Glue my urethra shut, then consume five gallons of Diet Coke at one sitting...

Repeatedly gouge my eyeballs with a spork...

Say, "Why, yes, now that you mention it, your butt does look huge in those pants."

These are just three of the things I would rather do than meet with the warranty guy from the company that built my house. As you may remember, back in December one of the fellows came out to see about the water leaking into the wall above our fireplace, and proceeded to unload a big steaming pile about the house mystically being able to suck rainwater into itself. But he promised they would do something.

So for three months they hid.

The big ugly water spot has in the intervening time gotten larger, and more paint has let loose. Not nice. I left a couple of calls the past two weeks, and finally got someone to call me back, who seemed baffled, simply baffled, that no one had come and cheerfully tended to my problem. Yes, it is a mystery, all right. So he said he could come this morning. So I waited on him.

I will stop now to say that it is wrong to hate people. I will say that it is wrong to stereotype certain occupations as being more dishonest than others. I will say that the construction process is complicated and demands workers and supervisors with a high degree of skill and knowledge. I will say that as an architect, I would rather be around most construction workers than most architects. Having said all that, I will say that once we implement Shakespeare's solution for the lawyers, that we start with home builders next.

Oh, he was thorough in his examination--looked in the fireplace, got up in the attic, looked in the kids' bedrooms, looked at the wall outside--but, true to form, decided that the open caulk joint on the corner boards of the little framed-in flue enclosure was the cause of the inside problem. And you know, caulking is the owner's responsibility. Despite the fact that the corner boards are merely trimwork and aren't meant to be a moisture barrier, and despite the fact that there is a layer of sheathing under the siding that should catch anything not kept out by the caulking, and despite the fact that the water somehow has to travel three feet horizontally to actually get to the inside wall... ::sigh:: Good thing I'm a not a violent person.

At least on the outside.
posted by Terry at 9:04:00 AM