I always think that a condo is an apartment/flat. In our situation we live in a house but pay a condo fee each month, so they take care of the outside of the house; mainly the landscaping etc. I got an email the other day saying its time for the twice yearly window cleaning. Well as there are probably close to 1,000 dwellings in our two subdivision's and we are on the far side hopefully we'll get ours cleaned by the end of October.
Despite being British and we British are brought up to clean windows on a regular basis, I have not cleaned all the outside of our windows since moving in. The inside ones have all been done. We have been living on a building site, so it has been totally pointless even thinking about cleaning the windows with all the dust and muck.
I am pleased to say though the builders are busy in another area, so it has calmed down by us. They have been putting in another road just down from us. We were rudely awoken the other morning before 7am by a low rumble. They had the big roller out rolling the new base for the road.
There is one thing I have to admit to not being keen of living here, is that things get done outside at their schedule, and not yours. There are still things to do outside and they are getting taken care of but how they do things does make you shake your head and wonder why, I have an email into the builder at the moment with photos about a downspout. Now it isn't a big thing, but it does make you wonder what were they thinking?
Why would they put a downspout straight across the footpath? By the way there is a hive of activity next door (in the house you can see in the photo) as the lady must be getting ready to move in.
Our driveway has been taken up and reinstalled this summer, as the builders went and dug up the curbs as they were too far down and when they put the second coat of asphalt down it would make the roads too high. Shook my head about that as well, but whatever, it's not costing us anything.......well not directly!!
I have started a "craze" up here with dog signs. We are the "Shih-Tzu" capital of the world here. While you all know I love dogs, I don't feel it is necessary to have every dog pee and poop on our lawn.
Due to us being a corner lot we have a LOT of grass. The signs have raised mixed feelings, but they have sprung up like wildfire around here. Are they working.......I think so, but who actually knows.
As far as I know all the plantings that are due to be done by the builder have been done now............but again who knows? So we bought 30 bags of mulch and have mulched all the front and side of the house. We still have the back to do and do need a bag for the other side as there is a tiny garden between the houses.
Mulching also saves me time weeding as the way the boys gardeners weed leave a lot to be desired. The people who are putting in the plants quoted me $400 to mulch all the gardens; both back and front. So far it has cost us $135.60 and will probably cost similar for the back. We have a LOT of gardens compared with everyone else it turns out.
Do I miss cutting the grass..........sometimes, but overall I am not missing all the maintenance on keeping everything looking perfect.
P.S. The dog signs were bought at Canadian Tire for around $4.50 each.
