Dream Home Turns Nightmare!

Well....We close on the house on August 30th. I keep telling myself I will start to blog again. It is a great way to share my life experiences with others. I figure with all the off the wall things that happen to me that there has to be a lesson in it all.

Two weeks after we moved in and life was finally settling down, disaster struck. Whom ever plumbed this house was incompetent. Our large soaking tub was leaking from the drain pipe on to the ceiling below in my sons room. The drain pipe and overflow valve were never tightened properly by the plumber Fannie Mae hired. There was also a leak in the laundry room where someone had put a screw through the homes main drain pipe. This was just the beginning of my dumb luck.

A pipe had burst in escrow destroying that ceiling in the downstairs bath, It was all repaired properly to my knowledge before closing. The pipe that burst in escrow was in the upstairs bathroom. It is beautifully tiled with marble and travertine. The day I moved in the heated floors in the upstairs bath began and continue to crack. The leak in escrow weakened the thin set in the floor. Since it was from damage that happened in escrow I figured someone had to be responsible since it was before I signed any papers stating that all malfunctions with the home are now my problem. My insurance company would not pay for it. It took a lot of fussing and a little finger pointing, but finally the listing agent cut us a check for a portion of the repair cost. We were tired of the battle so we settled. Although we could have fought harder and got a lawyer since her husband works as the subcontractor on her listed properties. That is very against the law!! Think about it....

The insurance company sent out a crew to dry out the damages from the new leaks in my sons room and the laundry room and to repair them. While checking for moisture in the wall the owners son cut a water pipe. After a lot of hollering and the lack of proper tools to shut the water off my bathroom ceiling downstairs was also ruined for the second time. I was sitting at my computer desk watching it run down the walls with a gushing sound.

Their arrival was always at odd and inconvenient times. They never made any progress with the exception of drying out the ordeal. When trying to finally put up some drywall in the laundry room the son put a drywall screw through another pressurized water pipe. Once again, water everywhere. Luckily my partner Joe was here to fix it so we did not have to wait on a plumber again. The owner was always harping on his son in front of everyone at my house. It was very unprofessional. It got so bad after the second pipe was cut that the young man gave Joe a hundred dollars for his help and walked off the job sight. No repairs done except for a terrible warped drywall patch on my son's ceiling.

The owner was still here wrapping up when my son found his favorite old bottle in his room broken. It was an old whisky bottle from before the 1930's prohibition. His grandfather gave it to him for his collection. My son, bless his heart, cornered the guy on the stairs about it. My son told him it's alright and that accidents happen. The guy paid my son ten dollars and then left without a word. YES! The owner of the company! I was so upset by all their unprofessionalism and shotty work that I called the insurance company and told them that I did not want them back and that I'm not paying for all the damage they caused. The insurance company told me that they would tell them they were fired from my job. They say in my driveway for an hour and waited for me to come home, while they blew up my phone. I ended up having to tell them.

I still have not seen compensation for some of our damaged property, which includes a large scratch across the front of my brand new one thousand dollar washing machine. Apparently this company has a bad reputation around town. The plumber told me they do insurance fraud because his brother used to work for them. This is not the first or last job they were fired from either.

The insurance company sent me a knew guy. They told me it was one of their best and that the other guys were a new contract with the insurance company. When the new guy showed up he starting talking codes and all kinds of good stuff. He brought his crew and progress started right away. It took longer than expected, but they did a great job. He has to come get the two doors he put on. They put too much stain on and they don't match the other doors downstairs. He is not the type to walk away and said he will take care of it. All of this has taken about three months so far.

We started the kitchen remodel we had planned once we were able to have our den back again. We put down laminate in the living room and kitchen to have a cohesive flow from one room to the other. The carpet was to close to the dining room for comfort with little ones. We knocked out a partial wall and are replacing it with a peninsula. When we pulled up the flooring there was partical board covering the floor boards. Hmmm...no wonder where the squeaks were coming from. It was stapled to the plywood that was not glued to the floor joists. My partner Joe pulled it all up and then glued and nailed it down In the kitchen corner there is part of a minor support beam missing. There was no way to replace it without tearing out the newly replaced ceiling below and jacking up the ceiling. It is behind a corner cabinets. Needless to say we didn't do it and Joe is very much MY HERO!  The floor looks amazing :) and we did it ourselves with the help of a couple family members.

The cabinets are almost nearly all installed and the countertop guys will be here to template monday. I was bummed with the cabinets showed up and were blonder than the samples. Apparently they darken with time. Both pantry pull out are broken. The faces of the drawers and cupboards didn't line up. The corners are not mitered at a true forty degrees for the corner cabinets so we have a slight gap here and there. No one will even notice besides us or a professional. Changes where made that I did not authorize. I was getting an off brand sink for the price of Kohler. I fixed that real quick. The fridge that was ordered was much to large so we had to pay an upgrade fee for a higher end counter top depth fridge. One of my cabinets was wrong, but thankfully it does not hold up progress.

The kitchen designer and gallery manager had the rep for the cabinet company come to our home with her. They are compensating us some. Her boss however is very disorganized and a little on the rude side. We just spend a large chunk of change and he seems to have an attitude problem and a bad memory. It took him two months to send our appliance rebates in for our four appliances totaling over $5,000. and they were one hundred dollars less than he told me they would be. When I asked him to deliver our stove so we could move the one IN OUR LIVING ROOM and set up the peninsula he actually asked me who was going to install it and acted like he didn't want to bring it upstairs. Hello! We paid you for delivery AND installation.

Through all of this I am asking myself....What is wrong with people? Joe and I have always taken a lot of pride in doing a job to perfection while having good customer service skills. When you pay people thousands of dollars nothing is your fault when it's something you don't have control over right?

I'm sure I left some troubles out, but you probably get the point. This was only the house....there is also the daily moments of parenthood and Joe changing companies he is employed by. My nineteen year old nephew in recovery moved in with his nineteen month old daughter. She was abandoned by her mother and they needed a home. I feel blessed to be able to help I just wish there wasn't so much chaos.

I am trying to relax and enjoy things, but I'm now nervous and can't help, but think....WHAT NEXT? I really pray that this is the end of it and that it is smooth sailing from here on out. We knew we were doing some projects, but this is dragging on and on and on due to errors that are not our own. Thank goodness my sweetie has skills and I am a good negotiator...haha.

At this point...I just want a Christmas tree and the roof not to cave in :) At least we got to spend time with my dad. He stayed for two weeks while this was going on. He was an amazing help.

Thank you for checking out pandoras chatterbox. I guess the lesson in the is that it could always be worse somehow and to be thankful for what we do have. Like this metal roof that sound awesome in the rain and the beautiful view of the snowy mountains.

Where Is Home?

Until faced with adverse situations we often do not realize how special the little things are. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.

It has been three months since my family has had a home. My partner, the father of my children works out of town four days a week. He continues to stay near our home that we sold for purposes of employment. This last week has been very trying as a family in a different way than we have experienced in the past. Joe got heat exhaustion at work. All the roofing crew started to get sick and they were given the following two days off until the heat wave passes.  It was very difficult not being there for him. It was a huge sense of relief to have him with us when he arrived. Slowly he has begun to feel better. 

My children miss their father everyday. It has taken it's toll on them. It has made me appreciate what he does as a parent even more. I usually have the children by myself and that can be testing at times as most single parents know. It doesn't matter how much you love your children they can still get on your last nerve at times. My fathers house is to small for all of us. We have been sharing a room and a king size bed. They want their own rooms with their things. I want a real kitchen again and a bed to myself. Well with just Joe and I anyway :)

My father will miss us when we go. I do believe he will have much more time for his projects and may get his boat fixed yet. I also believe his friends may start to come over and watch the ball games again. This house is his man cave and he would never admit it, but I know there is a part of him that is looking forward to having some peace and quiet. 

This loan process with USDA has taken three months. I am not happy and this is not what I signed up for. I was told that starting on June 11th and closing August 10th was more than enough time. We just put in an extension for the 23rd of August and may need to do another to the end of the month. If we don't close by then we may lose the home so many of the future dreams we have are riding on. 

We all just want a home to share with one another. To share with family. I want to get settled into a church for my children's spiritual growth. We don't even know what school our son will be going to yet. Forget about worrying about head start for our two year old prodigy at this time. 

We have been through a lot as a young family, but we need a house that is ours and for dad to come home at the end of the day. 

On the bright side living in the country has brought me back to simple roots. My children have had more time to bond with their grandfather. This whole process had made Joe and I love and appreciate each other more. I have also learned while spending weekends here and there together that home is not where all your stuff is. Home is where the people you love are. Home is a feeling and not a place. I dont' miss our old house. I miss our neighbors and friends we left behind. I would never have done this if I didn't know there where so many more waiting here for us. 

When we get settled I will be sure to start blogging more again. Thank you for checking out pandoraschatterbox.com

I wanted to let everyone know about the progress on my home buying venture. My offer was accepted on a house. I offered ninety five percent of the asking price and I asked for three and a half percent concessions. They counter offered asking nine hundred less than asking, offered three thousand for closing costs, and upped the amount of earnest money they wanted. I gave it to them. I need a house and it was a good deal.

I am purchasing a Fannie Mae Homepath property, but I chose to go with a USDA loan instead of Fannie Mae financing. My mortgage loan officer does quite a few loans for Fannie Mae and USDA. He informed me that even though they only want three percent down and do not require Personal Mortgage Insurance that if you do not put twenty percent down on the home that their interest rates increase. Even with Fannie Mae Homepath homes. USDA does have more strict loan guidelines that I do meet. However they require nothing down and have a very low PMI. This would actually make my mortgage less and I can hang onto all my extra cash. This was great news since I wanted to redo the kitchen. The rest of the house is pretty much remodeled. I can hardly wait to enjoy the heated bathroom floor.

The story of how this house came to be "the one" is very fun. I had my eye on this house from the beginning before I was ready to make a move. I was still locked into my previous mortgage. I was checking listings everyday and it was still showing as under contract on the Fannie Mae sight and most of the mortgage sights. I did see on a more accurate site that it was active again so inquired to my real estate agent. He made a call and then we made an appointment to view the home

The next morning before I had the appointment a little voice inside my head told me to check my lotto ticket. I was one number off from 1.6 million dollars. I had to settle for one thousand dollars instead :) It still made my day.  My children's father called me and said he had the day off. This was great news since he is a carpenter. He was able to go through the house with me. I got the offer in on the house and we made a day out of it. My sister came along with us. We bought a few gifts for people on the way home. My son got a new bike. He really needed one. On the way back to my father's where my kids and I are staying my two year old daughter informed me that Jesus is going to give us a house back.

Long story short. I have had the inspection and it was good. The appraisal was done today, but I have not heard a word. I'm just waiting at this point and keeping in touch via email to make sure everything is good to go for August 10th. My children and I really need our own space. Living in one large room together is taking it's toll. I pray everything goes smooth from here on out.

This is why I have been pretty busy and not posting much, but never fear I will always be back to put things into Pandoras Chatterbox.....

Have you ever had an amazing day? Have you ever won the lotto?

Prostitution...The World's Oldest Profession!

I've been reading about new laws governing the use of condoms by prostitutes. Nevada has passed laws legalizing prostitution as long as it's within a monitored brothel. What I mean by that is that condom use is enforced, the woman have to have health cards with regular screenings, and of course they are taxed. A woman can easily use another's health card if a women becomes diseased. In Washington D.C. the government is now wasting our money to pass laws regulating how many condoms that an illegal prostitute can carry on her at one time or they will have more legal repercussions.

It is a fact that women who are illegal prostitutes have an 80% higher chance of carrying at least a bacterial infection than their legal counterparts. This is often because many of their clients actually offer them more money to have sex without using condoms. On the street this is more apt to happen because if they don't they risk being abused. It can be a damned if you do and damned if you don't for women in that line of work. If your thinking that they shouldn't be in that line of work then do a little research on world history. The bottom line is prostitution has been around for as long as we can document. I'm not saying that it is right or wrong I'm just looking at the angles and the waste of money our politicians spend on it.

Why on earth would they limit the amount of condoms that a prostitute can have. They prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy. I doubt tax payers want to pay for another unemployable mother on welfare or see a child grow up with a parent that lives that life. I doubt they want to pay all the medical expenses of a woman slowly dying of HIV/AIDS. With sex being promoted all around us, then why would anyone want to stop people from making it safer.

With the government trying so hard to put and end to abortion then why would they dare regulate condom use. The sex is going to happen regardless. I'm against abortion, especially late term, but what gives we people the right to regulate what a woman chooses to do with her own body. God has given us all free will. There should be services with a plethora or readily available educational resources easily obtainable at all times.

I see the dangers to prostitution, but I also see the benefits to having it legalized and regulated. I think it would be much easier to slow the spread of disease and keep people from making money on the side while collecting welfare. I think the men being the ones that usually spread the disease to the women should have to have a clean health card to see a prostitute. On the con side of things there are always going to be women pimped out for the benefit of some man that doesn't have their well being in mind. Or there is the mother that does it on occasion to put the food on the table for her kids or keep the lights on. Even many strippers offer extras on the side. That could also be regulated. There are many different types of prostitutes.

Prostitution on some level I do believe slows the amount of rape that could be brought on to an unsuspecting victim. A prostitute would have to raise their rates however so they could be raped by L&I instead since it is a dangerous line of work. It could help slow the rate of divorce and domestic violence. Most women know on some level when they have an unfaithful partner. The partner would be less likely to leave their families struggling if their needs were being met by a professional opposed to another women that just wanted them for their own. Men who commit domestic violence acts are usually doing it to fill a need of self importance. A little attention from a prostitute is a possible way of giving them their needed attention.

Yes prostitution is a taboo subject, but somewhere in each of our lives the conversation has come up. I for one am not sure how I feel about it. I see the pros and cons. On a moral level I do not agree, but realistically something better has to be done. The one thing I know for sure is that education is extremely important. The government should not waste so much time trying to regulate the laws regarding it. They should spend the money to educate against it. Keeping schools open and children in them will give them a better chance at a healthy life. Finding mentors with programs like Big Brother Big Sister can help a young person who feels helpless or alone. It won't stop it completely, but so many people may not turn to drugs, prostitution or a life of crime to provide for themselves and others. It is a proven statistic that the higher education level a person reaches the longer they wait to have children.

Young people are more sexually active today that most people even want to admit. Yes they get a bad reputation for sleeping around or hooking up at clubs, but their condoms are not regulated. They are promoted. Some of them probably have more sexual partners that some actual prostitutes. Young people need to be talked to and every parent should buy a medical book to sit down with when their kids become sexually active. Pictures of STD's are enough to scare the shit out of most people. They need to realize it's not just about pregnancy.

I think if the government wants to spent serious money on sex regulations they need to focus on human trafficking.

What is your take on this subject?

Thank you for checking out Pandoras Chatterbox. If this doesn't get some chatter in the comment boxes then I don't know what will.

More Government Waste!

Today as I drove an hour from the middle of no where with my father to sign papers for the offer I put in that was accepted on a house a Toyota Prius was on our tail. I was getting irritated because I prefer space between myself and the vehicle in front of or behind me. I pulled over to let the gutless car zip past with it's light little carbon footprint . It was already annoying that the person was driving like and idiot and then we noticed it's government exempt license plate. That is when a conversation we have had many times before began.

We are not sure which agency it was from. It could have been tribal or from the local maximum security prison due to the location. There are only two routes in and out of this place and only one that is usually used. The issue I have is that we see these types of vehicles all the time around here carrying bikes, kids, groceries, and other things that are obviously not for work purposes. Tax payers are paying for those people to ride around much of the time on the tax payers dime. I don't think with the rest of the country being in a recession that most people would be happy to see this with their own eyes.

I just don't understand how a border patrol vehicle can be parked at a local clam digging spot and the worker can sit in it half the day napping. Who is paying their wage and why are they not being monitered. Oh Wait! There is not budget for that. A fairly well known fact around here that the local border patrol office has a route that they drive called the Hwy101 500 mile loop. They use that gas guzzling route to burn time due to lack of work and suck up any extra budget they have left before they make their final budget analysis. If there was money left they would not get as much budgeted to them the next time around. Maybe if they weren't putting so many miles on the vehicles they use they wouldn't have to get more funding to increase their fleet with newer vehicles. Where does that money come from anyway? Our state general fund? Give me a break here! I guess they can just shut down another school to pay for it so we can keep people from getting a basic education. Then they'll be to stupid to be informed.

Where are their supervisors my dad always asks me. I told him that they probably are the supervisors or they are doing what they are supposed to. Most places have whistle blower programs, but they are not used. It starts at the top and if the bottom of the totem pole workers blow that whistle usually management finds some type of way to make their job hell for them until they can no longer work it. Unions can not save your bacon as much as one would like to think.  I've been there. I'm not to good at kissing butt so I didn't last long.

I don't understand why it is so hard for people to do their job and follow the rules. I don't think that anyone should be so comfortable in a position that they feel like it is their right to waste our money. If there is not the work to do then they need to find a new position for them. Preferably not a supervisor position since they don't seem to be able to manage themselves.

I know that it isn't true for all county workers, but it is a common joke that they like to stand around with shovels holding them up. Yes...some do work. In this neck of the woods the county workers are so fat they can hardly walk. I'm not kidding. I see the guy across the street. He waddles. How the heck is he supposed to dig, patch, or move at any productive pace. Let alone climb onto big machinery. They get a great amount of pay, benefits, and drive nice vehicles, but don't work for them. The roads here are crap because there are slugs maintaining them.

My point of this rant is that when there are so many people out there looking for work or busting there butts for minimum wage then why do we have all these terrible employees throwing away our money? Other people would do twice the work at half the wage. There is a more affordable labor force right here in the US. The lazy or cheating workers need to be evaluated by outside agencies. When they are not holding up their end of the bargain they need to be replaced with the hard working people of America.

Green cars, buildings, and raising debt ceilings won't fix our problems. Stopping the crooks that run this government would sure be a fine place to start. Really? Free gas to be in congress!? No wonder why they don't give to craps about regulating the price. It's FREE to them. I should have brake checked that stupid bumper riding Prius. Maybe a "following to close to avoid a collision" ticket would have got him caught!

Have you ever had an experience like this? What would you do if you had an encounter with one of these government workers?

If you have opened Pandoras Chatterbox today and don't leave a comment I will be surprised that you haven't run across a sideways government employee somewhere along the way or at least have an opinion about them.