Our bad judgement of character.

The past month had been quite stressful for us. It all started when our landlord came to us 6 weeks ago with a letter for us to sign. He sold the house in August and would close mid December. The letter was a Release of Our Lease Contract. He said it was just protocol and was advised by his lawyer to have this letter signed by us. He had reassured us that nothing would change and that he would just transfer the lease over to the new owners. Well, two weeks later he gave us an eviction notice. We had to be out by November 30th because he had to deliver the house vacant to the new owners. That would give us only a month to pack up and move out. We were shocked by this. Mr. How had tricked us into signing the release form. We are not stupid people. We were just too trustworthy. And because we had sign it, there was nothing that we could legally do. Scott tried to ask him if we can revoke it since the new owners do want to take us on as tenants. We would pay him for the two weeks until our new lease kicks in. He stayed firm with his answer, "I have to deliver the house vacant. Just following my lawyer's orders.". Because he was driven by greed and not wanting to lose the deal, he had lost his compassion and kind-heartedness. Ever since that day, I had lost every ounce of respect that I had for this man.

When we first met Mr. How and his wife Pearl, we couldn't stop talking about them. They were one of the nicest people that we have ever met. Pearl was a retired school teacher so I immediately connected with her. Their only daughter lives in Ireland and doesn't visit very
often because travelling with three little kids is too difficult. I guess our kids reminded
them of their grandkids so they treated us really nicely. They knew about our building project and were flexible with our lease. "You can pay per month if you wish." he had said.

In return for their kindness, we were very patient with them when it came to issues around the house. For instance, the garage door opener wasn't working properly. It would always open for no reason and when we did want it to open, it wouldn't open. Scott asked Mr. How to replace it, to which he refused. He said that we weren't using the garage to park our car so it's not a priority. But we park our strollers there and we use our strollers everyday!! Other tenants would not have done this but Scott went out and bought a new automatic garage door opener. It was no big deal for us to pay for the door opener and we avoided a disagreement so we were content with what we did. After all, they had been so kind to us.

When the flood happened, we were so angry because not only did we lose monetary value for our things, but we had lost a lot of sentimental items that could never be replaced. Not once did Mr. How apologize for our damages and losses. The flood was an accident but it could've been prevented had he replaced the sum pump with a new one when he renovated the house.

Did money cause Mr. How to become this cold-hearted, uncompassionate person? Or was this his true character, finally revealed?

Either way, Scott and I are truly hurt by this whole situation. We are very disappointed in ourselves for misjudging this man's bad character. Every time something like this happens, we lose a little more faith in believing in people. I find this really sad...

Racing against the clock.

As Winter is fast approaching, we are racing against the clock to put the house up as quickly as possible.  We need to close it up so that work can be done inside the house over the Winter months.  That is our wish, but certain things just takes time.  The foundation walls are up!  We now have to wait 10 days before the framing starts because the concrete needs to settle and cure (harden).

Here is the process:



Frames for the foundation walls.



 

Here it it in action:

After the concrete is harden, they then remove the frames and put on the protective plastic around the perimeter of the basement to protect from leaks.



 The garage.



Front basement window.



On the left is the basement window looking out to the backyard and on the right is the walk up opening.



All dried up.  No more water problems!




 

Walk up opening.





Looks like the concrete people did a good job!



Speaking of a job well done, I have to comment that Scott did a good job with covering the pool.  This doesn't happen very often so this is a BIG deal!!



The pool is completely covered.





Except for the sides. 



How many mice do you think will go in here looking for shelter and then finding a big surprise?  I can't even think about that!  Ewww!!!

Why ISN'T this pump working????

When the excavation was done, a lot of water accumulated at the bottom of the hole.  Scott wanted to pump it out because he was afraid that the surveyor and the framer would not be able to do a proper job with all that water in it.  Since we didn't have a temporary electrical pole installed yet, Scott decided to rent a gas powered pump from Home Depot.  It was a really huge, heavy-duty machine.  So when he got there, he couldn't bring it down to the bottom by himself.  He had it on the top and then put the hose down to the water to pump.  Good idea huh?  Except that it didn't work!



Where did all this water come from?



After fiddling for 4 hours, Scott claimed that Home Depot gave him a broken machine.  The next day, he went back to Home Depot to get another pump.  And after working on it for another 3 hours, it still didn't work.  He claimed this time, that it was too high and there wasn't enough for power to pump the water out.  So the second pump went back.

On Saturday while I took Kaiden to his music class, Scott went and bought two pumps from Rona and got some parts from Home Depot.  He had to take his two helpers along...

Except that they were more trouble than helpful.

When I got home, I took care of the kids while Scott went back to the site to try out the new pumps.  After a couple of hours, he concluded that pump #3 didn't work.  He got it on sale so it must've been defective.  He went back to Rona to return that. 

Onto pump #4!  After playing with it for a while and trying different things, he decided to read the manual.  It turned out that he was supposed to add cooking oil to it first before using it.  He had been adding water so that was why it didn't work!  It took him 3 whole days to just remove some water.  And we are supposed to be finished in 10 months???  It's a good thing we are hiring professionals to do the other jobs!

Now that the water situation is under control, we are finally moving along...



The framers are working on the footing.



The frame for the footing is completed and ready for the concrete to be poured.

This is totally on the side but, would you use this:

After this happens?

Swimming anyone?

Since the pool is at the back of the house and we need an access way to bring the pool back there, we had to dig for the pool first before we dig for the house.



The Fiberglass pool in Australian Blue.




Digging the hole and then filling it with gravel.




Leveling it off.




One very excited little man!




Prepped and ready.




Lifting the pool in place.



Here it is in action:



Making sure it is in the exact spot.





The hard part is over!


 Filled it with 3 truck loads of water.  Scott is in the process of covering it with plywood.  We don't want any animal (or people) to fall in unexpectedly!








Another very excited little man!



Bye Bye House! We don't miss you!

Take it down!

Scott came by during his lunch hour while the guys were taking a break.  He came up to them and said, "Whoa, you guys took down the wrong house!!"  They were stunned for a moment until they realized that Scott was joking.  I wish I had their reaction on tape!  Hee Hee ;)

I thought they would just knock the house down into a big pile of rubble and then haul it all away.  But there is a systematic way to demolishing.  They separate the different building materials such as metal, wood, concrete, brick and so on into separate piles and then take them to different dump sites.

Demolition is completed.