Tuesday, March 27, 2007

That's NOT supposed to be wet

A few months ago, I moved my daughter's bed from one corner to another. But what I didn't do is turn her bed around. I just pulled it straight from one wall to another. So now her footboard is against the wall and the headboard is in the middle of the room. Does that sound weird? It's not really. It makes perfect sense for a number of reasons. During the blazingly hot summer months, her head will be towards the middle of the room which means it'll be closer to the ceiling fan. THUS, she'll get cooler more easily. When the sun peaks through her curtains, her headboard now blocks any kind of direct light beaming into the room. And lastly, she's got a tall headboard. And now with about 5 feet of open space behind it? I can make a tent for her whenever she wants. Making tents and pretending to camp out used to be a favorite activity of mine when I was young. But making the tent was always a challenge. I can make a tent for my girl in a minute with this arrangement.

I digress! About 2 months ago, I looked at the now empty corner of my daughter's room and noticed that the baseboard looked odd. It looked slightly warped. And when I pushed on it, it looked 'soft'. I told the Hubs and said that he should call the customer service (CS#1) person for our development. Of course, he never did. CS#1 came by about 4 weeks ago to check on our attic light. Turns out that some homes had the light too close to some wiring? Anyway, when she was over I showed her the baseboard. She took in the information and told me another rep (CS#2) would be calling me. Fine and dandy. 2 weeks go by and I heard nothing. CS#1 called 2 weeks ago to verify that the issue had been taken care of. I told her that CS#2 had never called. So CS#1 scheduled some roofers, who are coming in this Wednesday. Good, right?

Last week, we had a storm that blew through town Thursday afternoon and continued through dinnertime on Friday. It was a cold storm too. Thursday night we had some hail followed by a pretty severe downpour. Then around lunchtime on Friday, we had another bit of hail that lasted about 10 full minutes followed by another heavy downpour. Our yard and neighborhood looked like it was covered with snow. You would have thought it WAS snow but there was some huge runoff flowing down our street. It was incredible! But Friday night when we were getting the kids ready for bed (7:30pm), I checked that baseboard. And it looked even more warped and looked like it was pulling away from the wall in one part. And I felt the carpet and it was damp. Not wet. Damp. Like there was a slow tiny leak of some kind. I called the Hubs over and he agreed that someone needed to take a look at it. After the kids were in bed, he got on the phone and left a message at the main service hotline. We got a call back Saturday morning that they were sending over their 'water/fire cleanup team'.

The cleanup team showed up around lunchtime on Saturday. They pulled the carpet back and there was a definite water mark on the underside. They ripped the warped baseboard out. They also took out a 6-foot wide, floor to ceiling section of drywall in the section. Then of course, they had to vacuum out the insulation (the sprayed in kind) so they could see the studs. And about 3 of the horizontal boards were wet. And the bottom one? Had a little bit of mold on it! MOLD! When I came up to take a look, the Hubs looked at me and nodded. As if to concede to the fact that he should have listened to me sooner. So they sprayed the entire open area with bleach. They got a space heater and directed it at the exposed wall. They also brought in this 4 foot tall dehumidifier. They closed the door of the room and checked the other side of the wall for moisture. The other side of the wall is our cathedral ceiling in the entry hall. And? No moisture on THAT side. Yeah! So they left and told us they'd be back on Monday to pick up their gear. The machines they left would be running for 2 days to ensure that all the moisture was OUT of our walls. Whew!

Yesterday I waited for the people to come by. A customer service person came around 9:30am. Not CS#1 or CS#2. It was another person (CS#3)! Apparently, CS#1 is supposed to work for the new home owners who are in our development. CS#2 is supposed to take over when folks have been in their homes for 2 years, and we just hit our 2 year mark. But according to CS#3, we weren't on CS#2's list for clients. Huh? We were like the 3rd people in our section of the development to move in! Apparently, CS#1 never communicated to CS#2 that he was supposed to be our guy. Anyway, CS#3 looked at the wall. Heard my version what happened. And she is scheduling all the trades that need to come out. Why is CS#3 doing that? Because CS#2 is in Hawaii for the annual builder trip. The thing is...with all the trades involved it probably won't be all fixed for another 7 to 10 days. So the Princess will need to sleep in the guest room until then. But thankfully we do have an extra bedroom for her to crash. And I'm just glad we're getting the issue resolved.

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