People are not asking for "free" stuff!

I saw this posted by my son the other day:

I didn't respond to his post, because, well, our relationship is strained already for various reasons (as you can guess, I'm suspicious that my view on certain things are part of it). My first reaction to seeing him post this was anger. Why?

1) I'm paying on a parent-student loan of over $30k for 1 year of college which he goofed off and then quit after. He has not offered to help pay this at all.

2) Right after my divorce from my ex-husband (my son's legal father), my son moved friends into my home. At this time my son was 20/21 years old! Neither he nor his friends paid me a single cent in rent or toward utilities. The whole while, he was bringing home nearly $1000/month. At the time, between mortgage, utilities (which were high for that house), and my bills, I was struggling. Instead of helping, he and his friends would complain when I had to make cut backs like turning the thermostat up in the summer. During this time, he and his friends also would keep my home a total mess, and would not help with yard work. I sold the house and got an apartment on my own...forcing my son to get his own place. This didn't help on the strain of our relationship.

You can see why I didn't respond to him! Once my anger subsided a bit, and I read this again, I started to develop a new reaction, which I will go into details here.

1. Free Tuition - No, people are not asking for FREE tuition...they want affordable tuition! People want a level playing field so that someone coming from a low income family can also have the opportunity at an education to better themselves...thus, allowing them to break the cycle of poverty and have a chance at a good job, without being buckled down by thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loan debt (or their parents).

2. Free Healthcare - Again, people want AFFORDABLE healthcare!! We live in a time where pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and healthcare providers are allowed to arbitrarily set their prices without justification. Many cannot afford the medications they need. Insurance companies continue to raise rates leaving folks to take lesser coverage just to afford insurance (in many cases, people are paying for policies they cannot use, because their deductibles are so high). Medical costs are rising out of control. What the people want is for government to start putting some regulations in place so that these providers and such are required to justify their pricing!

3. Free Abortions - People do not want free abortions. What people want is their CHOICE protected!

4. Free Housing - This is another one of those that all the people are asking for is affordability...NOT free! Housing costs continue to rise, while incomes are not. Where I live, the average rent on a 2-bedroom place is $1400/month. When you consider a family still needs to pay for utilities, food, INSURANCE, etc., it is easy to see that your average low to lower middle income family cannot afford this price! Instead of affordable housing, more and more expensive condos and luxury apartments are built. To be able to afford a $1400/month place, the first $5.83 of the households' hourly income goes to rent. Current minimum wage is $7.25! In order to be able to afford all the other necessities, minimum wage needs to be at least twice what it is...and that is simply to afford the BARE necessities!

So, no...people do not want free this and that. And to correct...

Life (to be healthy enough to work and take care of your family)
Liberty (to have to right to make your own choices)
Pursuit of Happiness (have the opportunities to reach your goals, rather than everyone wanting to put up walls to stop you)

Need to rant a bit

This one isn't a political rant or anything like that. No, I need to rant about the "renovation" project at my apartment complex.

So, my complex decided they needed to repaint all of the buildings. I guess they are having a problem attracting tenants. They sent out a schedule of this project, showing the dates each step would happen on each building. Well, first of all...they start my building late...but this isn't what bugs me.

The day before any work was to actually start, they send out an email to clear our patios for the work. This email says that the entire process will take 2-3 weeks, and that we need to keep our patios clear until the building is done. Now, our apartments in this building are not that big. This is a building full of 1-bedroom units with the largest being 600 sq ft. As you can imagine, many of us use our patios as a kind of living space. Some have patio furniture (I have a chair out on mine that I like to curl up in on rainy days to read), those of us with bikes have to store them on our patios, and several of us have plants or some other type of patio garden. Yes...ALL of that has to be brought in. The issues I have are:

1. My living space is cramped.

2. My plants require a couple of hours a day fo DIRECT sun, which means I have to block my patio door with my plant tables.

3. Because I have to have my blinds open during the warmest part of the day to try to get my plants enough light, my A/C runs non-stop in the afternoon, which increases my utility bill.

So, the work began Friday, 6/28. That day saw 1 painter on a lift with a power sprayer painting a majority of the siding. Monday, most of the day saw only that 1 lonely painter on the lift again, until after lunch. At that point, the rest of the crew showed up to prep the court yard portion of the building to have the walls/siding painted (covering the floor, covering all the fixtures on the doors and apartment numbers, etc.). At this point, I was basically confined to my apartment with the painting going on right outside my door, and the locks on my door covered on the outside, so that I could not lock my apartment if I left.

Tuesday, the painters show back up at 8 a.m., but sit around their van for a hour eating their breakfast. When they finally do start working, they spend some 2 hours covering all the windows on the patios. I take this to mean that they will start painting the patios. Yay...maybe I can soon move my stuff back out! I then hear a bunch of banging around out there, a little spraying, and after a full day of this, I leave the apartment to see them closing shop for the day. The only work completed was a small part fo the court yard paint that needed completing, the trim on 4 windows (yes...only 4), and the trim around the doors and windows on only 3 patios spray primed (yes, sprayed, which means it took them maybe 5 minutes per patio). They definitely did not complete 8 hours worth of work!

So, Wednesday comes around...the day before the July 4th holiday. The lone painter that runs the lift returns to take the lift away. I don't see any sign of the painters the rest of the day. I figure their supervisor gave them an extra day for the holiday, and they took the lift off of the property as to not have it messed with the 5-day weekend. I expect them back Monday.

Monday was yesterday! Guess what...no painters! I had to pick up a package in the office, and mention that we haven't seen the painters at our building since Tuesday afternoon, and wondered when they were going to return to finish. They stay they thought the building was done, which I assured them it definitely wasn't, and was looking in a sad state! I later get a call from the office staff. She said she called the supervisor, and was told they have to let the paint dry for a couple of days, and why they let the paint dry, they work on another building. The next two buildings on the list are within sight of my windows, and the painters surely were not there. I also told her that didn't make any sense, because it has been 6 days thanks to the holiday and weekend...plenty of time for the paint to dry.

NOTE HERE: I have owned a house, and painted said house...and you only need to give exterior paint about 4 hours in the sun to dry before applying the next coat!

I suspected the supervisor was giving our office staff a BS story...that he probably sent his painters off on another job to make some money, since he cannot collect on this job until the contract is done (and it's not scheduled to be done until September). Keep in mind, this is a large construction company apparently, and I'm sure there are multiple crews working multiple jobs. I drive around the complex before heading to the store, and see a group power washing a building that isn't even scheduled to be starting until late August. Additionally, another building that shouldn't have even been touched until August has an entire side painted. However, there are no sign of the actual painters...just a bunch handful of power washers. Looks to me that the crew dropped off the power washers (as all the equipment was in a pile in the grass and none of their vehicles were around), and then took off to another job!

So, either the office staff is dumb enough to believe the supervisor's bullshit story, or they are trying to bullshit me. Seriously, I don't care if they decide there isn't enough shade around my building to work on it during the hottest month of the year...and they decide to skip down the schedule and work on other buildings to come back to mine. I seriously just want some damn communication!!! If that is what they are going to do, tell us...so we can put our stuff back on our patios and quit being cramped in our apartments unable to even use the square footage of the patios we pay for! I have no problem pulling the stuff back in at a later date! I just want some communication as to what is going on! No way in hell will I be okay with this current situation for months because they can't communicate when they will return to finish our building!