Wednesday, October 07, 2009

To Whom it May Concern....

In trying to communicate the frustrations of my week I thought I would just write the concerned parties a letter for their urgent review.


letter #1

Dear King Soopers,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for having the steepest, narrowest stairs leading up to your restroom facility in the history of the world. Every time I traverse this stairway I hold tight to the railing and hope not to fall to certain death.
After using your facilities with my kindergartners this past Monday I did the only motherly thing I could do and cautioned my babies to be careful and go slowly down. With one on each side of me they each grabbed hold to their salvation and clung on for dear life to the railing leaving me walking between them. Once again I warned them to slow down and we all forged ahead. About half way down I misjudged the width of the stair and slipped on the edge sending my arms flailing and my body careening out of control down the rest of the death trap. Somewhere along the way I hit my calf and twisted my ankle. When my limbs finally reached solid ground I was on all fours looking around with wide eyes to see who had witnessed my unfortunate blunder. Nobody was in sight, thank goodness, except my kids. One of which politely reminded me that I should slow down because these stairs are steep.
After picking myself up off of your floor we continued with our always delightful grocery trips filled with free cookies, running away from mommy, screaming, crying, arguing, whining etc. Three days later I still have a charming and painful reminder of the occurrence every time I put pressure on my right ankle and calf. As a loyal customer of your establishment I have been shopping at this store since I was a youngster and would appreciate you completely demolishing this staircase and rebuilding it the acceptable way like the rest of world's staircases.

Optimistically yours,

Eliza


letter #2

Dear HOA,

I wanted to thank you for being the worst HOA in the history of Loveland, CO. I supremely enjoyed you great attention to detail when building our community when it was new 5 years ago. Specifically I would like to acknowledge the following:

  • Planting trees while still in their planters and then having half of them die the following spring and then charging us to replace them.
  • Telling us you would plant sod in the community park and then planting seed so my children cannot run through the big grassy area without inevitable tripping every few feet in the big "potholes" left by the grass not completely filling in.....still, even after 5 years.
  • Raising our quarterly rates by vote since the apartments in our community get more votes then the actual home owners.
  • Never emptying the trash in the park between October and March
  • Sending us letters when the camper is in front of our house for more than 24 hours, yet doing nothing about the multiple renters in our neighborhood that keep boats and campers in their driveways and in front of their homes year round.
  • Slowing pushing community property maintenance off on us the home owner.
  • Suing the property developer and costing the HOA and enormous amount of legal fees
  • Raising our quarterly rates...again

I will have you know that I love my home, now that the basement is finished, but would sell it tomorrow if my property value wasn't in the crapper as a result of my dissatisfaction with you.

Today I completely enjoyed spending close to $100 that I don't have to paint your dadgum fence so I am in compliance with your moronic bylaws. Even though more than half of the home owners in the 'hood haven't completed this task either, I really treasure the harassing 'reminder' letter about the appearance of our neighborhood. I thought I was just following your excellent example.

I was lucky to have the missionaries from my church offer to come over and help me today so I could get this done before it snowed tomorrow. They have to perform 4 hours of service a week and to my benefit they had not completed their service hours this week. They wanted me to pass along a thank you to you for keeping our neighborhood a safe place. A police officer stopped by to make sure that these "men" were supposed to be on my property. Apparently 2 dudes jumping over the back fence seemed very suspicious. Thanks also to Loveland PD.

After spending some of the morning and the entire afternoon submitting to my duty as a homeowner in this community, I feel like I need to spend the next 48 hours on the couch. Every muscle in my body, even the ones I never knew I had, are throbbing. My body might just spontaneously explode at any moment. I scarcely have the energy to type this letter to you.

On that note, I will continue to hope that you might some day pull it together. More than likely though as soon as my property value is not sitting at the bottom of the ocean I will be able to give you the finger and get the heck outta dodge.

Sore and bitterly yours,

Eliza

4 comments:

Sarah E said...

Eliza,
Thanks for letting King Soopers know about the stair situation. Although I think in this fine world of litigation you should have told a manager about your fall when it happened just to give them a little scare! I have not seen those stairs in a decade and I still think of them everytime I must seek out a grocery store restroom!

Thanks for the laugh!

Eliza Brock said...

thanks sarah, it was a fun way to blow off some steam and tell the story! It's been fun following you guys on facebook!

vwbabe said...

This was great! I still remember the King Sooper stairs. You are a champion, don't give up!

Sumtoy said...

It sure sounds like they are not in compliance with the ADA rules. What about people in wheelchairs or with limited mobilities that cant do stairs???

As far as the HOA letter...you go girl...I love your spunk.