Hey, How's Your Move-In Coming Along?

The story so far: We moved in to our apartment on December 13. That was 8.5 weeks ago, and it took something just short of a court order to get us the keys to the place here. It still isn’t completed, even though all remaining fixes were supposed to take place no later than January 13. That was 4 weeks ago. Yesterday, at least some of the more obvious lingering work was (re)scheduled to take place: the too-short kitchen countertop was getting replaced and another cupboard (the first one was the wrong color) installed. Again, both of these fixes (and a few smaller ones) were supposed to be completed in mid-January. So this time B drew the short straw and took time off of work to meet up with the work crews while I went to school. Surprise! The work still isn’t done, but a comedy of errors took place in my 5-hour absence, to wit:

- The replacement kitchen counter was also measured wrong AGAIN, so the one special order item that took months to arrive here won’t fit. Again.

- Even if the counter was the correct size, the workers wouldn’t have installed it. Reason? It wasn’t paid for, and the workmen weren’t about to install it unless they got their 1200 Euros. Um, we were supposed to be in here months ago—and this still hasn’t been taken care of by the landlord/building super? Of course, this all would have been taken care of if the super was a man of his word and showed up with the installers (and signed one important piece of paper to issue a withdrawl of funds from his construction account). Instead, he had his phone shut off all morning and was unreachable. He finally returned the messages, and seemed perturbed that his daylong meeting was interrupted. Bear in mind that he actually volunteered to babysit the installation crew while B went to work and I was at school… for better or worse, I’m glad we knew that the guy was a flake and somebody chose to stay home.

- The “cupboard” wasn’t a cupboard at all, just 2 shelves, certainly not what we were told was going in. But hey, at least THOSE were paid for, so we have the suckas now.

- The plan was for B to work from home remotely, and I was going to spell her when I returned at 1:00, and she could go in finish up the workday at her offices. Except… the internet crapped out (server down), and she couldn’t even do that either. Add this to the frustration and drama unfolding in the kitchen, and pretty much nothing got accomplished today, with the exception of a couple more shelves.

So now the super wants to have a powwow with me about the “new” dates. Feh. Let’s see… we were supposed to move in to a 100% completed apartment on October 30, November 10, November 15, December 1, December 10, December 11, December 12, and all the unfinished work was supposed to be completed on January 13, February 9 so I’m sure this new “firm date” he’s going to land on me will hold up this time. While we briefly talked about moving out of the place and finding a new one—basic contract law will back our play if we decide to do that—the bottom line is that it would cost thousands of dollars to move just a few miles, even if we do this on the cheap—just setting up shop all over again is a huge undertaking, and we’d likely have to purchase the entire kitchen. That’s right, in Germany (and most of Europe), it’s the tennant’s responsibility to buy everything kitchen related. And by that I mean all appliances, cabinetry, sink, the works-- you move into a bare space. One of the reasons we liked this place so much is that we had a $10,000 kitchen waiting for us already—a very, very rare occurrence. Our next step is to haul in the actual building owners and have a chat with them. Can’t say I’m too keen about that, but when they see the shoddy workmanship and indifferent attitude displayed towards their retirement dream house and investment by their hand-picked employee, things may shake up a bit. Stay tuned. This is going into extra innings.