A Mommy Story

While I was on a plane to New York last Wednesday, this happened:

That’s the buried cable line for our house, no longer buried and no longer intact. The idiot apartment builders behind us (Ardent Communities, for those who would like to know), having no respect for us or our property, trespassed onto our land and ripped up the top layer of the back property line, about four feet beyond our property line. The grass was torn out, and they cut the cable line, leaving Aaron with no ability to work from home that day.

Why did they do it? They told me yesterday that they had to clear space to put up the fence that should have been in place months ago. This is of course the complete opposite of what they told me several weeks ago, when they promised that nothing on our property would be affected by putting up the fence. They also told me that the cable line was cut because it wasn’t buried, which is a lie – I watched the cable company bury the line years ago. And you can still see where it disappeared into the ground before it got ripped up by their machinery.

They didn’t ask if we could clear our land. They didn’t ask permission to come onto our land. And they didn’t give any notice of doing it. It was trespassing and willful destruction.

Yesterday they tried to say that I was wrong about where the property line was and that really most of what they took out was their land. Um, this stake below? It’s labeled Property Line, and they were the ones who placed it there. I see a hell of a lot of dirt and missing greenery on the left side of that stake, also known as OUR LAND.

(We won’t even get into the health issues I’m suffering resulting from their unwillingness to follow the rezoning guidelines. If I’m forced into another sinus surgery because of the dust, I’ll be providing their address as the responsible party for billing.)

I finally reached my limit yesterday when I watched a Bobcat pick up a few pallets of wood from a spot about 10 feet from my property line to then drive them onto my land and dump them there. A gift of wood? I considered going outside to thank them for the peace offering and asking them to help me carry my new wood planks into our garage, but decided that sarcasm would likely be lost on these guys.

So instead I took photos and then emailed the City of Columbus contacts I’ve corresponded with before (two city council aides and a person in zoning) asking them for guidance on who to contact to report the damage to our property, the failure of the company to meet yet another deadline that has long passed, and to have the wood removed.

I’d also like to take the time to call out the City of Columbus as a collection of cowards. I continue writing to them for assistance in this matter, considering that’s part of what we pay our taxes for. And instead of responding to me, like I asked them to do, they forward my emails on to the apartment developer, like they did yesterday.

Stay classy, Columbus government – nice to see you’re doing your part to look out for and help your citizens. Or is it your political contributors? I’m fuzzy on the details. If I had more money to donate for election campaigns would I at least get an email response? I’ve got $10 – could that even get me an automated response?

And so Ardent Communities continues to “apologize” for screwing up over and over, when it’s obvious they are doing it on purpose. For a company that claims to have been in real estate for so many years, either Ardent Communities is utterly incompetent at what they do (making me wonder how they’ve been doing this for so long) or they’re simply evil bastards who are too used to getting their own way and will trample, ignore and try to destroy anything in their way to get what they want, with no respect for others. I’m betting it’s the second option.

Too bad (for them) that they had to build next to me.

I can’t stand seeing companies (with some unwise opinions about race) break the rules at the expense of everyday people just because they have more money and power. This is about waaaaaay more than a strip of land and a fence. This is about homeowners’ comfort, safety and health in their own homes being disregarded for the wants of the privileged.

Had I not complained as much as I already have, there would still be a 30ft deep pit on the edge of our property with nothing to prevent children from falling into it. There would be no partial fence on the other edge of the property line already. And they wouldn’t have even started this side of the fence.

Had I not complained and rallied the neighborhoods before the rezoning, they would have crammed even more apartment buildings into the space, with no attempts at providing any privacy screening or rules preventing convicted sex offenders from renting those apartments. We were unable to prevent the rezoning, but I was leading the community to get a few demands from the neighborhoods into that rezoning. (Which the company is still partially ignoring. Hence my continuing to shout loudly.)

The company is acting like a spoiled child who has never been told no. They drag their feet at what they’re required to do and do it poorly in the hopes of making us sorry we even demanded it in the first place. Fortunately, I have two children who have tried these tactics and been shut down before it got out of hand. Someone needs to tell these guys no as well. They need a time out and they need their toys taken away.

I don’t look kindly on entitled asshole businessmen who are so shady they renamed their company after earning a bad reputation and had an F rating with the Better Business Bureau. (The new company name has C- so far.) They have a track record for trying to screw the average person, and that’s not right.

It’s on like Donkey Kong.