Mind In The Gutter

I am haunted by the specter of gutters.

Five days a week I think of nothing but gutters. When will they be done? Will they be able to handle the water runoff?

I am sick of gutters.

Unfortunately the situation is ongoing---the latest wrinkle is that the extra slow gutter guys put one of the gutters on incorrectly. It now has to be taken down, correctly installed and the downspout must be placed into the existing drainage hole.

As it stands, the extra slow gutter guys have the downspout draining next to our foundation and into the alley.

We all know what comes next when water drains to close to a foundation that doesn’t have a downward slope.

Can you say wet basement?

Or in our case wetter basement---we need more water down there like a fat kid needs cake.

My apologies to 50 Cent for borrowing his lyric.

The alley isn’t built to handle water runoff and doesn’t have any open drains where the water could flow away from the building. Additionally the alley would literally turn into an ice rink during the winter.

Mmm…water freezing and melting---cement expanding and contracting. It’s just enough to make you anticipate those costly masonry bills.

The thought just makes my eyes cross.

So now we are faced with two choices: Leave the gutter and downspout the way it is or cough up another $600 bucks to get it done the right way.

I may be sitting in a bus shelter drinking tumblers full of vodka before this is all over.

The Donnybrook, Part II

With the amount of pissing and moaning everyone did, you would of thought that my neighbor was asking for a pound of flesh instead of what the procedure was for filing an insurance claim.

Those in attendance should have known that this was going to happen as a result of the recent early spring rains.

Because of the deluge, a few of our owners had water damage in their homes.

Far as I was concerned, rightly or wrongly, the water damage had happened as a direct oversight of the board.

It didn’t matter that the sealing of the roofs and the re-attachment of the gutters was caught and scheduled to be rectified immediately. The water had already been streaming through people’s back windows.

You can’t un-ring the bell.

Of course Caustic alluded to the meeting where she wasn’t allowed to file a claim with the association insurance for water and moisture problems in the basement.

Other unit owners cited that that they didn’t file an insurance claim as they had water damage which came through the roof, dripping on top of their refrigerator.

I reminded Caustic that the potential new claim in question was a direct result of the board’s oversight and that it directly affected the habitability of this owner’s home.

We weren’t talking about a damp basement not being the reason why your unit couldn’t sell.

In the case of the damp basement and the leak over the refrigerator, those were developer issues that should have been taken up with and followed through with him. Unfortunately we inherited a great deal when he turned over the board and discouraged unit owner participation.

Perhaps any existing latent problem should now be called a Knight legacy in honor of our esteemed developer Carlton Knight.

Nonetheless, his legacies have left us at odds with one another when we really should continue to focus on how to best recover the money we spent on the porches.

As far as I’m concerned Mr. Knight owes us $81,000 and some change.

As the volume on voices continued rising and the game of ‘I had to deal with it, so should you” continued to be played, my ire was rising ten fold.

Now you don’t have to agree with me, hell you don’t even have to like me.

But you will not sit up in the home where I pay the mortgage and the utilities and have the stones to raise your voice to me.

That is simply asking for me to give you a fucking beat down.

You will respect me inside of my home on the property where I pay crazy property taxes. If not, get the fuck out.

I calmly reminded everyone to lower their voices in my home and to try and speak with a civil tongue.

That last for all about two minutes with yours truly firmly in the fray.

I was appalled by my neighbor’s lack of empathy or willingness about trying to find a solution. It was very “my way or the highway” that night.

I know that a claim has the potential to raise our rates but holy crap, why should the unit owner who asked this question be frozen out because of issues in the past?

I didn’t think it was fair. Moreover, voices again were raised.

I was so pissed that I said “GD.”

I rarely take the Lord’s name in vain so when I do, you know I’m hot.

Since people couldn’t keep a civil tongue, I told everyone to get to steppin’.

Gutter Ball

I never knew it took so long to seal roofs and re-attach gutters.

These guys have been at it since last Thursday and the only progress I can see is the roof line has been trimmed back on all three buildings and the board has been attached right under the roof line on one building.

Perhaps because we're so eager to be 95% done with the project (we still have a lighting system to reattach) that it seems that progress is crawling at a snail's pace.

I just hope that all of this work can be done prior to the next deluge from the heavens.

Deluge

Who knew not having gutters would be such a pain in the ass?

With our recent spate of snow melts and early spring rains, our gutterless association is taking a drubbing.

While some of us aren’t affected by the recent soggy weather, some of my other neighbors are being soaked to the bone.

Why? Since there are no gutters to catch the run off, water is streaming down the building and in some cases through my neighbor’s back windows and into their units.

Obviously we need to seal the roof from where the porch roof was taken away and reattach the gutters. All of the remedies have been set in motion to make this happen as quickly as possible.

The other important point that this brings to the forefront is the poor quality of workmanship performed on our building during the “rehabilitation.”

There should be no reason for water to come pouring into and around a window frame if the façade of the building and the window was installed properly. Perhaps it may also be a tuck pointing issue.

All I know is that you should not be greeted with buckets of water pouring into your home at 1:00 in the morning.