I Thought I Texted Myself, But It Was Chris Williams From Terminix

The pandemic has made the whole world crazy with all of the changes going about and a text message made me feel like I was going crazy. I saw that I texted myself and knew there was something off.

Chris Williams TerminixTurns out, it was a text from a guy named Chris Williams who is the Terminix inspector who would be doing our quarterly pest control service. Obviously, he was taking the place of our usual guy Ibrahim Temur.

It shouldn’t have come as such a shock since Joe Krzeszewski once took over Ibrahim’s customers while he was away. But the fact that Terminix employed someone with my first and middle name is quite the coincidence.

My middle name William actually comes from my grandfather (my mother’s father) who passed away when I was 7 years old and he was my first significant family member to pass away. I enjoy seeing old photos of us together since I don’t recall much of him.

A few things I do remember are:

  • Him picking me up as a little kid and pretending I was Superman (which I used to do with my son)
  • Him always saying goodbye with a funny voice as he shut the sliding door leading to our basement (which I do with my son now for the shower)
  • Sharing an unusual enjoyment of water towers & the Waffle House restaurant including eating at one in Fort Lauderdale

Thinking about him makes me realize that I don’t have a lot of blood family left since all of my grandparents and my father are all no longer with us. I do have some regret about not fully getting to know them in the time I could have, but I can always hear stories about them.

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Cali Royal Construction Put Up Our New Shed & I Tore Down the Old One

Cali Royal ConstructionIt’s been years since our shed has needed to be replaced. After all, it’s a rusted metal structure that a tree fell on.

Not to mention the fact that it’s become an apartment for mice who don’t pay rent. I was saddened when a family lived in my lawnmower and I accidentally killed them without knowing they were in there. Ruined my day.

That’s when we decided to get a new shed at guess where? If you guessed Home Depot, that’s right! And we called Cali Royal Construction to get the shed & the foundation put up.

Home Depot ShedThe shed we chose was made of resin since it would last longer. We chose the US Leisure 10×8 model because it was the closest to the size of our shed now.

But we needed Cali Royal Construction’s help in making sure it was put together properly. They recommended doing a wood foundation to save on money.

It took a few hours, but the new shed went up with no issue on the foundation for an affordable price. The one criticism I have is that the doors won’t perfectly close since the latch is just a little bit off and doesn’t hook on. I guess you get what you pay for.

Cali Royal Construction left and we had 2 sheds up. That means I got the pleasure of tearing down the old shed with a combination of a couple of screwdrivers and my axe.

It took about 4 hours to tear it all down since the screws on the roof were rusted on, so I had to hack at & rip up the panels one by one. Eventually, it came down and it’s now a rusted trash heap.

I did get a couple of cuts and a splinter along the way. No tetanus yet.

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The DIY Home Projects We Did With the Help of Home Depot

Home DepotOver this summer, my significant other and I have been doing a lot with our home because we’ve been spending a lot more time here. That’s what a pandemic that closes most everything down will do to you.

As a result, we’ve been doing a lot at the house. And we’ve made a lot of trips and spent a lot of money at the Home Depot doing new work & fixing up other things such as my significant other putting another coat of stain on the basement floor to get the color back.

Another major thing was the grout replacement I did since the job the team at Metropolitan Home Remodeling didn’t hold up very well. That was hell on Earth since it took 4 hours to lay down the grout and almost all day to clean up the haze off of the kitchen floor.

But it was done at the end of the day. I then sealed the grout and cleaned up the excess haze off of our hardwood floor in the living room. I felt quite accomplished by this and the work we did in the yard.

Some of the work we did in the yard that caused lots of Home Depot trips included:

  • Trimming excess bushes and tree branches
  • Putting down a nice wooden border in front of the house
  • Spray painting certain yard decorations
  • Putting down new mulch & netting in our garden areas
  • Buying a new 100-foot hose & hooking it up to a self-reeling storage box

But there’s a bigger challenge I went through than any other in that yard.

Putting Up Our New Pool

Woodbridge Pools

That’s right, we were able to purchase an inflatable 15-foot round Intex pool just in time for my son’s birthday party. We initially went to Woodbridge Pools to consider a more permanent solution, but the pandemic caused the pool supplies to be on back order until the end of the summer.

They’re also a lot more expensive, 10 times the price in fact, than the Intex pool and I wouldn’t need a permit for it. But putting up the pool was quite the task with the following steps:

  • Mowing the lawn underneath it to the lowest setting
  • Putting down some foamed paver tiles for a flat surface
  • Laying out the tarp underneath to absorb water
  • Laying out the pool & inflating the top
  • Filling the water up an inch or 2 & taking the wrinkles out of the bottom
  • Filling up the water overnight & monitoring it

I also hooked up the filter, assembled the ladder and put in the proper chemicals (which I bought at Woodbridge Pools) until the pH level was just right. It was an arduous process and I even called in sick the next day, but it was worth it.

This summer won’t be our last spending spree at Home Depot, not by a long shot.

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Green Electrical Enterprises Fixed Something Illegal & Broken

Green Electrical EnterprisesAnother service that our home required was an electrician. And through the power of Home Depot Pro Services, we were turned on to Green Electrical Enterprises.

I saw from their card that Green Electrical Enterprises is based out of Lavallette NJ, which I never heard of. When Googling it, it’s apparently right by Seaside Heights on the island bits of the Jersey Shore.

So Ramiro Cubas arrived at the house to fix the outlet that’s outside since it fell off of where it was installed, got rained on & did not work anymore. Turns out, the contractor we used a while back struck again since the way he installed the outlet was illegal.

Not shocking considering that the thing came off so easily. It was a simple enough fix with the outlets installed into the siding of the house, though I don’t like how the outlets are horizontal and not vertical. Cubas also put in an outlet in the light switch leading to our basement.

I called out Green Electrical Enterprises a second time to install a new ceiling fan for the kitchen since the pull switch on the old one broke off. This job was easy enough, though he did notice that the flooring in the kitchen was off.

Ramiro Cubas knew that Metropolitan Home Remodeling did the flooring the last time he was there since they crossed paths. I explained what had occurred with the twice grouting and he felt that the flooring might need to be replaced entirely because the grout wasn’t taking.

He’s an electrician and one I’ll use again, but I’m hoping he’s wrong about the flooring. We shall see over time.

Business Card Count: 41,606

How Metropolitan Home Remodeling Did in Beautifying Our House

For a while now, we wanted to make some changes to our house. My significant other pushed for this more than me, I’ll admit.

I was definitely anxious about the cost of all of the things for our home that my significant other wanted to do, but it took some time to realize that her happiness outweighed the financial costs of making our home a more beautiful place.

Metropolitan Home RemodelingAs a result, she put in several contractor requests with Home Depot and the first one we dealt with was Metropolitan Home Remodeling. We had Ali Ismail come over and provide an estimate for the 3 days of work he was going to put into the job.

We felt that it was fair for the work that was going to be done, which is comprised of:

  • Repainting the outside of our house
  • Grouting the kitchen floor
  • Reattaching the lazy Susan door in our kitchen
  • Installing my grandmother’s antique telephone into the wall

The job began on a Friday with powerwashing the outside of our house, which was quite overdue for a cleaning and then they painted over the next few days. The house was transformed from a ghoulish yellow color that’s not even retro into a charcoal gray that looks sleek.

The trim & gutters got painted a bolder white than they were with age, while the shutters remained black from us spray painting them previously. The outside of the house looks so nice and we have Metropolitan Home Remodeling to thank for it.

Moving inside, things didn’t go as smoothly. Let’s start with the lazy Susan door that needed to get reinstalled twice since it fell off the first time. The door doesn’t fully shut and they said it was because of how the oven is lined up to the lazy Susan door. Strange considering it used to close right.

Regarding the antique telephone on the wall, it almost went up on a slant because of stud placement. I had to talk them into having it be flush with the wall, otherwise it would leave a hole exposed from where the old landline phone was. They had to get some bottom anchors to make it look right and it’s a success.

Last but not least is the grouting. They attempted to grout the floors twice to no avail since the grout would just come out in certain places and we had asked for a gray, but it turned out to be white instead. I wound up having to fix it, granted I took a lot more time with it than they did.

If you need a painting project done or are looking for an affordable price on the work around your home, Metropolitan Home Remodeling is the way to go because of their flexibility & good attitude. But a 2/4 success rate with some convincing isn’t the best.

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How Semper Fi Plumbing & Heating’s Honesty is the Best Policy

Semper Fi Plumbing and HeatingI previously blogged about my not-so-ideal experience with Chapman Brothers and vowed not to use them again when I ran into a plumbing issue.

But, a plumbing issue came up sooner than I thought and my significant other has been coordinating other work for our home through the Home Depot professional service team. As a result, Jesus from Semper Fi Plumbing and Heating came over to the house to take a look.

The issue? There’s water dripping out of the fan & light fixture in my downstairs bathroom. So when Semper Fi Plumbing and Heating came over, he took a look at the fan as well as the bathroom upstairs.

After about 15-20 minutes, he let me honestly know that there was nothing he could do for me since it was likely either a HVAC issue or there may be a small crack behind our shower wall that would cost more to get to than it’s worth to fix.

I knew I’d use Semper Fi Plumbing and Heating for the guy’s honesty and I needed a new hose nozzle installed outside of my house. He took a look, let me know what was required, came back & got the job done.

No issues, no mess and everything works as it should. Five stars.

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Chapman Brothers Laundry Sink Installation & The Mess They Left

Chapman BrothersIt’s another installment of master plumbing theater. I previously spoke about my experience with Chapman Brothers in another blog post in how I’d give them more business.

I did and I came to regret this decision, but not for the reason you might think. We had gotten an estimate for a new laundry sink installation at the time we got the main sewage line jet flushed for about $1400 including tax.

We waited to get this done until we needed it, which came to a head when both drains stopped & it caused me to empty out the sink with a mop bucket every day.

The laundry sink installation was an all-day job for the 2 men who came to my house, Nick and his boss whose name I do not know. They had to uninstall the initial sink & smash it to pieces to move out of the house since it’s one solid hunk of metal that the house was probably built around.

Laundry Sink InstallationThen came the installation of the new sink by Chapman Brothers, which is a plastic material instead of being metal. The result was a sink that not only matching the washer & dryer, but it was also 5 inches shorter and allowed for those appliances to finally be pushed back flush to the wall.

The washer & dryer were previously too large for the space after we got them replaced a while back. And the sink works & looks nice. The problem was what they left behind.

A mess of our things they use without asking, that’s what. Here’s a list of what was left just hanging out:

  • A wet mop and bucket full of dirty water
  • 2 used rolls of paper towels with yucky gray stuff on them
  • Multiple wads of wet paper towels against other things that got wet with dirty water including a roll of toilet paper
  • A hamper they ruined by having it be wet
  • A washing machine that didn’t work

I called to file a complaint and Tony, the guy who I spoke to, was shocked about it. He apologized on behalf of his own boss & coworker and told me the boss would follow up with me, which never happened.

I won’t be using Chapman Brothers again because they left a mess and used our stuff without permission. We would have said yes had they asked, but it’s just an insult to your customers to leave a mess.

What if I did that in their house? If people put themselves in other people’s shoes, these things might not occur.

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How We Made Select Basement Waterproofing Fix Their Mistake For Free

Damon Ludwig Select Basement WaterproofingWhen we got back from our trip to Cuba, our driveway was a big block of ice. I tried putting salt on the ice to melt it, but no avail.

I had no idea what happened until I saw water coming from the house. From a small pipe that was installed by Select Basement Waterproofing to move the moisture out from the French drain they put in.

I gave them a call and they sent out Damon Ludwig, who is a service manager & project inspector according to his business card. I must say that Damon was a very nice individual and really took his time exploring what the issue was (even though I knew it was that pipe).

I guess it’s to cover all bases in seeing if there’s anything else going on that I can’t see. Turns out, it was just the one issue and I scheduled Damon to come back a week later & the job was done within a couple of hours.

I was a little shocked that it took that long to get another appointment and also by what he told me. The original people who came with Jason Weaver from Select Basement Waterproofing could have saved this trouble by putting the pipe on the other side of the stairs that go up to my house to empty the water into a dirt bed leading to the lawn instead of the driveway.

But Select Basement Waterproofing made the fix for free, which was nice. The ice eventually did melt away over the course of 2 weeks and I also did some chipping away at it with my snow shovel. Now our driveway is safe to walk on, though I see little salt pellets to remind me of the previous inconvenience.

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Gold Medal Service or Chapman Brothers For My Jet Flush?

Barry Messinger Gold Medal ServiceA couple of blog posts ago, I wrote about Gold Medal Service & how they fixed a sewer pipe issue and how DryTech Restoration cleaned it up.

But I was also given a complimentary camera view to show what was inside my sewer line. That was performed by Gold Medal Service underground field supervisor Barry Messinger.

He showed us the footage of all of the wipes and recommended that we get a jet flush and to remove the U-shaped trap pipe that was originally built since it could lead to further clogs down the road. Messinger & Gold Medal Service gave me a quote of $1600 for the former & $3500+ for the latter.

Chapman BrothersI decided to take things into my own hands and get a quote from someone else. Fate intervened and Chapman Brothers, one of the plumbers who I tried to get emergency service from and failed, called me to see if I still needed that service.

I said no, but told them I needed a quote for a main sewer line jet flushing. They gave me one: $427. That’s 1/4th of the price, so I naturally went with them. The techs then gave me the real price: $275.

I was excited for that, but we also had a leak since the washing machine water lines had to get replaced since we had to turn them on after Select Basement Waterproofing did their work since they neglected to even do that for us.

That wound up costing almost $200, so we wound up paying Chapman Brothers pretty much what we expected to for one job for multiple. They were quick, efficient and got the job done right. I’d go with them again, but not Gold Medal Service unfortunately since they’re out of out budget, 

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Gold Medal Service & DryTech Restoration Resolve a Sewage Backup

Our basement has been a hot mess. I wrote a blog already about having to call in Select Basement Waterproofing to put in a French drain, but there has been another issue in our basement: water rising up from the ground.

It happened in hindsight 2 or 3 times as we were painting and didn’t find out until later because it was covered by plastic on the floor. It occurred overnight, so we just assumed it was a moisture issue. But it started up the afternoon Select was at the house.

I had trouble opening up the hatch that was made to cover up access to a pipe under the house, but it popped off when the next bit of water came up. But we found out it wasn’t water: it was the sewer line that needed to get fixed ASAP.

Jeff Rinkowski Gold Medal ServiceThe Fix: Gold Medal Service

I made several calls to Central New Jersey plumbing companies that claimed to have 24/7 emergency services, but a lot of them like Chapman Brothers and Good Tidings didn’t have people available. But I called up Gold Medal Service and got someone to come help.

I didn’t realize until I called them up that I used Gold Medal Service before at a house I last lived at in 2012. Within 2 hours, I had field supervisor Jeff Rinkowski out at our home looking at our issue.

Opening up the hatch revealed the sewage was fresh including a bunch of toilet paper and excrement. He didn’t deal in sewage, but did wind up easily find the issue causing the backup: flushable wipes, which are apparently not flushable since they don’t break down.

We were told that those wipes not only don’t break down, but the cushy toilet paper that feels good on your butt (I’m talking to you Charmin bears) also don’t break down as well. He was very helpful with that information & in giving us that advice.

Gold Medal Service also offered a complementary camera look at our sewer line to see any problems, but that’s going to be covered in a future blog post. 

Abdiel Marquez DryTech RestorationThe Cleanup: DryTech Restoration

Because sewage came up and got on the floor, it needed to be sanitized in the right way for all of the germs to go away. Gold Medal Service connected us to DryTech Restoration, the company they partner with in these situations.

The day after the plumbing fix occurred, project manager Abdiel Marquez of DryTech Restoration came to clean up the muck that was in our sewer line hatch. To do that, he had to use some powerful chemicals and some powerwashing.

We gave him a bit of a challenge since the cement from our French drain job was still within the 1-week period we were given to fully dry. Fortunately, I felt like the cement was pretty dry and Abdiel did a good job at avoiding that area in spite of the hole’s proximity.

After all was set & done, all of the toilet paper & waste were scooped out and tossed along with the towels/cloths we used to stop the sewage liquid from spreading. The area also had a funky smell (cleaning product + sewage) and was wet for like a day.

In hindsight, the timing of this sewage backup was perfect since all of our furniture & the kids’ toys were moved because of our ceiling painting project.

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