserable as can be, not hooked up and no way to hook it up.

So Steve says he’ll go buy the proper connections and see what he can do, but that means we have to wait until at least tomorrow before we can install the dishwasher.

So I call the Brick guy again, and again I tell him how incredibly ridiculous this all is, how just totally insane this situation has become, how bewildering it is to receive customer service this abysmally bad.  Just atrociously awful.  And he says he knows.  And I say, “Good, then I’m sure you understand I expect compensation for this” and he says he has already put a call in to Customer Service and he’ll let me know when he hears back, which in Brick Time means maybe in a decade or so.

So that is the saga of the Brick, which is really in the grand scheme of things not terrible; after all, I am healthy and the baby is healthy and we have a roof over our heads, but holy crap on a stick it’s frustrating.  And just one more reason why we are having trouble settling in.

More later.

Home, home, home

Well, the move was… interesting.

We had arr anged for the elevator to be available to us at 1pm on Thursday, so of course we booked the movers for 1pm as well.  D’s parents and my Mom showed up early to help pack away last minute things and clean up the condo before we left for good.

I spent quite a lot of the morning trying desperately to get in touch with the developer and find out where, exactly, we were moving to. 

The previous day, we had gotten a call 14 hours after our occupancy was to have begun to tell us that hey, sorry, Toronto Hydro has cut off all power to your property, so you’re not allowed to move in yet, oh and since we have no power we still haven’t finished a lot of work in the home.  They said that they were hoping to get the power back on, and the house in shape, for us to move in the next day, but were making no promises.

So I spent all of Thursday morning calling, calling, calling.  Trying desperately to get an answer.  ANY answer.  The moving company called me, asking if I could please confirm a destination, and I had no choice but to say I had no idea yet and hopefully would know by the time the movers arrived.  The developer wouldn’t return my phone call, and my Realtor (who is an absolute angel, I swear to God, without him I would have killed someone for sure) was also being given the runaround.  My lawyer put in the same calls I did with the same results.  Nothing. 

So the movers arrived at 1:30, and sure enough I still had no answers.  I had heard from my Realtor that “it looks good”, and that hopefully I could move in later that afternoon, but we still had no confirmation.  So I told the moving guys to just put everything in the truck and I’d let them know where the hell we were going when they were done.

The movers started wrapping up around 3:30, and I still had no idea where we were going.

4:00 –  Movers are getting final items into the truck.  I had heard, at this point, that the hydro was, indeed, back on, and the city inspector was probably going to give the OK for occupancy, but now we had to worry about “closing the sale”, which meant we had to wait for the developer’s lawyers to get their paperwork signed, sealed and delivered.  This, the developer said, could take hours.  Might take ’til 6pm.  And if it takes that long, then sorry, but you can’t move in til then.  So, if the movers arrive at the home at 5:00, they’ll just have to sit in their truck and wait.  I, panicking but with no other option, tell the movers to go ahead to the house.

4:30 — Movers are gone, all my furniture and stuff is gone.  D and his parents and sister have gone ahead to the house to, hopefully,  unload their cars.  Or maybe wait for an hour and a half or more.  My mother and I are in my condo, doing a last go-through to ensure the condo is swept and clean.  I take out all the condo documents, including the condo corp rules and regulations and floorplans, along with the manual for the alarm and the latest news bulletin from Property Management, and I put them on the counter for the new owner.  I write a note on the inside of the condo docs, telling the guy which keys are which, where he can find his storage locker, and how to get the final key I’ve used to lock the condo out of the lockbox.  I note with some rue that this guy is moving into a condo we’ve lovingly restored from the absolute hell on earth it was two and a half years previously, and that he’s getting a MUCH warmer welcome than we received back in ‘07.  And he really didn’t pay that much more than we did back then.

4:40 — I get the call that I am allowed to move into my home. I immediately call D to tell him where to get the keys, and I breathe a sigh of absolute relief.  Thank.  God.  I say a final goodbye to my little condo, which has been a huge pain in the ass, but which D and I have made beautiful and in which we lived a very fulfilling life for two and a half years.  This was our first home as a married couple.  This was where we found out I was pregnant.  This was where we’ve been laughing and singing and dancing and loving each other for two and a half years.  Our first home.  I turn off all the lights, wave at the dog park across the way for one last time, and lock the door.

5:30 — Mom and I arrive at the house.  The street is literally made of mud.  The mud is 2-3 inches thick, everywhere, and cannot be avoided.  Along with the mud, there are pools of muddly water that are 4-5 inches deep, enough to give you a wicked soaker and ruin your shoes for sure.  We opt for mud, and slog through it to the house.  My driveway?  Mud.  Mud and garbage.  Gravel is a thing of the past.  We take off our shoes on the front porch and head in.

6:00 — We’re unloading stuff into a surprisingly clean house, but we can’t help but note that the appliances, which are the wrong ones anyway, are still located in the middle of the living room.  And the thermostat is cranked to 30.  Have I been paying for the hydro all day?

8:00 — we’re all “moved in”, if that’s what you call a house full of boxes.  But we have a roof, and beds, and who the hell cares about anything else.

 

More tomorrow.

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT BUYING A HOME, PART 4

So here we are.  The big move is tomorrow.   The movers called this morning to confirm the time and location.  D and I have spent most of the day packing the last vestiges of our immeasurable crap, til we’ve gotten to the point of just throwing loose junk in random boxes and sealing them up.  We’ve organized the boxes so that the movers can get to the biggest items of furniture first.  We’ve packed away our dishes, making it impossible to cook any of the remaining food in the house.  This is it. 

Today is officially our occupancy date, but due to problems booking the elevator, we arranged our move-in for tomorrow.  Lucky us, because when I went for the final inspection of the property on Monday, nothing was done.  I mean, the house was there, it had bricks and a roof and everything, but inside?  No kitchen.  No counters.  No sinks in any of the bathrooms.  No sink in the kitchen.  No screens or cranks on the windows, no deck, no front steps.  NO WINDOW IN THE BASEMENT — just a huge hole in the wall.  Just… nothing.  The place was a disaster, every surface covered in mud and dirt, including the carpets. 

And problems!  Dude.  You have no idea.  It was clear they were in a massive hurry to finish the house, because the workmanship was questionable at best.  The floor was bubbling and moving, the walls were gouged, there was a huge gap at the bottom of the wall between the stairs and the drywall, so you could peek through it at people coming through the doorway, on the other side of the wall. 

Needless to say, I was horrified.  The inspection basically couldn’t be done — there’s no way to inspect the new laminate floors for scratches when they are completely covered in mud.  Inspect the cabinets?  WHAT CABINETS.  Seriously, just awful.  I was close to tears.  But the developers kept saying, “You’d be surprised what we can finish in two days!  It’ll be done and clean!”

I went in today for a follow-up look-see and to pick up my keys.  I’d been told to show up around 2pm.  I arrived at the development at 1:40.   At 1:41, my phone rang.  I pulled the car over to answer it.  It was my lawyer.

“Bad news,” she said.

Apparently, my occupancy day has been delayed.  DO NOT FORGET THIS IS AT 1:41 PM ON THE DAY OF OCCUPANCY.  I have technically had occupancy of the home for nearly 14 hours at this point, but I’m now being told it is delayed.  WHY, you ask?

Oh, because Toronto Hydro cut off power to the entire block, which means no work can be done on the house, and legally I can’t move in anyway if there’s no power.  But, they said, they’ve called “the hydro guy” and they’re hoping he’ll be back this afternoon or tomorrow morning and will have everything up and running again by tomorrow morning.  But no promises!  So hey, have fun, keep flexible, because you’re either moving in tomorrow or you’re not.

WHAT THE SHIT?!

So I’m sitting there in my car, shaking.  I call D, give him the news.  I call the movers and ask them if it’s possible to move us to a storage facility tomorrow instead.  I call my Mom to tell her that yes, I’m still moving, but there’s nowhere for her to stay if she comes to help me.  I call everyone I can think of who needs to know this information, and I do it all while hyperventilating in my car in the middle of a mudpile in the muddiest, most unfinished development in the city.  And then I put my phone away and drive the rest of the way into the development to my home.  My not-home.  Whatever.

So I go inside for the follow-up look-see, and I’m so upset I don’t even bother to see if there’s a window in the basement.  But I do notice that half the cupboards are still missing, and the kitchen sink, and hey, look, THE WRONG APPLIANCES HAVE BEEN DELIVERED.  Perfect.  Even more so because those appliances are currently squatting balefully in my living room.  Or not-my living room, I guess.  And there’s still mud and dirt everywhere.  And still no screens on the windows or doors, or cranks to open or close the windows.  So, bascially, there’s no way we could move into this house yet.  No way.  It’s just not done.

But the developer assures me that if the hydro goes back on by tomorrow morning, the house will be finished and cleaned.  I, still panicking, just sit on the stairs with my head in my hands. 

So I’m packing tonight, and cleaning the condo, because one way or another, we’re moving out of here tomorrow afternoon.  We may be moving to a storage locker, but wherever we go, it can’t be here.  So I’m cleaning and packing as though I’ll be happily unpacking it all tomorrow in my new home.  And I’m cleaning so that the new owner doesn’t go through the hell we did when we moved here in the first place.  And I envy that bastard.  This is going to be the easiest move ever for him.  We’re leaving him with a fresh, clean, well-kept new home, I’m leaving him all the documentation he needs for the condo corporation as well as some freebie granite and stainless steel cleaner since we don’t have either in the new place.  He’s moving into a place that is the very definition of “move-in ready”.  And when he’s done moving his crap in here, he can go down and have a nice sauna or hot tub soak to relax and unwind, maybe have a rum and coke afterwards.  DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I MISS SAUNAS AND HOT TUBS AND RUM AND COKE.  WHY DO I HAVE TO BE PREGNANT WHILE WE’RE DOING ALL THIS.

So that’s the story.  Wish me luck.

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT BUYING A HOME, PART 3

8.  The packing, oh the packing.

We live in a one-bedroom condo.  A SMALL one-bedroom condo.  I’m talking 680 square feet, max.  And we’re minimalists — we are not big fans of knick-knacks and decorative wreaths and God knows what else.  We like simple, clean, minimal. 

Somehow, we have just a ton of stuff.  Just oodles of things.  At 37 weeks pregnant, I started packing up the house, and quickly realized what a huge job it was going to be.  I have one bookcase –ONE!–that took, I swear to God, five large boxes to empty.  Now granted, I was only filling the boxes up 1/2 or 3/4 full, so as to not give hernias to the moving guys, but still.  FIVE BOXES.  For one bookcase.  That’s insane. 

I’ve been slowly but surely working away at the packing over the last week, trying to square away one cupboard, drawer or closet at a time.  But there’s something you don’t usually realize when it’s time to pack, and that’s the sheer amount of organization you’ll need to do.  Organization and purging.  Because when you live in a place for any longer than a couple of days, much less a couple of years, you accrue a lot of crap.  Crap that you don’t need.  And you have to go through all your stuff and put stuff where it belongs and take the stuff you don’t need and throw that stuff out or give it away. 

Worse is the crap you find that you might possibly need one day, and you know you’ll regret throwing it out in six months’ time when you really need it, but the very thought of packing this stupid roll of wrapping paper honestly just makes you feel sick.  So you throw it out, which is a massive waste of perfectly good wrapping paper, but it’s so satisfying to pitch it.  And then of course you’ll be invited to a birthday party two days after you’ve moved, and you’ll look like a schmuck because you will definitely show up with the birthday present wrapped in either a) wrinkled, torn packing paper, b) a cardboard box comically large for the present it holds, held together with packing tape and labelled “OLD SHOES — BASEMENT”, or c) an old, dirty towel which is the only thing you could find in any of the boxes. 

Not to mention paperwork.  How much paper do I really need?  I seem to have kept every single paper ever in my possession since 1998.  Why do I have pay stubs from 2006?  Do I need these?  What about my renter’s insurance papers from ‘05?  And I can’t bear to throw away birthday cards that my Gramie gave me.  So it’s a process of going through 97,361 envelopes, bags, boxes and drawers in which I have shoved approximately 87 years’ worth of paperwork, meticulously going through every single one, and then shredding the ones I don’t need.  Because God forbid some weirdo out there gets ahold of my membership confirmation from M&M Meat Shops, they might steal my meat identity!  Shred it!!

And shoes.  Shoes!  I don’t even like shoes!  I loathe shoes.  I hate shoe shopping more than any other kind of shopping ever anywhere.  I wear sneakers to almost everything.   I have terribly painful feet, and complications from foot surgery a year ago, so even sneakers hurt, and anything other than sneakers is excruciating.  Yet somehow, I have managed to accumulate hundreds of thousands of shoes.  Or at least, that’s how it feels.  There is currently a box “extra-large size”, according to the storage company, it’s 6 square feet, and the goddamned thing is full of goddamned shoes.  And the kicker?  There’s a full bag of shoes in my closet, too.  Just jam-packed with shoes.  Because a woman can’t just have a pair of sneakers, God forbid.  If I need to wear a dress, the shoes have to match the dress, for Christ’s sake.  And I never ever want to throw out a pair of shoes, because the instant I do, I’ll need a pair of silver high heels and God knows the last thing I want to do is go through the torture of having to go shoe shopping for a new pair.  Forget it.

So yesterday evening, after D went to work, I spent the entire evening from about 6:00pm-midnight packing, organizing and cleaning.  I just worked and worked and worked, and I just barely made a dent in the giant job of packing.  And then this afternoon, D’s family came over and his Mom attacked the biggest jobs that were left, and now we’re in a much better position than we were before.  I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Now, my biggest worry which is gnawing at the back of my brain at all times is the move itself.  I’m using a very cheap moving company, but even the cheapest company is very expensive.  When this same company moved us three years ago, we had virtually no furniture or belongings and it cost us $400.  And we’d given away our entire bedroom and living room set.  So we had NOTHING to move.  Now, I believe we own every single thing in the universe and it must be moved out of our condo by 4pm on Thursday, and holy crap on toast, this is going to cost a fortune.  Not to mention I’m terrified things will be broken because we’re using a cheap company, and there are a lot of small, fragile things I’m not trusting to the company which we are planning on taking in various family vehicles, which means lugging and carrying, and although I’m certain my family won’t allow me to lug or carry much at 38 weeks pregnant, I’ll still worry and fret and try to carry as much light stuff as I can and it’s just a huge headache.

So… you know.  Wish us luck.  

 

 

20 THINGS I HATE ABOUT BEING PREGNANT, PART 20

1.  Worrying.

The good news is, it’s very easy to be as knowledgeable about pregnancy and childbirth as you want to be these days, which is a relief.  I find the more I know about what exactly to expect, the less I worry.  If I can hve advance warning of possible signs and symptoms, I won’t freak out if they show up, because I have an idea of what I’m dealing with.  The Great Unknown is what scares the hell out of me, and unfortunately, no matter how much you read, there’s no way to know everything about your baby while you’re pregnant.

So I’ve been avoiding all contact with novels or stories involving children with disabilities, because there’s no way to know for certain if our baby will have any problems until she’s born.  Our prenatal screening told us the chances are slim for certain problems, but we won’t know for sure until after she’s born.  Sometimes even then it’ll take time to see the signs.  So I avoid reading or watching anything that I know will scare me or make me stay up nights, needlessly worrying.  There’s no sense in borrowing trouble, we just have to wait and pray that our baby will be healthy and whole.

So naturally it didn’t help when we had our 36-week growth ultrasound, and our obstetrician remarked how small the baby is. 

“But it’s OK,” she said, “someone has to have the 5- or 6-pound babies.  I’m not concerned.”

So I felt okay.  I mean, after all, a small baby means a slightly easier delivery, right?  Better 6lbs than 10.

But then yesterday, for my 37-week checkup, the obstetrician looked a lot more worried.  Her brow furrowed as she palpated my stomach, and after a minute she listened with a stethoscope, then got a tape measure and measured my stomach three times.  Then, brow still furrowed, she listened again with her stethoscope and palpated again.

Finally she told me to sit up.  “You’ll be going for another ultrasound next week,” she said.

“Is everything all right?” I asked, immediately panicking but trying not to show it.

She explained again that the baby was measuring small, and according to the fundus measurement, I was showing at 33 or 34 weeks instead of 37.  She said that the ultrasound would show us if the baby is developing normally, getting enough nutients inside the womb, etc.  And that if the ultrasound showed that the baby wasn’t developing enough, or that my amniotic fluids are low, then “we can discuss our options at that point.”

Trying not to panic, I said, “And what kind of options would those be?”

She explained that if the baby isn’t getting enough nutrients in the womb, she would make the decision to induce me, since the baby would fare better outside the womb than in.

So I, nodding and smiling calmly, inside started panicking bigtime.

It’s clear the doctor isn’t overly worried, or she wouldn’t have set the ultrasound for next week.  She would have insisted on me going straight away.  And if the baby is induced early for her own safety, that’s obviously the best choice possible.  BUT WHAT IF I’M INDUCED ON THURSDAY?  WE ARE MOVING ON THURSDAY.

And worse — why is the baby so small?  I’ve been eating well, following doctor’s orders.  If the baby isn’t getting enough nutrients, what am I doing wrong?  Could it have adversely affected her growth?  Her lungs?  Her brain?  I don’t care if she’s small, but is she healthy?!

And there’s only one way to know for sure — to have the baby and find out.  But the worry… oh, the worry.  Like I said, if the doctor was really concerned, I’d be in the hospital right now.  So it’s a minor detail, and if this is the worst thing I have to worry about, I’m a damned lucky parent.  And so I’m trying to just not think about it, to just go with the flow and see what happens, because worrying won’t do anyone any good. 

But it’s my kid, you know?  She’s my baby and I want her to be safe and healthy and have the best possible start in this world that she can.

The Great Scotiabank Mortgage Disaster, Part 2

So if you don’t know already, Scotiabank Mortgage is full of thieves, vagabonds and crooks who will screw you over six ways from Sunday. 

As I mentioned in my earlier post, we were incredibly upset with how Scotiabank misled us and mishandled us, and we’ve since discovered that we are only one of hundreds of cases of this exact scenario.  Which says to me that the mortgage specialists over at Scotiabank will deliberately say whatever you need to hear to get you to sign a contract with them, and then go back and screw you over royally and refuse to accept any responsibility for what you were previously told.

So needless to say, I contacted the Office of the Bank President, asking them for a proper resolution to this issue.  I contacted them on October 5th.  On October 6th, I received the following response:

Dear Ms. Jones,

We acknowledge receipt of your e-mail of October 5th regarding your mortgage payout penalty. We have initiated an investigation into the concern you have raised and we will respond back to you once we have the results of our investigation. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me directly should you have any further questions or concerns.

Thank you for writing to us.

Sincerely,
Marie *******
Manager – Office of the President
Scotiabank – Executive Offices

I immediately responded, thanking them for their time and requesting that my investigation be expedited as our house was closing in 18 days and we needed the mortgage finalized very soon.

On October 9th, I had still not received a response.  Bear in mind, this was now 4 days later, which means the house was closing in 2 weeks.  I emailed Marie, and then called her and left a message, asking her for an update on the status of my case.

Marie called me on the late afternoon of the 9th, and basically told me, “You’re shit outta luck, the fine print is on our side, and anything that was said to you by the mortgage specialist we consider “hearsay”.”  I never received anything via email or in writing, despite the fact that I had originally requested my information via email.

On October 13th, I contacted her again via email, asking for her to confirm that our original mortgage specialist’s figures were correct as of July ‘08, as he had said. 

On October 14th, I emailed again, saying I was still waiting for a response.  She never emailed or called back to let me know if she had received my request, or if they were working on it, or anything. 

Bear in mind, while all this was going on, I cancelled three different appointments with our CURRENT mortgage specialist, as I didn’t want to sign into a new contract until I had a proper response.  This was really getting down to the wire, now, and my lawyer was starting to get desperate for these documents.

So I called her on October 15th, and finally got ahold of her, and she said she had “sent the question to the appropriate department” and should have a response by end of day.  She did indeed call me at 5:00pm, told me “yes, they were right” and basically left it at that.  I asked if I could escalate this to her supervisor.  She told me she has no supervisor.  I asked her if I could escalate it to the Bank President himself.  She said no and that was that.  I thought that over, and immediately called back but no one answered.  So I emailed, asking her to send me that response via email so I could have it in writing.

She did not respond on Friday, October 16th.  I called that afternoon and was told “Marie is out sick today.”  When I asked if I could please have someone else send me the information I needed, as this was incredibly time-sensitive, I was told no, each person in the office works separately and no one else could help me.  I stressed the importance of me receiving this information by Monday morning, and they promised they would leave Marie a message.  To ensure the message was received, I also emailed her asking her to please ensure I was sent the information first thing Monday morning.

Of course, I received no response yesterday, which was Monday, October 19.  D and I had no choice but to go to the branch and sign a new mortgage contract under Scotiabank’s incredibly unreasonable terms.  Our lawyer needs the information to close the purchase of our new home, and repeated requests for help to the Office of the President were clearly being delayed and ignored.  So we had no choice.

This morning, again, no response.  So I called Marie at the Office of the President again, and said “I’m still waiting for this information from you via email.”  To which I got the most infuriating response so far:

“What information exactly do you need?”

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Here’s the thing.  If you didn’t understand my request, why didn’t you call or email me to ask for clarification?  I made it clear that this was an extremely time-sensitive case.  You KNOW we’re closing our house next week.  And so you check your email, you have TWO MESSAGES saying I need this information FIRST THING MONDAY MORNING, and you aren’t sure what I need, so you shrug and ignore it?  Really?! 

So I explain, as patiently as possible, that I want all the information we’ve discussed, in writing.  Because I contacted you in writing in the first place, and you’ve told me everything verbally, and I want it in writing. 

“Well,” Marie says, clearly annoyed, “that will take a few days to get together.”

“Why is that?  Why will that take a few days?”  I asked.

“Well because I need to gather the information.”

“Okay,” I said, still trying to be patient, “But how did you receive the information in the first place, then?”

“Well I just know it.  I’ve worked here for seven years, I just know that stuff.”

“But Marie,” I reasoned, “It took you four days to respond to me in the first place.  I contacted you on October 5, I didn’t receive a response from you until October 9.  If you just knew that information, why did it take 4 days to get a response from you?”

“Well I had to send it out to the appropriate department…”

“Okay!  Great!  So whatever information they sent back to you, I would like you to send that to me, please.  I want that information exactly.  And also the response to our original mortgage specialist’s calculations, please.”

“Well I’ll just refer you to your original disclosure document.  I’m not going to calculate it for you.”

At this point, I was getting pretty angry and confused.  The conversation was getting more and more surreal.

“No, I want the calculations.  I contacted you on October 13th, you responded on the 15th, you said you needed to talk to “the appropriate department” about the calculations and they would get back to you.  I want whatever they sent to you as a response, please.  I want that information sent to me via email.”

Marie let out an annoyed sigh.  “Okay.”

Well!  I’m terribly sorry I’ve ruined your whole day, Marie.  Maybe if you had contacted me to clarify what I needed, or at least kept me up to date on the status of my questions, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this position.  But like the rest of my dealings with Scotiabank, this has been an exercise in absurdism.  This is completely insane. 

It is clear to me that Scotiabank’s reluctance to send anything to me in writing, despite the fact that my original request was in writing, is REALLY FUCKING FISHY.  They know they’re wrong, they know they’ve screwed us over and they know we have an argument against them, and they want to do everything in their power to ensure I don’t have any proof of that.  And you know what?  That makes me even angrier.  Because now my husband and I have been basically forced to sign a mortgage contract we do not agree with, because we’re completely out of time.  And that, to me, says bad business ethics and terrible customer service.

So I say it again:  NEVER USE SCOTIABANK.  EVER.  THEY ARE LIARS AND THIEVES AND THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS. 

Den of thieves.

More Google Search Fun

Yesterday’s weirdest Google search that brought someone to this site:

“hospital boobs”.

Jeeeeeez.

The Great Scotiabank Mortgage Disaster

I promised you I would tell you the story of our current surprise mortgage disaster, so here we go:

When we bought our first home, a condo, back in 2007, we KNEW we would have to move in less than 5 years. We discussed this at length with our Scotiabank Mortgage Specialist, David.   There were one of two definite scenarios:

1. D would be offered a job in the States, and we would have to sell our condo and rent over there.

2. We would have children, and we would have to sell our condo and purchase a bigger home.

Regardless of which happened, we knew we would be selling in 2-3 years, max. We asked our Scotiabank mortgage guy what would happen if we needed to sell in these two scenarios.

He assured us, on at least three separate occasions, each time when we specifically asked for exact details on what could happen, that our penalty would be in the range of $3500. And if we stayed with Scotiabank, that penalty would in all likelihood be absorbed by the bank, should we get a bigger mortgage for a bigger home. That’s it, that’s all we were told.   All three times, when we asked for “worst-case scenarios”.  We thought that was completely feasible, and as such went ahead and signed the mortgage.

About a year later, D was offered a fantastic job in Chicago, and we contacted our mortgage guy to ask him what the penalty would be if we sold at that point. His response:

“Hi Carly,

Here is the info you requested. Just to give you an idea, I used July 31/08 as the payout date and the penalty is $3,241.95. this will change when you have a specific date you will be paying out, but this will give you an idea.

Thanks and let me know if there is anything else I can do.
David “

As it turns out, D didn’t take the job, and as such we didn’t sell our home at that time. But we rested easy, knowing that we had a solid figure in mind for when we DID sell our home.

A year later, since we were expecting, we started looking for a new place. We found a new townhouse for approximately $100,000 more than our condo. We called Scotiabank and were preapproved for 3.8% rate, and of course we were delighted and purchased the home right away.

Last week, less than 20 days before closing our home purchase, we contacted the bank to see what the holdup was on finalizing our mortgage. We were told at that point that in order to secure the low mortgage rate, we would have to pay greater than $17,000 in penalty. Imagine our surprise! We were expecting $3200 at most, and to be honest we sort of figured the bank would absorb that considering we were staying with them for a substantially higher mortgage. Nope, $17,000 penalty, and that’s final. Of course, they said, they could do a blended rate for us, which would mean 4.64% mortgage rate (nearly a full percent higher than the current bank rate), and then the penalty wouldn’t occur.

We went so far as contacting the Office of the Bank President, but of course it did us no good. They just said this was the price for breaking our contract, and that any information given to us by our previous mortgage specialist was outdated and wrong, and even though I have the email stating the $3,241.95 penalty, they couldn’t consider that a contract, and they considered anything he said to us to be “hearsay”.

According to the bank, the problem is that the interest rate differential penalties have never been this large before. Often, they’re lower than the three months’ interest penalties. So their staff didn’t know to warn people about what happens when interest rates fall quickly. All we were told about was the three months’ interest penalty, I guess.  Though I have since contacted the office of the Bank President again to see fi they can confirm that the $3200 penalty was indeed accurate at the time, and surprise surprise, I have as yet received no response.

We’re horrified. We feel like we were bullied through and through. As first-time homebuyers, we trusted our original mortgage specialist to disclose the information we were asking for, in full. We specifically asked about penalties on several occasions, making it clear that we would be moving in less than 5 years, no question, wanting “worst-case scenarios”.  Never did he suggest that we would pay one cent more than $3,500.  And so we signed our mortgage in good faith, trusting that we had asked the right questions and had received full answers.

The fact is, had we known, we would never have purchased a home in the first place. We could have saved literally thousands of dollars if we had kept renting. And now we have a new mortgage that is far, far higher than we ever anticipated… we wouldn’t have purchased our new home if we had known we would suffer such incredible consequences.

So… yeah. There’s the story. We’re horrified that even going as far as the Bank President didn’t get us anything. We certainly thought that, in a gesture of goodwill for the gross mirespresentation of which we were victims, the bank would try to offer us a more reasonable rate… however clearly our good faith was poorly spent.

And that’s the story of the Great Scotiabank Mortgage Fiasco.   We’ve now learned to just not trust Scotiabank Mortgage, no matter how pointed our questions are, because they do not care about their customers.  They will deliberately mislead you and screw you six ways from Sunday.

If I may suggest to anyone out there considering buying a home,  you might want to consider using a different bank, or even better, using a mortgage broker.  DO NOT USE SCOTIABANK.   

 

You know this guy just got totally screwed. As if a handshake would mean anything to Scotiabank.