We are currently in the middle of frantically packing the upstairs of our home. The flooring company from hell is going to be replacing all of the vinyl flooring in the upper story of the house we rent next week. We mostly have to be elsewhere when this happens. It is more than a bit stressful, especially if you’re on the autism spectrum and disruptions to your home life severely impact your mental health.
Strathmore, Alberta, 2024-02-17
We moved here in February of 2022 into a freshly renovated home and within months small gaps started appearing in the brand new flooring upstairs. Then they started getting larger. And larger. The flooring company from hell came over and proclaimed it to be No Big Deal, pounded some stuff back into place, and left.
The flooring migrated again and with renewed enthusiasm. The gaps are so large now that my wife and I have tripped on them many times and I have used my head to check how solid the stone countertop in the kitchen is (very) on my way down to the floor. It is a bugger to keep clean. We have been embarrassed to have guests over because of how awful it looks.
We are not blaming our landlords for this, this whole situation is making them crazy as well and my wife and I understand they are doing the best they can. The poor buggers are caught in the middle of this mess.
The flooring was eventually proclaimed to be defective and the decision was made to replace all of it throughout the entire house, starting with the upstairs. The flooring company from hell decided they would replace the upstairs floor first last November and then ditched at the last moment after an employee came down with COVID-19. This was after we had packed all of our crap and crammed it into the basement.
Now we’re packing again and cramming stuff in the basement one more time. Some of it gets shoved into my wife’s van in the driveway because it holds a lot and because not everything fits into the basement. The poor cat goes to a pet boarding place next week and I’m sure he’ll think he’s being surrendered again. I feel horrible for him and he is getting lots of love and kitty treats when this is all over.
We’re supposed to leave the big stuff upstairs and the flooring company from hell will shift it from room to room as they work, but we no longer trust them. They took forever to get moving on the replacement of the defective flooring. They screwed us on the last moving date, and they seem sketchy AF to us. We’re worried they’ll damage our furniture because they just don’t come across as competent. I’m taking lots of before pictures of our furniture tomorrow for sure.
My intention with this diary is to get out once a day to shoot, but I don’t know if that is possible today because of the jam we are in. We have movers supplied by our landlords (thank you!) to help with boxing stuff arriving in a few hours. Hopefully, a photo outing will still happen, but if not, I did use a camera to tell a story today.
And I will get to tell this story again if we ever get the downstairs done as well where the flooring is bunching up and curling instead of spreading apart. I can’t wait.
Note: The images in this diary entry were made using a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra mobile phone. I use it a lot, and not just because a bunch of my other cameras are packed now. Deal with it.
