Thursday, December 27, 2007

Caution: whining ahead

So, the adventures in moving continue.
It's an odd thing in my life. Things that should go smoothly tend to get nutty. Such as this move. I'll warn you ahead of time, I'm going to whine, so please, feel free to ignore this if you like.
The move itself took 10 hours. From a one bedroom apartment to another one bedroom apartment, less that one block away from each other. The movers' excuse: "well, the new apartment is on the third floor. And to get from the elevator to the apartment, they had to go up seven stairs. And I had a lot of boxes." Because 70 boxes is a lot. Three of my bookcases had their backs knocked out, two of my lamp shades were ripped. Boxes were left in the rain, so many a thing was damp.
Of course, when I called the office, the attitude was, "oh well."

Oh yeah, I went and signed my lease Thursday morning. Yup, the same day I moved in. Why? Well, turns out the office wasn't ready for me before. And when we came up to do the walk through inspection, the cleaners were still in the apartment. Turns out, I should have made the manager do the walk through then.

Anyway, she and I did the walk through 2 hours later, when the movers got to the building. On first pass here's what came up. The microwave, which I'd asked to be removed was still there. The blinds in the kitchen are broken. And installed incorrectly. The towel bar in the bathroom was not adequately secured. The screen door on the balcony wasn't installed.
Those were just first pass. The manager assured me they'd be taken care of right away.
Just before the move I started coming down with a terrible chest cough. It's been really terrible. Today's the first day there hasn't been any wheezing or rattle in my chest. It also destroyed my appetite until Sunday.
Sunday I decided to cook. Turned on the oven and nothing. Looked at the knobs. Two were installed incorrectly. So I switched them. And reached for a third knob. Which broke in two. You guessed it, the stove doesn't work. I finally got hold of the manager yesterday, who assured me that all the above items would be taken care of today (Thursday). Guess what? Not one damn thing had been fixed today when I got home. Called down to the office, and manager's assistant tells me that there isn't even a work order. Yeah.

Let's talk about our local utilities!
Let's just say that the LA DWP is the only one that gets any accolades.

My phone was supposed to be switched from one location to the other on Thursday. I heard the disconnection, so I knew one line had been closed. Plugged in my phone at the new place. Nothing. So, on my cell phone, I called AT&T. the very nice customer service person tells me that they don't switch lines on until 6:00P.M. Okay fine. Six comes and goes. So I call back. Man does a diagnosis on the line and says there appears to be a problem outside, and they'd get someone out there between Friday and 4:00P.M. December 24th. To their credit, they did get a tech out on Monday at about 12. So beat their estimate by 4 hours.

And then we get the joy that is Time Warner Cable. Once I realized that I had no phone line, I called their customer service and asked that the tech call my cell phone, so that I could go down stairs and let them in. The tech's supposed to come between 10 and 12. 12 comes and goes. At 12:45, I called. The tech's running late from his last job. He finally comes at 1:30. Nice guy, gets the place wired and then calls to get the service initialized. The voice on the other line says, "oh, this is a new install." Tech says, "no she moved from one building to a new one." Voice on the other end insists it's new. Turns out, they hadn't bothered to turn off the service at the old apartment. They can turn it off 10 days early. But can't turn it off on the actual requested day.

I'm a wee smidge cranky. And I guess still unsettled. But I'm going to shake it off. Back to normal tomorrow.

3 comments:

BOSSY said...

Whine away, Bossy loves wine. Oh, wait...

Anonymous said...

Be REALLY careful with that chest thing. Des and I are still recovering from our bronchitis of two months ago. Get yer rest, drink lots of fluids, etc.

Sorry we couldn't make it by during our trip down--our only free time was on Sunday. :(

faboo mama said...

TWC...morons...they did the same exact thing to me with my move. They're still trying to collect $670 on a box that they already picked up. I spend way too much time, taking a faded invoice to their stupid offices to prove that it was picked up. That company needs to get gone, go bankrupt or something. I'm thisclose to switching to satellite.

Glad you're feeling better. I think we all have the same illness you had and Ilia's been extremely sick.