2 Responses to “Does bad luck come in threes?”

1. 1.
   June 3rd, 2010 at 7:28 pm
   

   Hi Jeff,

   I heard you mention the bad luck you’ve ran into these last few weeks… I must admit that I would switch place with you right now. You have no clue how bad our luck has been these past eight months!

   Last summer, we purchased a beautiful, spacious home on the outskirt of the city. Although in dire need of a facelift – just about everything dated from the mid 80′s, down to the blue bathtub and pink toilet! – it past the home inspection with flying colours (the home inspection was carried out by a building engineer.)

   Three days after we moved in, that beautiful blue bathtub leak all over the kitchen ceiling. You read right, THREE days after we moved in. What made the matter worse is that besides the dark pool of water that was absorbed by the ceiling drywall, it would seem that water spots were appearing on that very same ceiling underneath the tub itself. We consulted with our lawyer who suggested that, through our real estate agent, we contact the previous owners regarding this problem. To our surprise, the response we received was basically that we were the new owners now and that it was our problem… oh! and that those older stains were apparently coffee stains (how on earth can you get coffee stains on a kitchen ceiling is beyond my comprehension!) After further discussing the response with our lawyer, he told us that it would be useless to pursue the matter in court if the repair was less than $200. Not knowing where the leak stemmed from, we decided to remove the blue tub and replace it with a white one, and renovate the bathroom from the 80′s. Turns out, the cost of the repair would have been approximately $50 (the seal around the shower on/off and temperature handle had long ago dried up…) The cost of the bathroom facelift $5+K (and to save money, we’ve done all the work ourselves except for the electrical and plumbing, which was professionally done.) I must admit that the bathroom looks incredibly stunning now!

   It doesn’t end there. My husband had decided to turn one of the basement rooms into his workout room. One day, he noticed that one of the walls was quite “wavy”, so he decided to take the drywall down to further examine it. Turns out, whoever built this room only fastened the studs to the floor and not the ceiling! What the…?! Given the poor craftsmanship, my husband decides to take ALL the walls down to make sure that they were properly done. Two of those walls met basic construction standards (they were fastened both at the ceiling and at the floor.) To our surprise, behind wall #3, we found the city’s water meter BOXED into a wall, which, in turn, is quite rusty and leaking ever so slowly. My husband communicated with the city, who sent a technician the very same day to replace it. But that didn’t stop the water from pooling on the floor, so my husband removes the drywall against the foundation and finds the source of the water leak: the water was coming in from where the city’s water line was! (At this point, we were already experiencing this year’s early spring thaw.) Great, that meant foundation problems! Now, if you’re wondering how come the inspector didn’t pick that up that’s because the inspection was done during a beautiful, dry August day during a beautiful, dry August week… Fixing that problem was an addition $5+K.

   Remember that nice heavy rainfall we had during the long May weekend? Well, we noticed that two of our windows were leaking. When we visited the property last summer, we felt that the windows would need to be replaced and therefore we brought that point forward during negotiations. The previous owners assured us that the windows were fine and the home inspector advised us that the exterior caulking would need to be replaced. The problem is that the water isn’t infiltrating from that dried up caulking, but rather from where the glass sits on the window’s frame. The water has actually lifted painted caulking (the windows are fine, eh?!) Cost of replacing all the windows, roughly $15K. (We’ve decided to replace all the windows in case others have the same hidden surprise.)

   And to top all of this off, we’re expecting our first child by the end of this month.

   I don’t mean to be rude or condescending in any way, but I would have gladly taken a broken finger and a dented/scratched up bumper than all these expensive surprise problems we’ve encountered.

   Respectfully,
   C
   

   - C
2. 2.
   June 4th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
   

   Bad luck usually comes in three! Stay home this weekend Jeff!

   As for “C”, what did you expect, you bought an older house that had secrects. Welcome to the world of bring a “home owner”.

   You also make it sound like it sucks that you are having a baby at the end of the month. If anything, that should make it all better.

   You didn’t have to redo the entire bathroon.

   You did’t have to replace all the windows at once.

   Your husband didn’t have to take all teh drywall down.

   Just saying…

   - Catie