Monday, September 22, 2008

The Sounds of Silence (NOT!!!)

Matt and I returned home on Wednesday after 3 1/2 days of what was supposed to be a 7 day get-away at Lake Tahoe, California. We'd rented a house there with plans to spend most of the time reading our armloads of books. The picture at the right shows the kind of vacation that we expected:

This is what we found: The house that we rented is next door to this one, on the same side as the porta-potty. A plumber was there when we arrived on Saturday afternoon, but was gone after about a half an hour. Another contractor stopped by for about 20 minutes after that. He let us see inside the house which was pretty much down to the studs. He told us that he thought the dry wall installers would be coming on Monday. On Sunday, the owner came by to water the lawn. He told us that the workers would be doing some "minor" work outside on Monday and after that the insulation would be blown in. He said, "It shouldn't be too noisy."

No construction workers came on Monday or Tuesday. We got the dredger instead. It made a couple of noisy pass-bys on Monday and rooted around directly in front of our house for an hour and a half to two hours on Tuesday. Having settled in with a big food shop for the week, Matt and I decided to make the best of it.

Loud hammering began on Wednesday morning. When we called the rental office, the agent said that she'd return a prorated portion of the money that we'd paid if we wanted to leave early. On the way home, we revisited our criteria for future vacations. We like the feel of the place to the right. The old adage applies: There's no place like home.

10 comments:

new*me said...

so true! I love vacations but the best ones are spent at home :)

Moby Dick said...

Sad that you basically got robbed by an unscrupulous Realtor. I would file a complaint with the State Board of Realty and you should demand all of your money back. If you go on the internet you can probably find the simple form for your state at your state gov. website.

It is very sad that you were preyed on, and I would wonder if they did not do this to you in part because you are elderly and they presume that you will not make trouble for them and they can take advantage of you. Sorry!

Mick & Cathy said...

You should write to the local newspapers and give them some bad publicity. Basically you have been robbed.

raccoonlover1963/Lisa Myers said...

Sorry you didn't have a peaceful getaway. For the past couple of days I have been waking up to jackhammers. The old train track is a block away. The next block over is a viadock. They are taking the steel railings down because it is so heavy and the concrete walls are crumbling. Safety reasons. The tracks and ties are gone and they are going to turn it into a bike trail.
Lisa

laughingwolf said...

rats! but home is best....

Nola said...

Sorry to hear about your holiday...yes, there is no place like home. We have not long returned from a disaster holiday in Fiji. I love your blog by the way!

ArleneWKW said...

Thanks Annette, Spider, Mick, Lisa, Laughingwolf, and Nola for your comments. I appreciate them all. And welcome to my blog Nola.

Nola said...

Thanks! I just got your message on mine:) I love the web!!! I am discovering so many great sites and people such as yourself and it is a real joy!

Lorraine said...

That's just plain wrong, I would have packed in a lot sooner ;)

Nona said...

Oh nooooooo! That is such a bummer. So sorry your desire for a nice quiet retreat got ruined.