New Personal Blog

This is the last post for this blog - I am condensing everything into a new and more refreshing site - Please go to:

http://ourlifeincostarica.blogspot.com/

Take care,
Pete

About the Builder - It Hurts!

We all thought Pedro had a good reputation, but from our experience and the experience of 3 (maybe more) others - 4 of us were taken for over $470,000. Fortunately, our loss was big, but nowhere near the others in the group. Not sure how to take this, but I am very frustrated with it all.

Will let you know the outcome...

The Cabinet/Door & Window Makers - What a Trip!!

These guys are what destroyed everything about the good roll we were on to finish the house. Pedro had just about everything done with his part on November 2, 2008, but these guys started on that day - and until this day, their work has not been completed!!!

By the time they were out of here, Pedro figured that they had cost him twice as much to do the job as originally intended. Here is a little synoposis of what happened:

• The company was owned by a SOB named Ronaldo. His main objective was to get Pedro to give him money every week - when it came to planning and work - he just stood around.
• We had spent many hours planning the layout of the kitchen, which was supposed to be made out of cedar. Guess what? Their layout was terrible and a lot of the cabinets were scrapped - I had to redesign the layout, which is what we have today. They didn't use cedar so everything was scrapped and redone.
• Ronaldo spent some of his time in our pool saying he needed to cool off, which really pissed Stef off.
• Pedro made them bring over all their equipment to the site so things would go faster - didn't happen, but wait until you hear the outcome.
• They were told all the doors and windows required screens, but they forgot - You know Pete? We now have screens.
• They claimed to use kiln dried wood on everything - not the case!!
• I wanted the finish to be medium dark - they made everything in the house a dark finish.
• The cabinets in the kitchen came out looking like crap, and not to US standards!!!

Finally one day, these idiots abandoned the job because the simple things we wanted were just to much for them to handle - Guess what - as far as I was concerned - they also abandoned their equipment, which I immediately took possession of - Pedro didn't know if this was a good thing to do, but I could have cared less. Now I have an 8" joiner, planer, table saw, compressor, something else with a verticle drill, and a few other items. The idiots came back the next day to take the equipment back, but I ordered them to get the hell off my property!!! - Haven't seen them since, and if I do - Will get the shotgun out!!!!

To fix all their mistakes, it is going to cost about $1,400 - Found a good company on my own who will correct all the mistakes, and make things good again - You should see the quality of his work. Maybe in about a year, I'm going to rip out all the cabinets, doors and windows - then have John replace them with something of quality - This entire deal has really set me off!!!

Stay tuned for more....

We have moved in, but it has been a trip!

Here are some pictures of the house that Charlie took from a mountain that sits above us. Charlie got into this exercise thing where he had to go up to the mountain every morning. He did this while I sat, drank Costa Rican coffee and watched him accend - sometimes.

These are pictures of the outside and the landscaping around us - It is very peacefull and comfortable - but wait until you hear about how we got here

Going to start out with the door, window and cabinet guys first because they deserve it!!! These guys are the first in Costa Rica that I actually had thoughts about getting the gun out and letting them know how I really felt - Ready to kill!!!

The next post will give you a detailed description of their "quality workmanship" - and, you probably won't believe the crap we went through.

Stay tuned because this is going to get interesting....

It's Time to Talk

The past few months has not been good for us regarding the building of the house. I'm going to start posting again to let you know what has happened and where we stand as of today. In many cases, it has not been a pretty picture. However, we are in our Humble Abode, and when everything is finished, I'm sure you will be pleased. The many things that have happened cannot be put into one posting. Because of this, I'm going to break it down into several posts. They will be as follows:

• The cabinet/door guys - this is a real trip!
• The landscaping - getting costly, but worth it.
• Getting Internet & TV service - Glad Stef was here to handle it!!
• The guest house - delayed, but going to get completed.
• The builder bust - yep, it happened - but I will explain later
• Where we stand today - it's going to be better

No, the house is not completely finished at this time, but I will post some pictures. I can tell you that we had our problems building homes in the states, but this has been a real experience because of the differences in construction, how sub-contractors work, and the legal system. I am becoming somewhat of an expert in all of this - by default!

Stay tuned....

The Fire

We decided to buy the lot, and made an offer. After three days of negotiations, we finally made a deal. We got a great price on it too!!

Well, two days before we were supposed to close on the deal, we went to see our little piece of Costa Rica on a Tuesday afternoon. On the way, we stopped to check on our new neighbor Cliff who has a home high above our lot (he is another story) Stef went to check on him while I waited in Caroline. She came running back to the truck saying "you need to see this!!!!" I got out and went into his back yard, and holy crap!! Our lot had burned along with 3 others. We immediatly drove down there to check it out. Fortunately, it was a brush fire and the trees were not damaged. Now, what are we going to do?

I made several calls only to find out that this sometimes happens when the brush is not cut and controlled. In fact, they told me that it would be healthy for the ground and future plants. One thing that made me happy was that it sure got rid of any snakes that may have been on the property. - In the end, I got an additional $500 discount on the price to pay for clean-up, which really was never needed.

We closed on the property & then started working to find a builder

continued...

Background

When we first thought of coming here, the idea was to rent a place and live off the interest we were making on our available cash. The idea was figured on 5.3% interest earned. This only worked for about 6 weeks. Then the interest rates in the US began to decline.

We saw that the housing market in Atenas was booming, and had made some very good contacts to get us a good deal. We figured that if we were going to do it, now is the time. So, we started looking.