What a totally shitty day!

Today may be one of the worst days in ages.

The painting continues. Last night after we went to bed, Joel (the painter) called and said that since they had painted all the trim in the rest of the house they were going to wait until Thursday to come back because they wanted to be sure the trim was dry before they decided to put tape on it to mask for painting the walls. We thought that made sense but now are not so sure. It is about 80 degrees outside right now and since we can't turn on the AC (the paint fumes would kill us if we closed up the house) and in our bedroom it is around 90. So we think the trim is probably dry. If it isn't, I would sure like to know why.

Today was really crappy because of the fact that I am the board president here in our condo complex. Yesterday and today we are having our roads inside the complex repaved. It is a two day job. Day one they do the northern half of the complex and day two (today) they do our side. We have a management company but our particular manager is out of town on vacation when this is being done (as well as exterior painting and construction throughout the complex). We sent letters to our homeowners (163 units) two weeks ago telling them the day we would be paving their half of the complex and that they needed to park outside the complex for that entire 24 our period.

So yesterday morning (Monday, August 23) I get a call about 8:30 from a resident that said the pavers had called our manager because there were cars parked on the street in our guest spaces that they needed to pave but know one answered. I told her I would be right down. I then spent the next hour knocking on doors trying to find whose cars were parked in guest parking. Finally found them and headed back to the office (and the paint fumes).

Later yesterday afternoon another board member called me and said that someone had driven on the new asphalt so I headed down to see. Sure enough there were tire marks throughout most of the new paving surface. I followed them to a unit where I found a car with black tires covered in tar. I knocked on the door and the young lady who answered told me, "No, I didn't drive on the new surface." LOL! Today I walked the paving with the foreman from the paving company and he said the repairs may be as much as $4000. The condo association will be asking this woman to pay for the repairs. We will lien her unit if she doesn't pay.

Then this morning it was our side of the complex time to have paving done. So out I went as a preventative measure to see if I could find owners to cars I knew were still in the complex. Sure enough there were probably eight cars parked in guest parking and I was later to find out there were also a number of owners who were still parked in their garages.

I proceeded to knock on approximately 65 doors between 7 and 9 am today. At least half of the people I talked to said they had no idea that we were paving in the complex and that they had to have their cars out of the complex. Holy crap! Give me a break. We sent a letter and two e-mails. How much more do we have to do? I ended up having to tow four cars and it cost those drivers $210 each.

In the process of knocking on doors I was told, "Fuck you Bellomo! You are a power hungry asshole!" That was yelled at me from a balcony by one homeowner who said I had no business waking people up telling them to move their cars.

Later in the day I had a Microsoftie (I knew because the phone call came from Microsoft) whose car we had towed call and spend 20 minutes screaming at me on the phone about what an asshole I was and how he was never told he had to get his car out and that he could damn well park in guest parking if he wanted to, and he was going to sue me and the condo association. It was one of the many highlights of the day.

So now it's 4:30 pm. The paint fumes suck, the tar fumes from the paving are starting to float in the window and we are hotter than we need to be since we own AC, BUT CAN'T USE IT!!!

See what I mean about a great day. And I know I have missed something. Oh, that's right. I missed the fact that I lost about three hours of my work day walking around being abused by my neighbors. Life is fun.