Unless you are an extreme masochist who enjoys having your entire world turned upside down while someone who does not speak English tries to fix your apartment the wrong way, don't ever, ever, under any circumstances try to have major work done on your domicile while you're still living in it. They were supposed to be done by no later than last Wednesday afternoon. Since they didn't get here until late Wednesday morning, that didn't happen.
Our apartment management has hired someone to replace the vanity in the master bath and mitigate some other water damage that previous managers have ignored to the point that the cumulative damage can no longer be ignored. They hired a contractor in good faith, and the guy that showed up to do the work thought he was there to replace a vanity bowl. Just the porcelain and not the cabinet, woodwork and drywall around it. Plus fixing the drywall in the dining room and painting the ceilings in the master bath.
It's gone from bad to worse to insane.
The cabinet he got to replace the water-damaged vanity we had is very pretty. It has six nice drawers, 4 more than we had before. The drawer pulls are lovely, as is the counter top.
The only problem is that, when they put the face frame back on the doors, those lovely drawers will only open a few inches.
On top of that, he didn't close off the wall behind the vanity, so I could see the framing timbers for the building and a nice, convenient route for mice, rats, squirrels and bugs into our cabinet. His answer was to try to use spackling compound with nothing behind it to seal up the very large hole.
On top of that, it's still leaking.
On top of that, my floors look like crap because he only made the most cursory effort at cleaning up after himself. I have spackling and drywall dust mixed with a little water and smeared around quite liberally in my dining room and master bath.
I took off early today to meet with the apartment manager and show her my concerns. She wasn't real happy, but assured me that the floors can be fixed. She also said that the people they hired were going to have to rip everything out and start over.
Good news and bad news, at the same time. Good, because things should get fixed. Bad because it's already been a week, and I'm not sure how much more of this we can take.
Living with these kind of projects going on around you is kind of like making a little voodoo doll of yourself and then sticking in full of pins in all the sensitive places. And when that doesn't hurt enough, sticking the pins in your living, breathing and frustrated body.
Unless you can go and live somewhere else while the work's being done, just don't do it. Take my word on this one: you don't want to live with it.
Enjoy what you have, imperfect though it may be. Fixing it could lead to divorce or murder.
It's only a vanity, and I'm not that damned vain, regardless of what you've heard.
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