I know it’s been ages since I wrote anything here, and some of that is having been busy. The rest? Yeah, you know it … I’m lazy :-)
So, I’ve been trying to get moved into a larger apartment since early August. I asked my current complex if they had anything available and when they said they didn’t, I began looking around. It didn’t take long to decide I’d rather wait out a larger apartment becoming available at North Huntington Hills (NHN from now on, my current place). The prices almost everywhere else were significantly higher. I’m not talking just a $50 or $100 per month difference in many cases.
NHN said they should have something open around the end of August or the middle of September at the latest. I bugged them constantly checking on availability. I’m sure they got tired of hearing from me every other day. I think there was someone on the waiting list ahead of me that got bumped so they could be rid of me. Ha! They wish.
I finally got word from the complex that something would be available at the end of September. The current occupant was doing the same thing I was planning to; moving to another apartment in the same complex. Apparently she was taking her time (at least that the impression I got from the manager) and the complex was having a hard time estimating when she’d be clear.
I finally got a move in / sign paperwork date: Oct 5th, 2007. Yeah, not even in September anymore. I stayed in touch with the complex office, which I’m sure they just loved, making sure that the 5th was still looking good. By the 4th it became obvious it wasn’t going to happen. The tenet still had stuff in the apartment, was out of town, and could not move the remainder until the weekend. The office manager was extremely apologetic (and has been through most of the process), but told me that she’d issued an ultimatum: the tenet had until Monday morning (the 8th) to return the key. Anything left in the apartment after that point was going in the dumpster.
The manager gave me the opportunity to go take a look at it on Tuesday. If I’d been willing to deal with the current state of the apartment, I could have taken possession then, but I wasn’t. I was then told that I’d be clear to move in on Friday afternoon. That would give them time to finish painting, fix the usual things, and get the carpet cleaned.
Friday finally arrived and I got the key (but didn’t sign any paperwork yet)! Then I left for Houston for the weekend. Obviously nothing got moved over the weekend. Since then, Jimbo and I have gotten most of the stuff moved over. All the heavy items got moved on Monday with a fairly steady stream of other stuff throughout the week.
Wednesday I was at the apartment in the morning when the power when out. I hadn’t moved the utilities over into my name yet since I hadn’t signed a lease or any other paperwork at that point, so it was pretty obvious what had happened, but that didn’t make me any less unhappy. The apartment office told me that they only have power applied while the cleaning crew was in the apartment, and I understand … I do, but a little warning would have been very nice. I was specifically holding off partially due to decisions they’d made.
I got the number to AEP (the local power company) and began the process of transferring my service from the old apartment to the new one. It went pretty painless until I was told that the connection at the new apartment could not happen until Thursday at the earliest. At least it wasn’t 100 degrees outside. Candles sufficed as lighting for one night. It’s turned out though that they never flipped the main breaker on after hooking up my service.
Since I was going to be loosing power at the old apartment, I figured there was no point in leaving the phone/DSL there since it’d be useless soon. After calling AT&T I got a reasonable transfer schedule. They’d move the dial tone by Wednesday and then have the DSL hooked up by Friday. That’s a long time to wait, but I do sit in front of a computer all day for work.
Friday I called (after checking to see if I had DSL in the morning) to see what the ETA was on the DSL transfer. Let’s just say that what should have been a 5 minute phone call turned into a 30 minute ordeal that had me talking to a standard rep, her manager, and then the billing department. Apparently the DSL tech showed up before the dial tone had been moved, and therefore couldn’t do his part. The DSL work order got sent back to the phone side . Once they finished, they created a *new* work order for the DSL stuff which caused a new estimated date to be selected. They pushed the install date all the way back to Tuesday (the 23rd). I gave them hell for that, but there wasn’t anything they were willing/able to do to speed it up. The chat with the billing department was to ensure that I wasn’t being charged for the time when I didn’t have service.
I called again this afternoon to check on the status and got a very pissy phone rep that really didn’t want to talk. How much do you want to bet that I have some red flag on my file now after last week’s events? I wanted to verify that everything should be working tomorrow, which she confirmed, but I also wanted a time to expect it. *That* she didn’t want to talk about. It took four times of rephrasing the question before she realized I wanted a worst case time, a.k.a. when do the techs stop for the night. That magic time is apparently 8:00 PM.
So now we wait … some more.
I’ll post some more about the new apartment and pictures before too long.
If you waded through my last entry you will know that things haven’t been terribly smooth during my move. Thankfully the previous events were not an indication of future events. Tuesday came and by the evening, my first chance to check, I had DSL fully functioning. I also got a call Tuesday morning from Home Depot letting me know that my washer and dryer were in. That was a surprise since the paperwork said November 1st.
I opted to not have Home Depot deliver/install the washer and dryer mainly because of the amount of money they wanted for the service. I bought a nice, for me at least, front loading washer and dryer that put a big dent (crater?) in my checking account, but it’s the type of item I expect to have around for some time. Home Depot wanted over $100 to deliver and install them. I have a hard time paying anyone that much for so little. Heck, I’m of the engineering mindset, right? The hitch, the washer must weight 250 – 300 pounds *dry*. Wow! Jimbo and I nearly died getting that thing up the stairs and into place.