Well, we finally closed on the house on Thursday.

According to the contract, they had to be out at 5 pm that day.  We arrive at 5:05 with a pile of new locks and a bottle of champagne.

By 8 pm ALL the locks had been changed.

Anyway, we arrived at 5:05.  To find that the MOTHERFUCKERS had had the power turned off.  And the water, too.  This is POST 5  pm on Thursday before Memorial Day.  My choices are get it turned on Friday or go camping in my new house til Tuesday.

8:00 am Friday, I called our friends at Pasadena Water and Power.  I explained my plight and told her that we had been TOLD.  EXPLICITLY. that the services would be on, and that we would merely have to call.  And what was I supposed to do with nowhere else to go before Tuesday? (we are in the process of furniture moving, and we will be actually living there starting tomorrow night).

She took pity on me, charged me a small fee for same day service (they usually will not do same-day on Friday or the day before a holiday) and told me it would be on by 7pm.

A lovely gentleman was there by noon.

He, it turns out, is the dude responsible for our service area, and was ALSO the dude who turned the power and water OFF the previous afternoon.  He told us a very interesting story.  Seems Pasadena removes the actual water and power meters from a residence if it is to be vacant more than a couple of days to prevent meter theft.  His paperwork actually asked him to remove both meters because the house was supposedly going to be empty for quite a while.

However, as he is frequently in the neighborhood, he had seen the "For Sale" sign and had seen it being taken down, so he decided to save himself some work, and left the meters behind, as he assumed (correctly) that removal of the sign meant the house had been sold.

So when he got the call from dispatch he said "I knew it" and drove right over and turned us back on.  Took him 3 minutes.

Best $40 I ever spent.  Thanks Pasadena Water and Power.

Fucking cocksuckers.  Trying to screw me over again.  I hope they rot in hell.

Posted by: caltechgirl at 12:25 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 388 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Forget about them. You've got nothing to do with them. any. more. WOO HOO! CONGRATS! So...when can we come visit? ;-)

Posted by: Amanda at May 27, 2007 06:40 AM (TRbGO)

2 You won! You're in, you've got utilities, now, just check very thoroughly for any other little surprises they might have left you. Holy crap!

Posted by: Teresa at May 27, 2007 07:38 AM (gsbs5)

3 You are now officially the "Landed Gentry". Use your new power wisely.

Posted by: Ken S, Fifth String on the Banjo of Life at May 27, 2007 04:20 PM (Yh9SA)

4 i hope you're enjoying your first weekend in your fabulous new home

Posted by: wRitErsbLock at May 27, 2007 04:50 PM (0Pi1o)

5 Congratulations on getting in and God Bless you! Now, here's to hoping the MFs live through hell on earth only to rot for eternity.

Posted by: Christina at May 27, 2007 05:31 PM (d3xGU)

6 Gasp! & phew!!! Hope you're enjoying your new home....

Posted by: Marie at May 28, 2007 07:43 AM (ocfI9)

7 Cheap SOBs. Transferring the power should be as easy as calling the power company and telling them when the new owner is taking over. There's no need to shut services off at all. When we moved into our house, we had more than two months left on the apartment lease. That worked out nicely because we had an empty house to work on. That made pulling up carpets, painting, and stripping hardwood floors 100 times easier. It was also nice to have that extra time to fix the electricity in the house. My dad and I blacked out half the house on our first day.

Posted by: Aaron at May 28, 2007 11:09 AM (SbW5B)

8 "You've got nothing to do with them. any. more." Unless you decide to sue them for breaching the terms of the sale contract, of course. Not that this is legal advice on my part, of course. ;-)

Posted by: Dave J at May 28, 2007 12:39 PM (PEbS4)

9 Yeah, just forget the MFs. Karma will catch up to them sooner or later. You just go in and enjoy your house. Umm, do you have any champagne to share with all your visitors? lol!

Posted by: Mrs. Who at May 28, 2007 01:31 PM (9FXen)

10 Whoa! I'm so happy that you were able to get those services sorted out before the Memorial Day weekend. I was sweating bullets for you for the first two paragraphs of your post. Congratulations on your new home!!! May it be very sweet .

Posted by: Anita at May 28, 2007 05:33 PM (jjxde)

11 I'm so glad you got the house! YAY!!! When we bought the place in Utah, we arrived to discover they'd left a mountain of trash in the backyard, and ripped out the drip irrigation system into the orchard and had had the water turned off to boot. Thankfully, the people who were going to be our new neighbours dragged a hose over to water the trees so they wouldn't die in the intervening month. They said they were so happy those people were gone, the neighbourhood practically threw a party!

Posted by: Ith at May 29, 2007 10:58 AM (tYAWu)

12 Why in hell are people so hateful? The point of turning off the power was. . .? Just to be shitheads? GAH. Mean people suck. AND they get bad karma -- shoved up their ass. The bad part is we just have to take that last part on faith. We never get to see it. And you just go right on and ENJOY YOUR HOME!! Love yas,

Posted by: Margi at May 29, 2007 02:07 PM (qd89Z)

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