So we own our new house but had to sleep in the apartment tonight. Hopeful that we can be into the house today and sleeping there tonight. Got up early so that I could be on the phone with the city’s water authority when they open at seven thirty.
I called in and learned that the city of Carrollton keeps the water off for three days unless you pay an $55 fee to get it in two days. I asked about public health and safety and they said that health and safety concerns do not apply to new residents moving into the city. I asked about the water being turned off a day and a half ahead of time and they claimed that the sellers of the house and requested it off when it was turned off and, via direct implication, that the seller’s agent was lying to us about the entire thing. Fun.
We tried to get a hold of the sellers and find out if they really had kept the water on and ask them to call the city on our behalf so that we could get it turned on for us as a wrongful shutoff but the seller’s agent flatly refused to even discuss the situation. So, as far as we are concerned, as the city clearly pointed to her for providing false information and her complete refusal to support it in anyway that she obviously was lying and is now attempting to cover it up. Of course she is from Ebby Halliday, the real estate agency is was “too good” to even return our phone calls and emails when we were first looking for a home in Texas. Our business didn’t matter to them then and it sure doesn’t matter to them now as we were already unwilling to ever recommend them but this really takes the cake.
So we are screwed. We paid the city’s carefully planned bounty and hope to have water on Thursday. Of course, no commitment on the time of day so it basically means that we get water at the end of the day. We are not happy with the City of Carrollton right now and think that the city doesn’t have a very good plan for making a good impression of people moving into the city. Talk about a good way to tell people that outsiders aren’t really welcome in Carrollton, Texas. The water authority told us that it was a city ordinance to deny us water, in fact. That means that the city council actually voted to block newcomers from being able to move in safely and easily just to do so as it costs the city money to not provide services. It is very expensive to send crews out to turn off water and then turn it back on – especially when in between they can’t charge for water usage! We sure got the message very clearly.
So no moving in today. Another day wasted. We took two car loads of stuff up to the new house today of things that we don’t need in day to day living. We really can’t take much of anything because we are not at all confident that our water is actually going to get turned on tomorrow. If we take too much stuff there we could be in a really desperate position. So we have to be conservative and hold stuff back until we know for sure that it is safe to move.
I am really, really sick today. Going out into the air to do some of the moving yesterday and today has really taken a toll on my throat. I’m sure that I have bronchitis. Dominica and Liesl probably have it too. We are a hurting family.
Brian and Tara arrived this afternoon. They made good time coming in from Tennessee. It is tight quarters in the apartment tonight with so many people here.
We did some packing but basically there just isn’t anything to be done. We are just waiting out the water and stuff. We really need to get out of the apartment tomorrow. Jen is coming up from Houston and there just isn’t going to be any free space at all. We are moving towards “move panic” at this point.
This evening we went up to Carrollton so that they could see the new house. There wasn’t much else to do anyway and we were pretty excited to get to see our new home some more – plus it gave us a chance to take another few loads over to get the move started. We were very happy to see that the dresser which was supposed to be picked up this morning was actually picked up today and is now out of our way.
Since everyone was over helping out, Watson, Souder and I ran over to Angelo & Vito’s on Frankford Road to get pizza. We were excited to discover that it is actually really good pizza. One of the big concerns of any new house is that you are going to be in an area that doesn’t actually have good food available. This is a major find on our first day.
We couldn’t hang out for very long in the house as there was no water. Washing up and using the bathroom being major issues. At least we had a fridge in the garage into which we could put our leftover soda.