Never Moving In

We've received a lot of questions lately from you guys about timing: When are we going to move in? What's taking so long? Weren't you supposed to be in already?!

We're right there with you; this mess is taking WAY too long. We were expressly promised by our salesperson that we would be in by Thanksgiving. He reaffirmed this commitment almost weekly for the first five months. He literally said the phrase "you will be in your new home by Thanksgiving" at least thirty times. Wouldn't a reasonable person believe they would be eating their turkey in the BDH dining room? We certainly did.

Even worse, we acted on these assurances. In legal jargon, we "detrimentally relied" on them. We signed a lease to end promptly on Thanksgiving - so of course now we're paying $250 EXTRA every month in rent because we're now deemed month-to-month renters. Fabulous. If our salesperson had been honest or on-time (still not sure what the issue is), we wouldn't be out so much money. The same is true with our storage unit. The delays have also ruined our vacation plans and our furniture shopping plans. We had hoped to buy a great deal of our furniture on Black Friday, but couldn't, because there was no where to put it. Perhaps worst of all, we're stuck in a MISERABLE, awful, tiny apartment in what has turned out to be a not so safe area. We never thought we'd be here long, but this is going on forever. Our dogs are stuck in a 800 sq. ft. space with almost no windows and with no yard. Every time I walk them in the morning a creepy man follows me and cat-calls me. The neighbor's illicit substance fumes seep into our apartment through the air vents, despite us having complained to apartment management. Ross's truck was vandalized last week. We had a roof leak right above the master bed PILLOWS for three months that resulted in us getting rained on in our sleep. It's awful. We wouldn't still be here if Toll Brothers had just been honest, and even if we were, we wouldn't be paying an ungodly amount of money to be in this miserable place, because we could have signed a lease for the appropriate amount of time. Our poor dogs are miserable and so are we. If there was a movie about this situation, the "so you had a bad day" song would be playing on repeat. It's like that.

Well, obviously we weren't in by Thanksgiving.. In October, when we still didn't have doors or windows and nothing had been started on the interior, our salesperson said "ehh, it might be more like Christmas." We were furious. If you know ANYTHING about me, you know I live all year just to decorate for Christmas. I have 23 full size Christmas trees. Knowing that maybe 10% of my Christmas decor would fit in our awful little apartment, this news effectively meant that Christmas wasn't going to happen. I cried for two days and I still get sick when I talk about it. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I feel like this salesperson took from me the one thing I look forward to all year.

Then, in late November, they told us we probably wouldn't be in until mid-January. Lovely. No New Years Eve party either. If you're going to take the biggest holiday, you might as well take the little ones too, right?

Then, last week, we were told February was looking to be a more realistic move in month. HOW DO YOU GET FROM NOVEMBER TO FEBRUARY WITH NO WEATHER, LABOR OR MATERIALS PROBLEMS?!?!? They literally have no excuse and haven't tried to make any, they just keep pushing it back. This makes me think that telling us Thanksgiving was an intentional lie. I wouldn't put it past them for a second. They knew we weren't going to build unless we could be in our house by Christmas. It feels like lately we lose about a month every week, if that makes sense. The worst part is that I don't think they even give a shit. Every day we live in this apartment is absolutely miserable, somewhat unsafe, unhealthy for our dogs and very, very expensive... and they haven't lost a minute of sleep over it.

When I say "they" I really don't mean to bash everyone we've worked with at Toll. In fact, we have a great relationship with our very honest, skilled construction manager, Johan. We also have enjoyed working with Rick. But unfortunately sometimes a few bad apples really can spoil the entire bunch, or in this case, can make an entire company look bad.

Long story short, I wouldn't wish this experience on even my worst enemy. Anyone who I've spoken with knows it's WAY more than just being lied to over and over and over again about our move in date, the contamination issue is even worse. If we can just get to February, or 2018 or whenever it is that our house will be done, I don't ever want to look back on this dark, awful time in our lives. Of course this all assumes that we will even WANT to move in, which 100% depends on how they handle the still pending contamination issue. I know I still haven't really gotten into details about it on the BDH blog, but I promise I will after it gets resolved. If it's good news and Toll acts ethically, you will hear about the back story/our happy ending/Toll' being an upstanding company, if not, you'll never hear the end of how they wronged us. I will preach to this blog's substantial (we hit 40k!) and growing reader base FOREVER about all of the wrong things. Stay tuned for that...

Until then, xox barbies