This particular housing solution has been by far the most complicated with which to deal. We did get the house moved – a week after it was supposed to be delivered due to the total inability of the contractor to keep his word, and thereby incurring a week’s rent at the mobile home park. Nevertheless it did finally arrive on Thursday August 8th and the mover promised to return on Monday/Tuesday to set it up. I should have insisted that he just stay and do it then and there but instead allowed him to park it on the property in front of the goat pen – about 50 feet from where it would be set up the following week.
There were a lot of things we could not do until it was moved into place and set up but we could remove the old carpet so we set to work doing that. We discovered the sub floor was not plywood, but chipboard – which is not as good a base for a painted floor. We got all the old carpet out – bags and bags of it – and pulled carpet staples (of which there were two generations, one newer and easier to pull, and one old and rusty and stubborn) and swept, and swept and swept. Because there is no power hooked up and most of the windows lack screens it became a hot and dirty chore and quickly lost its appeal with my helpers! They promised to come back when it was time to paint.
Monday came, but the mover didn’t. Nor did he show up on Tuesday, or Wednesday. I was getting very frustrated because I’d hoped and planned to have us moved into our new home by the first of August – before school started. Now it was mid-August and move-in date couldn’t even be penciled in on the calendar! Enter contractor number 2, found on Craigslist to move the shed from the mobile home park to our site, who had been listening to me gripe about the lack of accountability shown by contractor number 1. He had been campaigning for the job of moving the trailer and setting it up ever since he delivered the shed (which had to be torn apart to move and which still wasn’t put back together – yes, that should have been a clue). He would move the trailer for less than the dodgy fellow who wasn’t responding to my urgent “where are you?” messages. Fed up with the situation I agreed to give him a chance.
to be continued…
