LANDLORDS! GAH!!!

Every wall, every floor board, every leaky pipe, all of this crap is his responsibility. Every system which is in disrepair, and all of it is his responsibility. Why does he think I AM COSTING HIM MONEY? It's HIS building! It's his stupidity to leave the water pipes full of water in the winter, and so they busted when the pipes froze, and now there is water leaks in all the plumbing, and it's his stupidity to leave the roof leak long enough to rot out the joists, and the drywall, and the insulation. All of this is his responsibility! And I am not going to be doing this work for him or HIS BUILDING! He needs to step up and realize that it is still his building.

All this work, and we're already into week 2. Today, I had a couple laborers helping me move some equipment from one area in the kitchen to the dry storage area. Well, I have all these tools in the dry storage area. So this other guy is walking by and asks for some work, so I was like, "Sure, come help out." Then I am on my way to go get some cleaning supplies, and the one guy I had working with me, tells me that this guy stole one of my tools which was like $40 but he wanted to take it to scrap it, and get some money for it. A $40 tool, but still, the guy chucked it over the fence so I wouldn't find it, and he could come back later and take it! So I walk up to him, hand him $10 and tell him, "That is for the one hour you worked, I don't need you anymore today." Now he is all pissed cos the other guys are still working with me, and he was like, "Wait, I thought you needed me for a few hours, and you were going to pay me more," I pulled the tool out that he chucked behind the fence, and said, "THIS IS THE REASON YOU AREN'T STAYING, NOW GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE AND HAVE YOU ARRESTED!" What it was that he tried to steal was a bolt cutter, but I wanted to say get the hell out before I cut your fucking balls off with this bolt cutter! But I was really restraining my anger.

I don't have all the money in the world to start this business. I want things done right, and I want to work a fair day for a fair wage, and I try to extend courtesy to people who wanted to help out, by giving them a job, and this is the thanks I get? I didn't deserve that crap. I just bought that thing, like a week ago. And this guy is going to steal it from me? In a week, I have managed to spend an average of a thousand dollars a day! That is a lot. Now I just bought floor tile, new fixtures for the entire place, a new toilet, and some cement and concrete repair stuff, for the foundation cracks in the dry storage building. And it cost me like close to $1400. That's a lot of money to be spending on some place I am only renting, but it is worth getting the stuff done right! I don't want to put cheap workmanship or materials into a place that I plan on being in for the next 6 years, or more.

So I have the right people working with me, people who I can trust. My brother is a plumber and an electrician. And he is helping me out with the electrical work and the plumbing stuff he can help with. He is also helping me lay tile in the restaurant and installing all my lighting fixtures and plumbing stuff. But he offered my landlord to work on the water leaks, repairing and stuff for $30 an hour. Which is like 1/3 of what any other good plumber would offer to do the work for. But since it was for my restaurant, he wasn't going to screw him over on the workmanship. So this guy, the landlord, decides to ask his friend to do it for him. I asked his friend how much he was charging him to do this, he said $80 an hour. The guy was there for 8 hours finding and fixing all the leaks. And I AM COSTING HIM MONEY???

My landlord asked some carpenter friend of his now to fix walls, which were damaged by the roof leak, insulating them and paneling the walls. I got another friend of my brother's who he works with doing the same thing. The guy said it would be like a good week's worth of work, and will probably ballpark the cost of the materials and labor at $4,000. My landlord says he is crazy, but my landlord also doesn't want to address all the walls that are water-damaged. He only wants to skate by with the minimum so he can slide under the radar for the inspections. But if these inspectors come out to check the stuff, they are going to fine him for first not having the building up to code, and second, for doing ANY work without the right permits from the city.

So this guy doesn't want to spend any money on his building and wants me to take on the responsibility of making his building work for him. This was EXACTLY what took a month to write and fight over in the lease. He wanted nothing to do with the repairs to this building, so it would have cost me about $15,000 to get all this stuff done right instead of him having to pay for his crap workmanship. The equipment he had in the restaurant to start with, was JUNKED because his son who was managing the place, left it go to crap! It was all covered in GREASE for the 5 years the place was closed, the entire place was a home to the neighborhood rat population. And when I clipped the lock on the gangway between the buildings, I see stockpiles of GARBAGE loaded up in the gangway! NO WONDER THE GUY WAS SHUT DOWN BY THE CITY! The place was literally A DUMP!

I am crying right now, because of the undaunted task of getting this place to code. And to get it done right, is difficult for me to do when the LANDLORD won't do it right! I am not going to die of mold spores in my kitchen walls, and I am not going to make my customers sick from it either!