under construction indefinitely*

That is how is feels living in this building. And the incompetence of the management is not helping my anxiety levels. Late yesterday afternoon a note was left on our doorknob informing us that they were putting new tile in the area by the elevators on our floor. We were informed that work would start immediately and that the elevators would not be available to us until Friday morning. Talk about no notice!

We were instructed to walk down a floor and catch the elevator there. Conversely we should take the elevator to the floor above when returning home and walk down a flight. I have a feeling they haven't cleaned the stairwell since the last time I was forced to walk all the way down as all of the elevators had stopped working.

Granted, this doesn't sound like a major inconvenience, but sometimes people aren't just traveling with a backpack or purse. Sometimes people do crazy things like grocery shop for the week, or do laundry for the last two. As far as I know those aren't crimes. Some people even do them on a schedule. Again, don't think that is wrong. What if you were having company? Or had scheduled delivery of a piece of furniture? Or even worse were not able to climb stairs because of a recent surgery or permanent injury?

Thankfully I did manage to complete both the grocery shopping and the bulk of the laundry for the week. I do however have a bunch of stuff I need to take with me on Friday morning for Admit Weekend. I even broke down and got myself a granny cart to make the job easier (plus it will make my life easier in the laundry room).

The real kicker is that they are still at least six weeks out from completing this project, or so the notice went on to say. They are only putting tile in the elevator bay. The rest of the carpeting on the floor, an awful brown pattern that is at least a decade old, doesn't get changed out in this phase, nor does the wallpaper which is stained and even ripped in places. I can't proclaim to be an expert in home improvement projects, but one thing I am pretty sure of is that if you are planning to change out both wall covering and floor covering, you do the walls first so you don't have to worry about damaging your new floors.

Also, I haven't actually worked out the matrix, but given the area that they are tiling, I suspect it would be possible to do multiple floors on a given day, and still only require that people walk down a flight of stairs. The reason the elevators are closed off is more for giving the tile time to set, not actually putting it down.

I should also point out that what I have seen of the tile on other floors looks hideous as when they have put down the tile, they tore off the trim along the floorboards. It looks unfinished. I suspect that will be fixed in the next phase, six weeks from now. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my Dad decided to lay these little tiles in the upstairs bathroom. Essentially it was more work than he realized, and even though the space that needed to be tiles was about three feet by three feet. The end result was that there was a bare patch on the floor for the entire year that we lived in the house - he never got around to fixing it. It was our main bathroom, but somehow we just worked around it. My Mom changed the shower curtain and towels often, to help draw the attention away from this bare patch of tile. I think she hid it with a bath rug on the few occasions we had company.

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^*This was also one of the nicknames of the university I attended.

currently reading :: You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett