And so it begins...

Anybody that has spoken to me for more than five minutes in the past three years knows that we have had housing issues. Big ones. Here's the story:

Seth and I bought this lovely, second floor condo in the West Loop of Chicago. Walking distance from where Seth works (the Sears/Willis Tower). We were SO excited. We had an inspector come and check it out (all the while being trailed by our developer and his agent, no more than two feet behind us at all times). The inspector pointed out that the corner of the wall at the bottom was all wet, the drywall was mushy. The developer promised us this was because they hadn't finished sealing the deck above us. We believed them and signed the papers.
We fought tooth and nail with our developer for the next year to complete the punch list. Legally, they had to have it done within two months. It took a year; I won't bore you with the huge list of things to be completed and fixed.

Anyway, one month after they finally replaced the moldy floorboard, I notice that water was dripping into our place from the wood above the sliding door. One month later, it's gushing into the basement of our first floor neighbor's place.
So, a few months later, we learn that we (and our three other neighbors) have to have our front wall ripped out because it was full of mold. This was two months before I gave birth to Harry. This is not good news. So, they rip our wall out and put plastic sheeting up. The sheeting was only supposed to be up for a week or so. The developer promised they would fix the leak issue and rebuild the inside of our place. Well, after a little tinkering, everyone realized the problem was much much larger and wildly more expensive to fix than originally thought.

It kept leaking. The developer disappeared. The plastic sheeting was up for five months. We had no sunshine in our place for the entire spring and summer last year. And the entire front of our building looked like someone rubbed it with chalk.

Harry naps in our super depressing living room.

Brice, not knowing the ulcer this is causing his mother, thinks it's kinda fun, really.

The construction site outside our building. Our neighbors, who are trying to sell, are none too pleased.

Like I said, after five months, we finally took the plastic sheeting down when we realized it wasn't going to get fixed anytime soon. We had drywall up, but no molding. We hired a company to come tell us what the problem was and they produced a huge binder with a detailed description of the problem and solutions. Turns out the condo was built in the winter (not great for brick work), wasn't built by masons, had wax paper (basically) for flashing. There's more, but that's when it gets technical. Anyway, we hired a local company to basically rip the front off and rebuild it. Now, we actually have a hope of being able to sell this place. Believe me, it'll be the sturdiest condo on the block.