sittin' on the dock of the...

...actually it's a balcony and it's on the condo and I haven't sat on it yet, but I took a look at the progress yesterday.

In September, you may remember we purchased a condo as an Income Property.  At the time of the purchase we knew two things, that the AC compressor doesn't work and that the balcony would need to be rebuilt.

Since then, we've talked to three contractors (in October) and hired one (name to be withheld until job is complete) to do the work.
BEFORE


What is nice about hiring a company to do the work (not that we could have done this job ourselves, but...), is that they do ALL of the run around.  They contact the Township, they pull the permits, they detail the drawings, they deal with the Condo Association, they deal with the material suppliers, the carpenters and most importantly, they deal with us.  We just have to agree to what is proposed, write the checks and hope that we don't have to b!tch about anything.

Well, that last part is not the easiest when people make it so simple to find the corners that have been cut or the person who hasn't done their best job; even in the little things.  We find this all too common when hiring work out.  The old adage applies here far too often; "if you want something done right, do it yourself".

Let me say this first, we looked at the progress yesterday and so far, we haven't said anything bad about it.
PROGRESS


...oh, it IS nearly the end of February, right?  And as you've seen from above, we hired a contractor in...October!  And this job is a miniature deck...6x9.  Four months.
DECKING

Anyway.  This job has not come without its problems.  Mainly the Condo Association.  They speak out both sides of their mouths...and they only want to talk to Jerome..."man to man" as the fellow has said on a few occasions.  LOL.  Go ahead, I'd rather you did!  They act as though they are on board with the design changes and then we get a late night phone call where they read us the rules of the condo by-laws...and then the next day they are again fine with the design changes...such a back and forth with the emotions.

The other thing would be the nickel and diming that the construction company does.  How much would you think a 6x9 deck would cost (that's 54 sq.ft.)?  Then factor in that it's currently a cantilevered 2nd floor balcony...and then factor in that the new "building code" makes it so that you can't have a balcony that is cantilevered any longer (unless it's new construction and the balcony is a part of the floor truss).  So that means posts and foundation and post holes and metal brackets.  How much would you think that would cost?

Anyway, we are happy that it is finally being built...and weather permitting, it should be done by the end of next week, if not sooner.  Then all we'll have to do is replace the AC compressor.

By the way, our tenants had told us that during the summer they had an exterminator come out to take care of a bee issue that was coming from the balcony.  They found enough honeybees and honeycomb to make two gallons of honey (which they (the exterminators) threw away - ugh!).  Well, when they were tearing down the balcony this week, they found MORE BEES!  So, it's really a good thing that this work is happening during the winter.
BEES

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