Continuing fun adventures of the floor that wouldn't get finished...

Before I begin - the cat's fine, for those of you who just come here to find out about her. ;)

Tuesday I get a call from the owner of the flooring company, after I threatened them with the Better Business Bureau. Seems that there was a death in the family, which is why he didn't return my calls for five days. Okay, fair enough, but even telling the girl who takes calls for your company that tidbit might've helped. He explains that the guys who left on the 9th without doing our floors had "a situation" to deal with at home, which is why they lied to me about why they couldn't finish the work that day. And the owner told them that "communication was important" and "he had to be honest with people", sentiments that I wish he had taken to heart. So he swears all over that the work will be done by close of business Saturday, but can't give me an appointment yet.

Thursday comes and we've still not been given any kind of service appointment, so Heather calls again. Turns out they had us down for Saturday morning (silly us) from 8-10.

Saturday morning comes and at 10:15 or so, someone shows up at the door. We finally get the transition pieces for carpet to flooring (although the one in the "foyer" area is black, not brown, and we now have white quarter-round pieces on our natural wood moulding - but we're gonna paint that anyway) and the kitchen floor got cleaned up.

Still no baseboards. Owner offers up the explanation that the baseboards were a different contract than the floor (true), we haven't been charged for those yet (also true), and now everything that was contracted for is done (not really, since we did contract for the damn baseboards).

Sigh.

The Fun Continues

Furnace was supposed to be delivered & installed on Tuesday February 6. Truck carrying the furnace broke down and they let us know they had to delay it by a day.

Carpet & floors were supposed to be done on the 8th, with a service appointment sometime between 8 and 10 am. When no one had arrived by 10:30, my wife called the flooring company to be told that the carpet they ordered was defective, and they had to get us the right stuff. We want the right carpet but a call would've been nice, as Heather had to rearrange her schedule to be able to meet them. Rescheduled for the 9th, between 8-9 (she had a meeting that day that she had to leave for around 9:30).

9:30 arrival time for the floorers on the 9th. Carpeting is installed but when I arrive at home that afternoon I'm told that the baseboards that came in were the wrong ones. No problem, someone will be out the next week, they'll call us early in the week to schedule. Not a big deal. Then when they're leaving and the kitchen & bathroom floors aren't done I'm told that the guys who are out "aren't comfortable doing the floors" as they're "not good at those types of flooring". Okay - why am I just hearing about this now?

But wait, it gets better.

No call by Tuesday the 13th to schedule, so Heather calls them. We're told it'll probably be Thursday and "someone will call to confirm by 3pm on Wednesday". Wednesday night comes, no call confirming. Thursday, no flooring people. Heather calls Thursday to find out what's going on. They call back on Thursday night and I get the phone. Turns out it was a miscommunication or something. I ask to have the owner call me, as I'd like to get some things straightened out. He calls while I'm at work and apologizes all over the place to Heather. He swears that the work will be 100% done by Friday.

But wait - there's more.

Friday comes, and the same two guys who couldn't do the work on the 9th, one week earlier, come back and do the floors in the kitchen and the bathroom. They left glue all over the kitchen floor where they were working and a gap betwen the baseboards and the laminate in the bathroom - I can see why they weren't comfortable doing the work previously, as it's kind of a mess now. Still no baseboards. No transition pieces between the carpet and kitchen either (dunno what they're called in flooring language). No indication of when we'll see those, either.

I call the flooring company and ask for the owner, and thus begins a several day process of "I've asked him to call you" excuses. The lady was very nice and seemed very concerned, but I've still received nothing and it's now Tuesday. He was going to call me on Friday, he was going to call me on Saturday, he was he was he was. Zip. Nada. Nothing.

Ugh. Did I mention that the insurance company has given us a total amount, but no idea when to expect the check? This is getting expensive.

If it ain't one thing...

Saturday we painted, because what better time to paint than when you don't care if you ruin the carpeting?

We did some spackling around vents, so we had to turn off the heater so that it wasn't blowing at us the whole time. I had to remove a light fixture from the ceiling, so I turned off a circuit breaker so I didn't get fried. We also opened the doors to make sure we had some airflow with the paint fumes, thinking we didn't want to get high or kill the birds. Somewhere in all of that, the heater stopped working. Permanently.

so the weather stations are talking about unseasonably low temperatures for this time of year, and our heat isn't working. The 24-hour emergency help lines are useless, as each and every one of them told us "we can't come out unless we've done service for you before". Well, thanks for nothing.

Cost to replace the heater - $2700. Woo!

I'll have a full update on the flood soon, but I figured people might be amused by my ongoing misfortune. :)