Fence!
We've been trying to get a back fence in the yard of our townhouse ever since we moved in two years ago. We started inquiries the first spring we moved in, but we became hopelessly snarled in red tape, when the woman we were dealing with from the condo board kept giving us forms to fill out and then losing the forms or giving us different forms to fill out or forgetting she'd ever talked to John at all and starting us over again 'til the point where we hit the fall/winter of the first year and gave up. Very annoying, as all we were trying to get was a fence identical to what every other townhouse in our complex already had.
Last summer we tried again, again with very little luck until it was whispered in our ear by neighbours on the condo committee that we might be best to just take on building the fence ourselves. We had a contractor come and look at the fence project and we paid a $40 fee for the privilege of having him quote a price to us that was ridiculously high. By late in the summer we were seriously considering just building the fence ourselves and started pricing materials at The Home Depot for doing that. Once I broke my wrist, though, it again became a project put on-hold for the spring of 2010.
Last month a water pipe broke in our neighbours' front yard causing a lot of chaos and construction in their yard and ours over a period of a couple of days. It also put John in touch with a new woman running those types of operations in our townhouse complex. While she was apologizing to him for the inconvenience of the water pipe John figured it wouldn't hurt to mention the fence we had been trying to get built for two years.
"Yours is the only unit on the street without a fence? That's odd. Here's a number- call these builders who work around the complex and they can build it for you. They'll quote you a good price."
John was astonished. So he called the building company and talked to someone who showed up at our house the next day to go around and check out our fencing needs. Unlike the other contractor we'd called this guy's consultation was free and the quote was about half of what the other contractor had quoted for us last summer (in fact when John called to accept the quote, it turns out there was a misunderstanding and John was assured that the quote was actually $80 less than he'd thought it was when he accepted it). We are both still quite amazed to see this all pulling together.
So, yeah, now we just have to wait out the rest of the Ontario winter and the guy will come and build our fence when the ground has thawed. And we'll finally have a private backyard that I can garden in and we can hang out in in the summertime.
Yay for efficient condo managers. And for silver linings in the burst pipe mess.
Last summer we tried again, again with very little luck until it was whispered in our ear by neighbours on the condo committee that we might be best to just take on building the fence ourselves. We had a contractor come and look at the fence project and we paid a $40 fee for the privilege of having him quote a price to us that was ridiculously high. By late in the summer we were seriously considering just building the fence ourselves and started pricing materials at The Home Depot for doing that. Once I broke my wrist, though, it again became a project put on-hold for the spring of 2010.
Last month a water pipe broke in our neighbours' front yard causing a lot of chaos and construction in their yard and ours over a period of a couple of days. It also put John in touch with a new woman running those types of operations in our townhouse complex. While she was apologizing to him for the inconvenience of the water pipe John figured it wouldn't hurt to mention the fence we had been trying to get built for two years.
"Yours is the only unit on the street without a fence? That's odd. Here's a number- call these builders who work around the complex and they can build it for you. They'll quote you a good price."
John was astonished. So he called the building company and talked to someone who showed up at our house the next day to go around and check out our fencing needs. Unlike the other contractor we'd called this guy's consultation was free and the quote was about half of what the other contractor had quoted for us last summer (in fact when John called to accept the quote, it turns out there was a misunderstanding and John was assured that the quote was actually $80 less than he'd thought it was when he accepted it). We are both still quite amazed to see this all pulling together.
So, yeah, now we just have to wait out the rest of the Ontario winter and the guy will come and build our fence when the ground has thawed. And we'll finally have a private backyard that I can garden in and we can hang out in in the summertime.
Yay for efficient condo managers. And for silver linings in the burst pipe mess.