Can you dig it?

I'm sure many of you have waited for almost an entire week with bated breath to hear what has been going on with the developer/builder guy (who we really should think of a clever name for). Okay, so we're the only ones that have been waiting to hear, but that's because we have been forced to live and breathe this stuff. UGH!

Anyway, what it boiled down to was this: pay $350 for half of the water line move, or wait until he breaks our line on "accident" while building his house and pay for the damage and sue him to get our money back. We also could have just refused and started legal action. Considering the lawyer costs $250/hr, it was actually cheaper just to suck it up and pay the $350. The good news is that the contractor's billing us directly, so we're not getting billed extra by homey. We actually convinced homey to sign a document stating that we had only agreed to pay for half the water line move, and not for any other utilities, and that the agreement should not be construed as a future promise to pay for half the move of other utilities. And it was notarized. So now we have proof that we had not agreed to split anything else with homey. The next thing we have to worry about is the electrical- he's already starting to make a stink about that. So, we have to go back to the lawyer and figure out what our plan of action should be. He was the one that advised us to just pay the $350 because it was the cheapest option. We got a bill for $100 from the lawyer already. Joy.

Now to the juicy details.

Luckily, the contractor that homey hired to do the work is an outstanding fella. He had to deal with a lot of crap because of us fighting with homey, and he was very professional. He worked with el esposo (since I'm not the one home during the day) to figure out where the new water line should go (which el esposo and I had agreed upon). The trenches were dug today, the lines routed, and he even installed a new hose bib for us for the cost of parts. All we need to do now is wait for the moving of the water meter and we'll be done with this horrible part of our saga.

Here's the fun part: el esposo was out on the island yesterday at work, so he didn't answer his cell phone. Contractor guy called him and left a message. Apparently he had broken our water line while doing some initial exploratory work in preparation for today and had shut off the water, but he was trying to find out if anyone was home so that they could turn off the water heater to keep it from burning up. Hooray! No one was home! So we were a bit miffed that our line had been cut. Contractor guy called el esposo back a little later, when el esposo was on his way home. He had fixed our line, turned on the water, and explained that the reason he broke the line was that it was mere inches beneath the surface. Oh, okay. All was well.

So last night, mi marido and I are out digging up plants likely to get damaged in the moving of the line, since the trencher was going to need some room. We dug up snapdragons, poppies, and irises. It was great fun to play in the dirt, and the weather was amazing. Anyway, we were poking around near the old hose bib, and lo and behold, there was the water line, maybe three inches below the surface. It's old galvanized horror, too. No wonder he plowed right through the line! We almost broke it with a shovel. Anyway, we got our plants moved and even attacked some of the blackberry trying to worm its way into our driveway. It was a fairly productive night.

And that's where things stand. In the next few days we'll get our new water meter, and then we'll have our water line on our property, safe from homey. We're thinking about getting our septic tank and drainfield located, just to make sure it's not on homey's property. Oy, what a mess THAT would be! In the meantime, we're just going to prep for the electrical crapola the best we can. We just want it to be over.

Here's something else interesting, that we wished we would have known beforehand: contractor guy was really surprised that homey was allowed to take down the redwood, since it's an endangered species. He says that he always has to cordon off redwoods when he works, because they're protected. Damn! If we would have known that beforehand, maybe we could have prevented its death. Oh well. Just something interesting to keep in our back pockets. Drat.

If mi marido can think of anything else to add later, I'll have him do so, since he was the man on the ground throughout most of this drama. Maybe we'll post some pictures this weekend of poppies, pansies, gigantic rhubarb, and other lovely things living on our lot to take our minds off of other, anger-inspiring things.