Contractors. Our New Best Friends.

All of my conversations with contractors went something like this:

Our first new friend, the Key Master ¹, came straight away to rekey the doors but also ended up repairing damage that made it easy to lock the back door from the outside but for some reason impossible to reopen it. There are so many mysteries.

Second on our speed dial was the Junk Eliminator ², who delivered us a nice, big, red dumpster and was happy to come as many times as we needed to haul it away and replace it with a new one (turns out 2 times was what we needed). He happily took everything including batteries, electronics, dog carpet, and creepy things from the basement. He wouldn’t take the 101 propane canisters. They are the hot potato in the room.

We had a serious water pressure problem (I guess the dirt makes sense now if you can’t fill a bucket to mop). As well, there were some issues with hot water and, of course, there are the toilets (remember those?!). Third up were our old friends, the Waterboys ³. The water pressure was easily fixed by replacing the carbon filter, which was apparently in a horrifying state. The hot water, which works but takes a while to run, requires a second visit to assess the boiler. The toilets are all being replaced next week. Check check check!

We called on outside help to tackle the layers and layers of dirt, assuming they might also be able to bring one working vacuum. (We left the tenants a brand new $500 Hoover 4 years ago, which I was told “blew up almost immediately”, although it was not one of the 4 broken vacuums left behind.) Three Cleaning Angels ⁴ showed up and scrubbed away for over 3 hours, with one poor woman spending the entire time just in the main bathroom. A bathroom that was newly renovated 4 years ago. Literally had never been used. Gack.

The carpet smell was more of a challenge. I ripped out any that had nice wood floors underneath, but a significant area of the house is just carpet over subfloor. Rats. Enter the Steam Gang ⁵ who were cautious (“dog smell is extremely hard to get rid of” … great!) but willing to give it a go. We agreed with their conditions. Indeed, it’s like the steam cleaning just made it angry, and now the place smells like wet dog. It’s the BBO episode of Seinfeld all over again. Fortunately, the carpets are all on the soon-to-be-replaced list.

In what seems like it might be a long-term relationship, the Members of Shield ⁶ came by for the annual spray for wasps, a problem the tenants complained about a few years ago. Based on the number of the ant traps I found around the house, I suspect we will also discover another problem requiring their help this summer. And next week, Shield comes again to investigate how much of our house doubles as a mouse habitat. Although by then Jeff may have killed them all (he is up to 3 mouse murder-death-kills).

Finding someone to come and remove wallpaper has not been so easy. I’ve left messages for three people, none of whom have called back. I managed to speak to one lovely gentleman who told me, regarding the wallpaper, that “he doesn’t do that horrible job anymore” and “prefers to leave it to the younger guys” (hey, could you give me the name of even one of these younger guys??) It’s almost like they know what’s in store for them…

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We are going to move on to general contractors next, and pass the buck to them to find people to do the work. That’s the stuff of a future post.

¹ Prince Edward Locksmiths, Picton

² Tom & Kris, from Load-N-Lift Disposal, Belleville

³ Veentra’s Plumbing & Heating, Wellington

⁴ Amanda, from Wicked Clean PEC

⁵ Tino, from Tino’s Carpet & Duct Cleaning, Belleville

⁶ Greenshield Pest Control, Belleville