Sunday, September 9, 2007

Why we are happy to be moving stress and all

We are moving to a three-bedroom townhouse on Sept. 17 and it has been very hard dealing with every thing. We are very excited about the move, but it is hard work getting every thing ready. Boxes are hard to find and now we are in the crunch time and we don’t have enough boxes. We will keep looking.

It has been a very strange thing this move. We fought for a year for the transfer; we had 8 weeks to get ready for the move and like every thing in our lives it has not gone smoothly. It has been very stressful. I think a large part of it is that the building we are in has been under construction for the last year. We finally get our balcony back and then they start on the windows, right in the middle of us packing. So we had to stop packing so they could get to the windows. Then we start again. Then they tell us that they have to do more work, so we stop again. It turns out that the balconies are not safe. Go figure. So they come back twice to do repairs. Oh and they finally put locks on the doors so little kids cannot open the doors and fall off the unsafe balconies. What a joke. They replaced all the doors with ones that had no locks so there was no way to keep your kids from opening the doors. Then they put out a notice telling people they could not put their own locks on and that they would be charged if they did. Then weeks latter they get around to putting locks on.

This whole construction thing has been a headache from day one. Of course we are getting out just as they are done. One year of unsafe volumes of sound as they ripped out the balconies, with a year wait for them to put them back and then they are not safe. Just think about having some one with a jackhammer working outside your window not two feet away. They have ear protection, we did not. Also with the way the building is the sound and vibration went threw out the building. It never ended for a year. Add the window and door replacements and you have a lot of unhappy people. Also, since the construction started most of the people in the building have been getting sick, it is thought that the assault of sound and dust and who knows what else has a lot to do with it. Now they are going to replace the kid’s park in the next few weeks, if they ever get started. The non-stop construction has been stressful all by itself, but add in the loss of our air conditioner because of the construction and us moving, well stress is a good word to use.

Then we have all the fun with the people we have here. Not all are bad neighbours, most people I have never met but expect they are just like us, hardworking and just trying to live out their lives the best they can for themselves and their kids. But like any low-income housing, or any large apartment building you get some bad apples. Just a few weeks ago we has some stooped people (men, drink, drugs and guns, babysitting not a good combo) who got video taped shooting guns in the building. They got charged and the baby they were babysitting was removed from the mom. Sad for her, but unsafe for every one else.

There is always some thing like that going on around here. People go around at night and see if doors are open so they can break in. We have had that happen to many times to count, people trying our door in the middle of the night. The last one was two weeks ago. Then we get the kids pulling the fire alarm at lest once every week or so, usually in the middle of the night. What fun. Only this last time it was not a kid pulling the alarm, it was some one building a fire in one of the stairwells. Nice, thanks for trying to hurt every one. They built up a pile of flammables and then lit it. That was about three weeks ago.

Then you add to the mix a super that has just been moved down to janitor because she was letting herself into people’s apartments with out 24-hour notices and no reason to be in the apartment. How do we know this, well we are one of the people who told city housing we did not want her having access to our apartment any more. She kept forgetting that we work from home and usually one of us is home. She tried to many times to come into the apartment, surprise we are home, why are you opening our door. They also just put in a camera in the laundry room, because there was to many thefts of peoples clothing. Guess who got caught going into the washer where other peoples clothing was in. Yep, the super that is now the janitor. She was complaining that they don’t have access to the hard drive the video camera is being saved on. Strange how the thefts went away, but she still has a job.

Our fridge has not worked for the last three years, and they will not replace it. Why, because there is nothing wrong with it we just have the settings wrong. They set the settings and it is still freezing the food in the fridge. Oh and you cannot even keep ice cream in the freezer, it is soft. We have had food poisoning several times now. Food freezes, unfreezes over and over again. You never know when it happens, or what food is ok. Thank goodness we have a little freezer of our own. That does not help with the food we have lost from the fridge part that froze. It is very hard when you are on a tight budget to have to throw out fresh food because it froze and then unfroze in your fridge and is bad. Our stove only has one good burner and they will not replace it or have it fixed. Last word was that they would not fix any thing for us since we asked for the transfer; they will just replace it all once we have moved. Thanks a lot. Lets just say we are happy we are moving now, and wishing we could have moved a year ago when we first tried to.

The funny thing is we have been happy here. It is better then the place we left. We are only moving so our kids can each have a bedroom. Having them both in the bedroom has caused them to have sleeping issues, and well they just need their own space like any one else.

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