In Fairness

The basement guys were skilled at their jobs. In that sense, the experience exceeded our expectations from salesman Kevin. They were able to install drainage tile beneath the floor clear back behind the toilet, water heater and furnace and into the next room. Outside, they were able to tunnel beneath the central A/C unit. These are all areas Kevin said they would probably just go around. Considering the area behind the toilet was one of the biggest problem areas, we were very happy to see that had been done so well, both inside and out. The guys were very skilled at what they did.

User Not Found

On a new read for me today, Cocokat in Slumberland, I read about a site devoted to discussion of online relationships and how we grieve when one of our virtual folk dies. The site is User Not Found. I can say that, being one whose fostered some pretty neat friendships with folks via e-mail through the years, I dread the day I hear one of these dear ones I know has died. Behind every blog, every family website, every e-mail address...there's a person. I can't help but make things personal, knowing that. I'd hope people would miss me if I disappeared, that I've made peoples' days better sometimes. There are many of you I've never "fleshmet", but if your voice was silenced, the web would have an empty spot.

Basement Afterthoughts

I have a few random thoughts I want to write before they slip away and the details are forgotten.

WHAT Does That Label Say?

If it were just the dust, that'd be one thing. But the tar thing kind of put me over the edge. Remember how I said they left buckets of that tar-stinking stuff in our basement by the furnace? Take a look at the the CAUTION statement on its label.

Combustible? Not a good product to leave sitting overnight a mere two feet from the open flame of a gas furnace, yet that's what happened. It's no wonder the whole house reeked like the stuff! We're fortunate and thankful nothing caused them to ignite. I still can't believe they did that, nor can anyone I've told about it. There's a lot better ways to keep stuff from freezing.

Backing Up Is Hard To Do

The one driver had a terrible time backing into our driveway. The foreman had to back the truck in one time that we know of. The last day they did work, someone ran the truck into our stone wall by the driveway and broke some of the sandstone off. They just tossed the large stones on top of my plants there and never told me they'd done it.

RIP, My Beauties

We were told the crew would carefully remove plants and put them back in place when finished. The only two plants they put back were the porcelain berry vine and clematis vine I specifically pointed out. I assumed they would set aside the top layer of soil, along with the plants, and put them back on last when refilling the trenches. Not so at all. All I have now is a jumble of dirt and rocks around our home's foundation. All my groundcovers are gone, my daylilies...everything except the big vines, and I doubt they'll make it.

The company does not guarantee homeowners' plants will survive, so I think they take that part of the job lightly. I say, just because something's not guaranteed by your company doesn't give you the right to be out-and-out careless. If I'd known they would be so doggoned careless, I would have moved the plants. But, again, we were assured that the plants would be fine, that they were dormant and it wouldn't hurt them the way the crew worked. Wrong. They should, at the least, say they strongly suggest homeowners move the plants before work is scheduled to begin. But I trusted the salesman's and company's word for it. My bad.

Not At All What We'd Pictured

Salesman Kevin also led us to believe the "pressure relief system" (not just a sump pump) would be a neatly capped unit in the floor. He made it sound like a sealed cap we would take off once a month in order to test the pump.

What we have instead is a loosely covered (not sealed by any stretch of the imagination) hole with piece of PVC pipe coming up out of it and through the wall about five feet or so up the wall. I've seen regular sump pumps before, and I understand why they had to do it this way; they have to bring the water out up above the outside drainage system's level so it will flow downhill by the force of gravity.

If the salesman hadn't misrepresented what it would look like, it wouldn't be a concern and we could have perhaps planned differently, maybe had them install it on the other side of the wall there. That's going to be in my MIL's closet, so the neatly sealed off cap was a big deal to us. It can't be helped now, though; we'll just have to build around it and leave an access door.

You'll Poke Yer Eye Out

A sidenote: The foreman was lucky he didn't blind himself while hammering apart our old concrete sink. He was hammering toward himself, and not wearing any eye protection. I offered him some goggles, but he said he was fine and thanked me. What's with people? I'm just glad none of those chips and chunks of concrete hit him in the eye. Ouch.

The Dust Might Pose A Problem

They finished up yesterday, so the job took three days instead of the projected two. The crew was courteous and cleaned up after themselves, and the foreman answered our questions thoroughly. When the were just ready to leave, after we signed off on the work, the foreman called the home office so we could talk to them and tell them our thoughts. We reiterated that Kevin the salesman told us they would have a cleaning service come in after the work was completed. They balked at that, saying they'd have to talk with Kevin. Of course, he didn't put that in writing, so it's our word against his.

All I know is, my new computer desk, which was clean Monday morning, had a layer of dust on it by Monday afternoon. And it only got worse. Ever since the work started, my sinuses have been terrible. They get that way when I'm around a lot of dust stirred up or around mildew and mold. We went out Tuesday night and I felt better, but shortly after we got home again, my sinuses started getting bad again. It's hard to quantify that sort of thing when speaking to someone, however.

I cleaned the kitchen surfaces because we prepare food in there, and my desk because of the computer equipment, but have not done anything in the living room. The field supervisor can see the dust in there and make his decision, I guess. What makes us mad is how the salesman offered the moon and stars to get us to sign, and because so much of it was not in writing, it's up to us to fight for it. Guess we'll know to always get stuff in writing in the future, not just trust people.

An addendum, after more thought: The dust isn't the biggest issue to us. It's the fact that we've been charged a truly horrendous amount of money by anyone's standard for this major work, and we want the company to honor what their salesman said they'd do. I hate it that salespeople can dangle carrots in front of customers and not be held responsible for what they promise. The field manager will be here at 11:00am tomorrow, and we're going to tell him such if he doesn't choose to honor what Kevin told us. We are also going to show him the picture of the caution statement on that mastic stuff. That was a major boo-boo as far as we're concerned.