Do You Know What We Do to Thieves in This Country?

I should've posted this earlier, but I've basically been one of the walking dead for about a week now. Moving is pretty much the pits and having finals stacked right on top of that really isn't helping, either.

But anyway! To my (suspected) thieving.

On Monday, Bill and I rented a cargo van from U-Haul in an attempt to clear the last of our belongings out of our former apartment. That didn't happen until Tuesday, but that's another story for another post - complete with a picture!  We rented the van around noon and went over to the apartment to pack, which - in hindsight - was not the best of plans. What we should've done was pack and then rent the van, but I occasionally have moments of absolutely epic stupid, especially when left with exactly enough energy to operate either my brain or the aching muscles in my arms and legs, but clearly not both at the same time.

We got a fair amount of work done but had to stop far earlier than was ideal because we're both attending school part-time and needed to go to our respective Monday night classes. Being as I didn't want to pay for the mileage to drive the van to campus and back, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to go back to the U-Haul lot, swap the van out for my car, go to campus in the car, come back to the U-Haul lot after class, and swap the car out for the van again. So that's what we did -even though we earned ourselves a really weird look from the guy working the counter when we parked the van but didn't return the keys. On the reverse switcheroo, we apparently earned a weird look from someone else entirely... namely, the po-po.

It was about 9PM when we got out of class and back over to the lot to trade vehicles, at which point they'd been closed for about two hours. Exhausted and without stopping to think that the cargo van wouldn't have its headlights set to come on automatically in the darkness the way my car does, we just hopped in and I proceeded to make my way down the street, totally clueless. Stupid of me, I know, but it's a busy road with traffic in both directions and lots of streetlights, so neither of us really noticed until we got to a slightly darker stretch of road. Cue me going, "Crap, sweetie! Are my lights on?!?" followed by fumbling in the dark of the cab of an unfamiliar vehicle, trying to find the controls for the headlights. Which, of course, were nowhere near where they are in either of the cars I've owned. I did eventually manage to get them on, but only about a minute before I noticed flashing lights in my rearview.

So, I pulled across two lanes of highway to the side of the road and proceeded to sit there with the cop's headlights angled perfectly to blind me via the side view mirror of the van, tapping my thumbs on the wheel and knowing exactly why I had been pulled over and already having corrected it - or so I thought. And there I waited and waited while not only that car pulled up behind me and prepped to approach the vehicle but one more car, an unmarked one, pulled up behind that. Plus a third across the street! (Although I didn't notice that one until much later, when we were pulling away.) That's a lot of police officers for one brain-dead girl that forgot to turn her headlights on for a few minutes. Needless to say, by the time the officer approached, I was... let's go with somewhat confused. So was he, judging by the look he gave me through the window when he saw me. The conversation went something like this:

"Uhhh, can I help you, officer?"

"Can I see your license and registration please?"

"Here's my license. But I don't have the registration."

"Is this your van?"

"Uhhh, well, you see... I rented this U-haul. So, y'know, it's obviously not registered to me."

"You don't have the registration."

"Well, no. It might be in the glove box or something. I dunno. I can check. Sweetie, can you che---"

"Do you have proof that you're allowed to drive this van? Your contract or something?"

"Yes. I have my rental agreement right here."

I handed it over to him, pointing out exactly where my name was on the rental agreement. I was too tired to really be aware of exactly how rude I was being, but given the fact that he had asked if a very large cargo van with the words "U-Haul" painted on it in multiple places was mine, I was a bit concerned about where this conversation was going and the accuracy of his powers of observation. Protip: You probably shouldn't make "WTF? Are you stupid or something?"-face at the police in most scenarios, even though I'm about 99% sure that was exactly the expression that I was wearing by that point. But I only have so much polite to go around before some of the snark leaks out, regardless of how hard I try to stop it, and the stress of this house has had me in short supply.

"Alright, well, I just needed to make sure that you were authorized to drive this vehicle. Your headlights were off and it gave me an excuse to pull you over."

"Ohh, I figured. I realized it a few blocks back and turned them on. Sorry. My car turns them on automatically, so I didn't think about it when I was pulling out of the lot."

"Yeah, we've been following you since then."

"Umm, okay.... why?"

"It was a strange time of night for someone to be picking up a van."

"Well, yes, but we're also students and needed to go to campus. I didn't want to pay for the mileage and didn't have my parking permit in the van, anyway, which is why we went to get my car and then switched coming back."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. But it's a strange time of night and there have been a couple of vans stolen from that lot."

"Wait, what?"

"We've had several calls to the Upper Darby police about U-Haul vans stolen from that lot in the middle of the night."

"Oh, no! My car is there! Should we go get it instead of leaving it there overnight?"

"No, no, they're not interested in stealing the cars. Just the vans. They find them abandoned all over town and no one knows who has been taking them or why."

"Err, okay."

"I'm going to check your license and be right back."

So, the police officer walks off. Cue a look exchanged between the boyfriend and I before we crack up. I wasn't pulled over for having my headlights off. Having my headlights off was an excuse to pull me over as a suspected U-Haul van thief. A suspected U-Haul van thief who is on the loose in Philadelphia's suburbs and may be dangerous! My license was clear, as expected, but by the time the guy came over to give it back to me and tell me he was letting me off with a warning - and that he would've done that had I just been in my car, anyway - neither of us could possibly keep a straight face. I tried to explain what was so funny between snicker fits, but he seemed far, far less amused by this fact than we were. All he could say was that if he had just sat there while two shady characters made off with yet another cargo van, he'd look pretty stupid at work, which is entirely true. While I sympathized, that didn't make it any less hilarious.

Even now, I can only think of Lewis Black's bit about his rental car being stolen in Miami and how he knew the guy must've been on drugs because, with a Lexus and a BMW on the same block, only someone tweaking could be like "I... I... I gotta have the Plymouth Horizon!". It fills my imagination with daydreams of what sort of person steals moving trucks for joyrides down Route 1, flooring the massive beasties to, what, maybe 45 MPH? Disenchanted teenagers from the local high school? Thrill of a lifetime, right there. That's my best guess. The other options I came up with were: a drug cartel moving far too much product to fit into a reasonably sized trunk, Mafiosos on a killing spree so large they had to haul half a dozen bodies at once, or maybe a renegade band of underground musicians too broke to make it to their next gig any other way. The longer I think about it, the crazier the possibilities become, although I've ruled out a troop of amateur clowns practicing their car-cramming gag by starting big and working their way down in size. And as if dreaming up all those possibilities wasn't enough to keep me giggling to myself for days? Every time I tell the story, I cackle at the thought that for the rest of our lives, Bill and I will be telling everyone we know the tale of how, in the process of moving into our very first house, we were pulled over on suspicion of Grand Theft Auto: U-Haul Van.

PS - I sincerely hope that becomes the next title in the video game franchise. 

Moving Day

...The one good thing about being so sore from moving that your muscles have gone stiff long before you've gone to sleep? Despite sleeping in a strange new place with new noises, new smells, new roads, new neighbors, new traffic patterns, and a new garbage route that means men will be banging cans outside our window at 7:00AM, I am going to sleep the blissful sleep of the dead.

Pictures of the aftermath of moving day to be posted later this week!

Crazy House Things

Yesterday, my parents drove down from an hour away to come help do Crazy House Things. Because, well, I have to be out of my apartment by May 1st, so this is going to be the season of crazy house things. 

And by that, I mostly mean me running around my apartment like a lunatic, shouting "Holy buttmonkeys, Batman! WHY DIDN'T I PACK THESE BOXES WHEN I BOUGHT THE HOUSE SIX MONTHS AGO?!?". And then remembering that because of how long the renovations have taken, that would have meant having virtually everything we own in boxes. For six months. While living out of suitcases and frantically unpacking already packed boxes every time one of us went, "Where did that sweater go?"

In the process of doing Crazy House Things from approximately 10:00AM 'til 6:30 PM, I have discovered the following:

#1 - My mom totally can, and will, move boxes if they're light enough and if I make enough whiny facial expressions at her. This came as quite the surprise, given the fact that my family, my friends, and my college roommates have all made jokes about my mother "supervising" moving efforts from the time I was twelve on. And by supervising, I generally mean reading the newspaper on the couch while making comments about where things should go and why everyone else was being so short-tempered and cranky. This habit of my mom's has become the source of many family "lulz", or so I'm told the kids are calling it these days. She even volunteered to take a day off of work to do it. Thanks, Mom! That was totally awesome. <3 <3, even if you never read this. 

#2 - I am sorely out of shape, as evidenced by the fact that I am ridiculously, well... sore. In places I didn't think I even had muscles, let alone used. Hip muscles?! Since when do I have those? And why do they hurt so much?!

#3 - Measuring before buying is generally a good idea, or so I discovered after my dad convinced me to buy house numbers. We brought the plaque back to the house and it turns out, it doesn't fit. This may result in hanging the plaque in an unconventional spot or, y'know, just returning it for something smaller, provided we didn't cram the receipt in a funny place that will never again see the light of day. Whoops.

#4 - With a big thanks to Ray at the Home Depot in Broomall, I am hereby advising anyone having keys made to take one new, fresh set that hasn't been worn down yet and set it aside somewhere safe in your house. Don't ever use these keys. Ever. Keep them as the master set, which you use to make all your other copies. Otherwise, as your keys wear down over time, you'll end up making copies of worn down copies and eventually, they just won't work in your door anymore. That seems like such a ridiculously easy, common-sense thing to do! But it turns out that common sense isn't very common. 

#5 - After being locked out of the garage because the contractor left the wrong set of keys for the new door, we had to call him up and have him swing by with the right ones. This was so that my dad could take the old, rusted metal shelves left by the previous owner to the scrapyard using his pickup truck, where they will be recycled and my father will receive monies for his efforts. Because recycling is awesome. And so are monies. We like both. The good news about this is not just recycling and monies, but also the fact that I now have substantially more space in a much, much cleaner garage. The bad news? 

While we were in there, we noticed that not only can we not find the switch for the overhead light in the garage, but that the plumbing stack is leaking. Again. Which means that we no longer have functional plumbing, until the coupling is sealed.  And this is after I dropped $285 on having a plumber come out to the house four times to clear out the dried up crud clogging the lines, partly from them sitting unused for two years and partly - we suspect - from the subcontractors washing junky stuff like grout and sheet rock crumblings down my pipes. (After all, dried up crud in your pipes isn't usually a nice, bright, clean white.)

This is so totally me right now:

Repairing the coupling shouldn't be a big deal. It's essentially just the part of the plumbing stack where the PVC piping put into place by my contractor meets the old metal piping, which I believe was cast iron, that goes underneath the concrete floor of the garage and down to the sewer line. It should be quick fix, with the water shut off long enough to put a better coupling, like a Fernco coupling, into place and making sure that it seals. 

For those of you that don't know, a coupling is basically just a short length of tube that connects two pieces of piping together. In the case of plumbing stacks, they usually have metal bands that look kind of like belts around them and look like this, as taken directly from the Fernco website:

Depending what type of piping you're using, dielectric piping might be needed to connect pipes made of two different metals in order to prevent corrosion. There's a long and complicated physics explanation about this and atomic properties, ionization, etc., but to make a long story short? Not using them will junk-up your pipes and bad things can happen. Fortunately, that's not the issue here.

The issue here is that this is one more thing on the giant list of stuff that needs to be done by April 24th, which is nine days from now. The date has nothing to do with my move, so much as the fact that we closed on the house on October 25th and the 203K program only allows six months for construction. After that? Well, it may just be a matter of filing for an extension, which we've already done since my original completion date was December 31st, or... we might be totally screwed. I don't know. I really don't want to find out. So I reiterate: I am definitely a fat, angry, finger-flipping monkey right now. 

...Can I please just have my functioning plumbing back? It's only been (almost) six months!

Did I mention six months?!?

Surprise, Surprise!

...The house wasn't done. And now it's going to cost us another $150 to have yet another inspection done. Not that I blame Fred, really. His job in this process is to protect me, to make sure that everything is done properly. As proof? Here's a short-list he sent out of things that still need to be done:

• Pointing in the rear
• Proper installation of the HVAC condenstate line.
• Proper installation of the metal or flexible metal vent from the dryer to the outside. VINYL OR FOIL ARE NOT PERMITTED.
• Proper repairs of all damage areas to the kitchen cabinets to your satisfaction
• Access to the garage and any additions repairs required for the garage.
• Anti Tips for the gas range
• Warrenty papers for the roof, 10 year. Paint and repair skylight as per SOR
• Final inspections from the city
• UL cert for the electrical panel
• Water heater placed in service
• Confirm hose bib in front is working
• Confirm GFCI for bathroom as per SOR
• Weather permitting confirm operatoin of A/C unit
• Remove all debris and leave job broom clean
• Confirm all new windows operation and presents of screens.

And those were mostly things that I had missed. In an attempt to be proactive, I've called the city's L&I (Licensing & Inspections) office to check on the permits. It turns out that the electrical permit was closed out on February 23, 2012. The mechanical permit is still open. They can't even find the plumbing permit, which is positively fantastic if the city ever inspects the property or, say, I want to sell it at some point down the road.

In short, thank you, Fred! This is exactly why consultants are needed on 203K projects.

Promises, Promises

The house was supposed to be done by December 31st. It was supposed to be done by January 31st. It was supposed to be done by March 1st, then April 1st, then last Friday, then yesterday.

Today, at 2:30 PM, I am supposed to be meeting with my contractor and consultant for what is supposedly going to be the final inspection, so that I can sign off saying that all work is complete. (Bear in mind, this doesn't mean that all work is complete - just the stuff I'm paying someone else to do for us.There is still an enormous amount of work left for the boyfriend and I to do.) I'm leaving now, in the hopes that this is really it and that my vacation day from my office has not been wasted.

We shall see, kids. We shall see.

Wall Street vs. Main Street

...or How I Spent My Spring Semester Fighting with a Mortgage Company.

It's been over a month since the Big Bank Blunder and as some of you have likely noticed by now, there haven't really been very many updates to the blog.

That's because there really hasn't been that many updates to the house. Ohhh, things have definitely been done over time and there will be posts made about both the bathroom and the kitchen, highlighting their progress from start to finish. But once again, we've ground to a complete halt because of the financing. This time, it seems that the woman from the underwriting department who was assigned to handle my loan left her job the day after we finally received the check that had been awaited oh-so-eagerly. From February 24th onward, my loan was supposed to be handled by one Ms. Reinbold, her supervisor. Her supervisor, who never returned a single one of the two emails, two voicemails, or other four entirely unanswered phone calls made to her. She processed no paperwork, issued no checks, and wouldn't even provide me with the name of another one of her employees willing to assist me. Phone calls and emails were sent to the agent who closed my loan. Miraculously, his email is no longer in use and permanent error messages were received. To make my realtor, who recommended the company, aware of the situation, I copied her on my last message to him. She's no longer replying. (Not that I blame her. After all, what can she do besides be sure none of her clients ever use Vision Mortgage again?)

So, five months after closing on my house and three months after construction was supposed to be finished, I did the only thing that I could think of. I started desperately contacting their branch manager and their VP, leaving them voicemails and emails alike after finding their contact information on the company's website. Miraculously, 24-hours after contacting the company's leadership, I received an email back from the woman who had been ignoring me, apologizing for "missing" my phone calls. Apparently, she'd "been in meetings all day". Really, Ms. Reinbold? Really? You were in meetings for two weeks straight? I find that hard to believe, considering the fact that I work at the corporate office of a Fortune 500 company, supporting several members of management, and I've never once seen any of them be out of the office and unreachable for more than four days. Even then, they were checking their emails. I somehow doubt that you, a manger of the underwriting department at a single branch of a three-branch mortgage brokerage, have more demands on your time.

That leaves me no choice but to ask, what's your excuse? In fact, what's your entire company's excuse? Thus far, I've had my closing date changed multiple times because Vision Mortgage was unable to meet its promised deadlines - in fact, the promised 45-days it would take to close my loan? Try closer to 90-days. Items I paid for out of pocket, like part of my consultant's fees, were mistakenly included in my closing costs and not reimbursed to me until nearly four months after signing the paperwork. I've had construction on my house stopped entirely for a period of no less than three weeks on two separate occasions because my contractor wasn't being paid. The remainder of my consultant's fees were mistakenly sent to the wrong company, who somehow managed to cash the check anyway for funds from my bank loan. And now I've been utterly ignored by your employees without excuse or apology for two weeks. All of this, with no regard for the fact that with April 1st swiftly approaching and me forced to spend yet another month in my apartment, I'm out $2900 in rent I shouldn't have had to pay. Meanwhile, my name has been sold to every company imaginable and my mailbox - the one which, yes, the mailman finally managed to find - is crammed with offers of insurance, financial services, "deed protection", and what has even on a cursory investigation appeared to be complete and utter scams. And I'm sure you've made a pretty penny by selling my name and that of every other home buyer that's had the misfortune of being directed through your doors.

Please stop sending me customer satisfaction surveys. What else is there for me to say to you? I'll be making you fully aware of my complaints when I contact the appropriate authorities at the banking commission and ask them to initiate an investigation into your business practices.

Lessons in Comparison Shopping

What did we learn today?

It's generally not worth shopping at Kohl's. Yes, you can get fabulous deals there - if you can time your purchase of home goods so that they're on sale, you have a coupon, and you have either Kohl's cash or the occasional $10 gift card they randomly send my boyfriend's mother, which she usually kindly mails to me.

Otherwise, even if you have only a few of these things? It's not worth the trouble.

The kitchen in the house is quite small and unless I can find a solution to the massive blind cabinet tucked into the corner, through which my contractor ran the water line for the fridge (Eep! Will this be functional? Will it flood?), we're not going to have very much in the way of storage space. As a result, I've been thinking about putting open shelves on the large section of blank wall where we couldn't fit cabinets, as the window narrowed the space to a point that even standard 12" upper cabinets wouldn't fit. The issue with open shelving is that whatever is on it is readily seen, so it'd best be attractive. Otherwise, you're going to be looking at an unattractive hodge-podge of items every day.

My imagined solution to this, aside from putting cookbooks and my spice rack there, is using these proposed homemade shelves to store pantry staples stored in pretty glass containers. As I happened to be in the same shopping center as the local Bed, Bath, and Beyond to deposit some checks today, I decided to stop in. I found a lovely shower curtain I may go back to get, but that's besides the point. I also found a set of Oxo Good Grips food storage containers! They're plastic as opposed to glass, but given the cats' tendency to climb and how boisterous the dog is, that's probably for the best. They're priced at $99.99 for a set of ten, which was a much better deal than buying them individually, save for the fact that the box set contains a lot of little ones I wouldn't really know what to do with. Being as I have a 20% off coupon that would bring the price down to $79.99 but had thoughtlessly left it at home? I decided to wait and continue running my errands.

Those errands also included swinging by Kohl's, as I had a $10 coupon that I had't realized had expired, a 15% off coupon, and they were having a sale. The exact same set of containers was there, regularly priced at $129.99 and on sale for $110.49. With an additional 15% off, that would've brought the price down to $93.91. If my $10 coupon hadn't been two days past its expiration, meaning that it had expired the day before the sale started, the price would've dropped to $83.91 - still not as low as the BBB price, which would've involved far less coupon-clipping and careful timing on my part.

This wasn't the only item where that was the case. I checked a number of other items, too. They were mostly food prep accessories, which were either overpriced or not carried by Kohl's at all. In short, the way Kohl's manages to make their sales look so awesome is by artificially inflating them in the first place.