The Bandaid Method

I can't believe it's been nearly THREE months since I have written anything here! And I want to apologize ahead of time for this post, but it's necessary.  For frustration purposes and hopefully to get some attention to the RIDICULOUS situations that are happening at our house.

So, sorry for this being a negative post. I'll reward you if you read it all though ;-)

So- the bandaid method.  What I have "affectionately" started calling the half-assed work that is being done on issues around our home that is just over a year old.
We have put in service request after service request, and while they are "attending" to the issues from the requests, they're not permanent fixes.  They get fixed for the moment but the issues always come back.
And the most frustrating part is the fact that we have to take time off of work each and every time we have to get something fixed. We BOTH work full time jobs. Jobs that are during the only hours that these service people can come out and fix things.
It's beyond frustrating.  And it "hurts" us to have these people come out over and over again for the same issues.  I work by myself, so getting time off isn't easy.  And when hubby has to take time off, he doesn't get paid for it as he's a contract worker.

I've tried really really hard to get the requests fixed when I have known time off- like when family comes in to town, or when we have other plans that I've asked for a full day off.  But when will these things be fixed, and fixed RIGHT so that we don't have to take the time off anymore?!

What issues are we having? Well, let's see:

1.  The cold water knob on our master tub. This has been an issue pretty much since we moved in.  The cold water knob on the soaking tub pulls right off.  It can be tightened with an Allen wrench, and stays put on for one or two uses, but then it just pulls right back off.  I've been told that they need to order parts- an "extender", if I'm not mistaken- because the screw that is being tightened doesn't line up properly to the part on the inside that it should be attaching to.

We've addressed this issue FOUR times. I've sent in FOUR service requests to get this fixed.  It's still not fixed correctly.

So count that- that's FOUR times someone has come out to my house that either myself or hubby have had to take time off of work... and it's not fixed. Each and every time, they've just tightened the screw and let it be.

• 9/6/16
• 3/6/17
• 7/5/17
• 8/17/17

The time in July- I had family in town.  I had specifically set up time for the plumber to come out and fix the issue.  That man was LITERALLY in my house for 2 minutes.  I brought him upstairs to the master bath, he saw the knob, told me he had order parts and would have to set up a new time to come out.

A month went by, and NOT ONE PERSON contacted me back to come out and fix my tub with the part necessary.  I finally called the plumber (which, btw, has a lackluster system of answering their telephones) and I was told that there was no record of a part being needed, or someone needing to come back out.  In fact- they couldn't even tell me WHO the plumber was that came out that day- they asked me if I knew.

So, another service request was put in.  This time, I had it scheduled for September 26th- as we had time off for other things.  Well, other things happened in the meantime. One of those being a LEAK coming from somewhere in the house into the kitchen. Oh yeah, you SO read that right. Another leak.

I'm a professional at service requests now, by the way. So if any of y'all out there need help- I'm your gal.

Service request entered for the leak.  I put specific instructions on the request to have someone come out while we were already off.  Well- that confused people.  I came home from work a few days after the request was put in, and there was a notice on my door that the plumber had been there but "missed" us.  Now- it's after 6 at this point. I tried calling them and was greeted by ringing and ringing and ringing of their phone- because naturally, their hours are 8-5. Ain't no one got time to take a phone call after hours.

Legit- like five minutes later, I get a phone call FROM THE PLUMBER wanting to set up an appointment with us for the service request they put in for our leak.

Say WHAT?!

I laughed. And I laughed some more.  I explained to this girl that someone from their company was already coming out on the 26th to address a different plumbing issue.  So, can they all just come out the same day?  We were pretty certain we knew WHERE the leak was coming from- but I wasn't saying so because the last time I said something we had to have them come out THREE TIMES to fix the damn leak.  Wanna hear the kicker?  She didn't have us on the schedule for the 26th. She seemed pretty okay that someone would show up with the service manager and his gang though.

And someone did show up.  BEFORE 8am.
Now, if they show up- ring the doorbell.  Or knock harder than a tap.  I have TWO dogs that will bark and bark and bark as soon as a leaf passes across the yard.  So if you knocked substantially, I'd know.

This was a photo I sent to hubby. I was in the driveway and it wasn't even 8 yet.  I had gotten up, made sure I was up, and had taken the dogs outside.

I didn't bother to call them.  I knew the service manager and his crew would be at my house within the hour. And they were.  He "took care" of calling the plumber for me.  And believe me, this really put a dent in the day since the ORIGINAL plumber "missed" us.

Because the plumber "missed" us- the crew that follows the service manager around cut a hole in my ceiling to try and find the leak so that they'd have it "ready" for when the plumber got back.  The plumber is also the person that should be fixing my cold water knob.

Well- that got "fixed" by the service manager- as in it got tightened down with the Allen wrench... and guess what?! It's already popped back off.

So, number 2 is TECHNICALLY the leaks we have dealt with.  Now, these are actually two different leaks- but for serious.... how many damn leaks can a brand new house have?!!

2.  Leaks from inside plumbing

The most recent is the hall (which I've given some details already but need to rant a bit more about that). The other one was also leaking into the kitchen, and it had to do with the master tub.  That master tub leak had me put in THREE service requests.

• 9/14/16
• 9/27/16
• 10/24/16

Now, this does NOT include the extra days that the drywall people had to come back out and repair our drywall.  That also happened each time, and on different days that when the leak was "fixed".... so you're looking at AT LEAST six days of missed work between the two of us.

Back to the new leak in the hall bath:  The service manager and crew found the new leak.  They took photos to send over to the plumber so that he'd know what he was dealing with.

A bit later the plumber shows up.  I asked if he knew what he was fixing.  Showed him the hole in my wall and the leaky spot:

Also asked him about the cold water knob.  He knew NOTHING about the knob.  That's when I took him upstairs and saw that it had been screwed back on. It was wiggly and loose, but on.  I pretty much said fuck it at that point.  I don't know what to do about that knob.  No one wants to fix it the right way.

So, he goes to work on the leak.  Now- he was a nice guy, don't get me wrong.  But all he did the entire time was complain about coming to my house.  He normally doesn't service this part of town.  He wasn't prepared to deal with a leak and having to pull up our toilet and fixing the leak.  Keep in mind they took photos of what they'd done, and supposedly sent it over to the plumber.

He fixed the leak. But not before putting his ladder on our hard wood floors WITHOUT protection.  He also asked for a towel bc the pipe might leak a bit while he was upstairs working.
Well, it was more than a bit.  I had to get several towels and a bowl to collect all the water that was falling.  It only lasted a minute or two. But come on.  On my hardwood floors.

Some of these photos I was trying to capture the dust everywhere bc it was a mess... I volunteered myself to clean it all up when he was done.

So, the leak is fixed.  There is STILL a hole in our ceiling that needs to be patched and painted.  We opted to have that done on the same day that the drywall repair guy is coming for our 1-year nail pops and cracks.  Yep. It's October. This is the earliest our 1-year could be done.

And- it's TWO SEPARATE companies that have to come out for the repairs.  One for the 1-year and another for the ceiling.  My HOPE is that the ceiling one actually shows up.  I told the service manager what date it had to be, and I haven't heard a WORD since then.  NOT. ONE. WORD.

And one more thing about our plumbing..... the day that everyone was out here for all this hooplah... our master toilet had stopped working.  We'd flush it and the bowl would fill up with water, and then slowly drain.  It would drain SUPER low and the normal water level hasn't been there.

I mentioned this to our service manager and he came and looked at it while checking everything else out.  We have a clog he said.  Very matter-of-factly and with confidence.  He grabbed our plunger, plunged a few times, flushed and it worked.  Imagine how much of an idiot I felt like.
He also changed the flapper inside the tank.

Well, two flushes later, and it's back to acting up.

I put a new service request in for this issue.  I got a call back saying that clogs aren't covered under the warranty.  I asked if he was DOUBLY sure that it was a clog (it was the SM that called) and he said yes.  He was willing to come and look at it again, but wouldn't you know it... only during the hours that we are at work.  So, we have to get our own plumber to come out and fix it.

I'm most frustrated about this because he messed with the toilet and did more than PLUNGE it the first time.  And now you're not going to fix it?  We have yet to get the plumber to come out because we are researching for someone BESIDES who RH uses- as they're just ridiculous and as I said- I don't want them in our house.  So we haven't been able to use that toilet.  But why attempt to fix something if you normally don't do clogs anyways?! 

3.  Our Garage Door Opener

In May, our garage door opener stopped working.  And, only the one on the wall inside the garage.  We can open the garage from our clickers in the cars, the key pad outside the garage, and the app on our phones.  However, the button INSIDE the garage doesn't work.

This one has been frustrating.  We've "made do" with what we have and get it open... but it shouldn't be this way. 

I originally put in a service request on 7/5 for someone to come out.  I took a call and scheduled an appointment for them to come out the same day that a lot of our other issues were being fixed.  I already had the time off of work for other commitments so it worked well schedule-wise.

Well, the day they were SUPPOSED to come out... no one showed up.  The window was from 8-12.  By 11, I hadn't heard anything so I called, and the gal I talked to told me that we weren't even on the schedule.  And she also didn't understand WHY we would have been on the schedule as they don't service Ryan Homes anymore.

Yep.  You read that right.

We did some troubleshooting over the phone, and were trying to figure out if it truly was something with the garage aspect of everything, or something electrical.  That troubleshooting never got resolved.  She had taken information, was giving it to one of the service techs, and no one ever got back to me.

Another service request was put in on 8/17 to try and get someone out to fix the issue. 

Then, when the SM came out with the gang to fix the other issues in the house that I had said weren't addressed. they also worked on the garage.  That guy went out, found an issue with the wiring and it being loose, and fixed everything.  He opened and closed the garage like, 6 times and it was working each time.

The next day.... it stopped working.  Went right back to how it had been.

So, another service request was entered on 9/27 and I haven't heard from any kind of company or anything to come out and fix it. The SM said he had forwarded the information on, but I have heard nothing.  I'll say the button is BETTER and works more than it had been... but it's still very intermittent and doesn't work every time you click it open.

Guys, we've been in our home for 450 days.  That's not a long time.  And all of these issues have been around for months, if not since the beginning of our occupying the house.

And bandaids are being put on issues and they just keep on breaking or not working, and we keep on having to put in requests and get things fixed.  Which means taking time off, not getting paid, and then just getting frustrated once something DOESN'T work that should be fixed.

One more rant while I'm at it, and that's just communication from all these "vendors" in general.... You've read about the plumber and how great they are.  Well, the 1-year drywall stuff has been "swell" too.

First, I couldn't get the fax to go through for our certificate that requested the repairs.  It kept coming back busy.  The SM took it from me on one of his visits to fix stuff and got it over where it needed to go.  So, this drywall guy calls me to set up an appointment, and it's legit like 2 months away.  I told him I'd have to look at a schedule and get back to him once I knew of a few days I could potentially take off of work.
Well, when I call back, it just rings.  Goes to a voicemail. The mailbox is FULL and I can't leave a message.  Which means that we missed the August dates that we thought we'd get.  And I had to go through this whole process again.  I told the SM that I couldn't get in touch with the drywall guy, and they eventually contacted me again.  When he told me a date towards the end of October, I took it. It was super hard for us to get that time off, but we've managed it and our drywall repairs will be done soon.

Whew.

Did you make it all the way through all of that?? I really do apologize to all of you that have stuck with us on this journey. I hate to moan and complain, but when is enough really enough? 

We do love our home and have enjoyed these first 450 days making it our own.

And, if you've made it this far, let me tell you guys about our exciting news!
We have two new babies!!!

So, top photos are our two boys that we've had.  Crosley is on the left, Cody on the right.
And on the bottom are our two newest additions! Chance (left) and Cooper.

We are SO in love with them! They're great little dudes!

Thanks for sticking around and reading our mess.  LOL!!

Closing Day!

We did it!

We closed on our home today and we are exhausted.

Yep, that's right.  Exhausted.

Closing went super smooth.  We showed up about 20 minutes early and got started nearly right away.  It didn't take longer than 45 minutes and we had the keys in hand and were on our way back to the house.

We have movers scheduled for tomorrow, and they charge by the item, so we decided that we would take over as much as we could ourselves to help alleviate some of the costs.  Our town home is about 30 minutes away from our HOME, but we ended up making three trips out there with car fulls of stuff in my little VW bug and hubby's full size car.

Each time we had something "fun" happen.

We dropped my VW off at the house before we went to closing.  We went inside and checked out a few things that had been left on our "list" from our pre-settlement walk through yesterday.  A few things still haven't been done, but our PM is coming out to check on us tomorrow so I'll touch base with him on those.

After closing we came back to the house and officially unloaded our first set of belongings into the house.

Our very first item was the little box that holds the ashes of our sweet boy Chase.  He was with us when we started this whole process and we were ecstatic to build a home for him and his brother to run and play in and enjoy as a family.  And, if you've been following along with our adventures, you may remember that Chase got super sick right before we broke ground and we had to make the decision to put him to sleep.  I still miss that sweet boy every day, and to both me and Jason it made perfect sense that the first "thing" in our new home is Chase.

So, after we have our moment, we unload the rest of our stuff and get ready to go.  We backed each of our cars one at a time into the garage for easier moving.

Well.  Hubby goes to leave the garage and the garage door literally goes down on his car!  I look up from my rearview mirror because I am waiting on him, and see half the car sticking out of the garage and the door is down.

Oh. Em. Gee.

So, he's panicking because he literally did NOTHING except start to pull the car out of the garage.  I quickly see that the pull string from the garage door that makes the door come off of the chain of the opener is stuck in the door of the back seat of hubby's car.  So, I get it out of there, and we have our first adventure as homeowners:  Try to figure out how to latch the garage door back to the opener so that it'll all work properly.

We survived.  We figured it out, got the garage door working again and back to the town home we went.

Trip number two.  Two car fulls of stuff again.  We pull into the neighborhood, turn down our street, get ready to pull into the driveway, and notice that there's a van sitting in front of our driveway, and our garage door is open!!!

What. The. Heck. {not my actual choice of words}

There are three people sitting in our garage.  An older lady and two younger teenage looking kids.  They're the cleaners and they're there to do the final clean on the house.

Say what?!?!

We closed on our home at 11 AM and here it is, well after 2 PM and they're just now doing the final clean?!  The older lady was quick to reiterate several times that they only moved things to clean the house and then put them right back where they found them.  They had one house in the neighborhood they had to do a "first clean"on and then our home for the final clean.

I didn't like this at all, and neither did hubby.  These three people quickly gathered their things and left.  Kinda suspicious if you ask me.  We called our PM, very upset that people were IN our home, and had to leave him a message.

The older cleaning lady also said that while she was cleaning the toilet in the half bath, she flushed it and it's been running ever since.  We both think that she saw we had put TP in there and decided to use the bathroom.

I have several issues here.  Obviously the fact that we weren't told that our home still needed to be cleaned and here it was happening after we closed on the home.  But second, if you're the cleaning staff and you walk into a home that has people's BELONGINGS in it, wouldn't you think to ask questions or maybe even not enter the home?!?!!  Granted it wasn't a ton of stuff, but it was still our stuff and it was definitely noticeable that someone was now living in the home!!!

This older lady also said that someone else was in the home installing some wire in the kitchen.  More on that one in a second.

Our PM finally got back to us, and he had no clue that the cleaning staff hadn't done the final clean yet and had no idea they'd be out today.  He was going to talk to them.

The "wire" in the kitchen was for our ice maker.  Let me tell you about this.  We were told at our pre-construction meeting that the ice maker rough in was in the basement, and that you just had to run the line through the floor and voila!  ice.

Well, at our pre-settlement yesterday, I asked our PM to show us how we were supposed to put it through the floor.  Yeah.  No dice scooter.  He had to drill the hole for us, and then saw off a piece of the pipe in the basement and add a nozzle to it so it worked.  Now, at our pre-construction meeting, it didn't seem like it was that much work.  He made it sound like it was one, two and done.  I am so glad we asked though because if not, we would be getting this amazing refrigerator tomorrow and it wouldn't have ice.  But now all is right in the world of ice maker lines.

Whew.  Our last trip out to the house was the uneventful one.  We brought our step ladder out with us and changed the code on the garage door so no more random people can come into the house without us knowing {after leaving from the second trip we made sure everything was locked up}.

So now, we sit in our town home for the last evening.  I am exhausted but I really wanted to write this post so that hubby and I can one day laugh at our first day as home owners.  OH!! We also went out and did some adulting and bought a dehumidifier.  We did some research and went with the Frigidaire 70 Pint from Lowes.  I'll update more on that a little down the road.  I really know nothing about these things.

And now a few photos and then bed.  Tomorrow our movers come, we get out of this town home and officially start enjoying our new home!

{and sorry if there are typo's, grammatical errors or parts that make no sense.  I'm definitely not going back to proofread this thing, haha!!!!}

My little VW hanging out at the house before it officially became OURS!

Closing papers. Not as intimidating as I thought it would be.

First load of stuff in the house, and then we selfie with our keys in front of OUR front door!!!

Chase Tanner.  Officially our first "thing" in the house.

The line for the ice maker rough in.  No idea how we were supposed to DIY this, but I'm happy we asked and our PMs took care of it for us.

That gosh darn cord thingy that caused our first crisis.  I made it shorter so that thing never happens again.

Three loads of goodies hanging out in the morning room.  Unpacking begins tomorrow!

More stuff. We most definitely have A TON of it.

See? More stuff.

Our bunnies!  They are the first ones to spend the night in the house.  It was easier to take them over tonight rather than while the movers started moving all of our stuff.

Bed frame all ready to be put together!

The glass surround for our shower!  This was one of the last things to be done on the house!

I plan on filling this closet with my clothes.  I definitely have a good head start!

And, Crosley, our 5 month old pup.  He sat perched on the couch watching us as we loaded cars with stuff to take to his new house.  He goes out there tomorrow with his big brother dog, Cody!

Week 13- Pre Settlement Walk Through

We have been blue taped!!!

We had our pre-settlement walk through this morning.  It went really well and was really easy.  We don't have many things that need to be done, so that's a plus.  I had my dad and granny with us that way they could be an extra set of eyes to check out everything.  That worked well because they did see a couple of things.

I think the walk through lasted about 2 and a half hours.  The first bit was just going over warranty stuff and all of that mumbo-jumbo.  So that part was pretty easy.  After that we walked through the house and we were shown how everything works.

We didn't use too much blue tape, but there were a couple of spots that need touch ups.  A few spots on the cabinets were the main thing.  We have the cabinet company coming out for touch ups later this week.  A couple of spots need paint that look like they were fixed but never painted.

They need to drill a hole in the floor where the fridge will be so we can run our ice maker line down to the basement to connect it for ice.

They need to touch up some of the stone work outside, and install the shutters over the porch window still.

And then there was a list of things to "get".

We were told to seal our driveway before the winter.

The deck needs to be sealed as soon as possible.

Water the yard a lot and often.

Seal the grout.

Get new hoses for the washing machine.

So we headed to the hardware store after the meeting was over.  We got some hoses, sprinklers, grout sealer, washing machine hoses.

We talked with the paint guy at Lowe's and he told us that we need to wait for the wood to "dry"-- about 6 to 8 weeks.  Stains and sealers are oil based and won't stick with the wood being "wet" still {because they're pressure washed}.  So yay to that.  We want to do this stuff once it's a bit cooler out.

Tomorrow at 11 we close and get the keys!

And then we pack up our stuff and FINALLY move in!!!!!!

So, back to packing so we can get outta this town home and into our DREAM HOME!

Week 12--- Rounding Third and Heading For Home!

This is on the third base side of Great American Ballpark-- the home of the Cincinnati Reds, and what we like to call our "summer home".  This quote just seemed appropriate for this post as it's a place we love, and because we are SO close to being in our new home!

Let me just say-- I want to be inside this house!  I want to just go inside and stay there til we close.  No one has to know, right?!?! It's so amazing inside you guys! I love it, it's perfect, and every tear, every stressful moment and waiting since December is all about to be worth it.  I love our home so much and can't wait to be in!

I found out from our SR that our PM actually HAD sent out emails about going on vacation, but their Outlook accounts are really wonky and only seem to work about half the time.  When we visited with our SR {we had to get the key to get into the house} today we had a good laugh because of the whole poop in the toilet thing.  I'm glad we are all laughing about it already.

We tried visiting on Tuesday this week, and even asked our PM if they'd leave the house unlocked for us.  I wanted to go in and measure windows and a couple of different things.  Well, the house was locked when we got there.  We were a bit frustrated as it takes us 30 minutes to get out to the house from where we live now.  So that is over an hour of our time spent with nothing to show for it.  And, it's late at night as it's after work when we do this.

So hubby called our PM on Wednesday and asked to please leave one of the doors open for us.  So we were able to go in on Wednesday.  Between Wednesday and going out today, we noticed that these things that were done this week:

Cable/Guardian stuff
Carpet Installation
Sod in the front yard
Seed/Sod in the back

It was neat going out today, because there was a huge list sitting on our kitchen island that had stuff that has been done with the house, and things that still needed to be done.  Part of our purpose going out today was to go through a list that WE had made of things we wanted to make sure were taken care of.  So it was great seeing this list.  A lot of the stuff we were concerned about were taken care of already. But, seeing this list was neat because it made us appreciate just how much they take care of things, and working on things that we didn't even notice!

I'm not gonna bore you with the stuff we want to have looked at by the PM.  It literally is a couple of spots that need to be painted, and some scratched cabinets that need to be replaced or taken care of.

I'd rather show y'all what everything is looking like, because it's amazing.  I seriously didn't want to leave once we were in there today.  I wanted to just sit and stare at everything and imagine what it's going to be like actually LIVING there.

TEN DAYS from today, y'all.  TEN DAYS and we sign our lives away and get the keys to this home that we have been dreaming about.

Okay. Pictures!

We will start with carpet photos!  All of these photos are from either Wednesday or Saturday (today) so they might be a bit out of order, but oh well :-)

Carpet selfie!  I was so excited to have our carpet.

View from the kitchen island looking into the family room

Family room!  Hardwood floors and carpet <3

Family room and hardwood in the kitchen

Looking towards the foyer from the kitchen.  Light is coming from the dining room.

Carpeted Stairs <3

Loft

Bedroom #2 (next to the master)

Loft again, with gorgeous railing!

Loft!

View looking out the door in the master bedroom

standing in the morning room looking towards the family room

standing in the family room looking towards the front door

basement!

And our other photos! Just detail shots and some outside shots!  It's gorgeous you guys!!

I FINALLY got to sit in my tub! It is gigundous! I can't wait to just relax and soak after a long day of work!

Hubby had to model the shower too!  We still have to have the glass surround put on, and I'm asking our PM just to make sure it's gonna be installed... but everything looks amazing!

all of our hardware was installed (TP holders and towel rods)

sitting in the bath tub looking at the shower

master bath vanity.

one of two master closets. This one is the larger of the two, which is inside the master bath.  It's mine ;-)

More shelving in the master closet.  I will eventually make this into an organized closet with shelving and other things, but these shelves work for now.

More shelving in that first master closet

Hall closet.  It's weird that these doors don't have knobs that turn.  You just pull the doors open

Hall bathroom

Laundry room

Hubby studying the punch out lists that were on the kitchen island <3

Guardian stuff was installed!  And we made our appointment for installation once we move in!

basement stairs.  The basement looks amazing!

Half bath off of the family entry

morning room door and deck.

That damn small pantry.  

our gorgeous kitchen. I seriously adore this place.

seed and straw in our back yard

Seed and Straw on the side yard.  I love this because we can actually see how large our yard is.  It's amazing and our boys are going to have so much space to run and play!

Sod and landscaping.  There are just no words for how amazing this looks and how it makes me feel.  I'm in awe and can't wait to be in this house.

Our mailbox was installed this week too!

Mailbox and our yard being leveled for sod!

The rest of our porch rails were installed.  I am so glad we chose this elevation. 

Dusk photo of our home.  

So, I can't believe this, but this is probably my last post before we close!  We have ten days from today, but we have A LOT going on this upcoming week.  My daddy and my granny are coming up from Florida to visit for almost a week.  I am excited because they'll be able to see the house, but bummed at the same time because I really wanted to be in the house for them to stay with us.  Sigh.  It's all worth it in the end though.

So, we have our pre-settlement walk through on July 25th and then we close on the 26th!

I'm hoping to maybe have a post for our pre-settlement walk through... but with that the day before we close, and my daddy and granny leaving the day of our closing... I'm not sure if I will have time! I'll still have some packing to do since we are pretty much LIVING in this place til the day we close.