living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Friday, September 19, 2003 I want a lawer Since we moved to LA, I haven't got much time to do my study. No, I' m not busy in basking in the sun or strolling on beach, nor being indulged in fancy mall or food. I have been engaged in calling and writing to complain. We have to complain our cellphone companay who overcharge us, we have to complain our credit card company whose agents gave inconsistent information result in our finacial loss, we have to complain our former landlord who tries to withhold our security deposit, and we have to complain our current landloard who failed to fix plumbings in time.... And these things are so time-consuming and frustrating that I only wished Bin could make enough money to hire a personal lawer. However, I've become so quick and fluent in filing complaint letter and I almost started to enjoy this kind of writing, here is one I just finished tonight, for your pleasure: To Whom It May Concern: We are tenants of *** Ave, Apt.* and we just moved in 20 days ago. We write to acknowledge you of our very unpleasant experience in past two days and demand a certain way of compensation. On the evening of Sep. 16th, around 7 o’clock, we found the sink in our washroom was clogged; furthermore, there was filthy water slopping over from nowhere into the sink. We called David, the maintenance man, and were told the waste water come from other apartments in the building. Since he was badly injured that day, he told us he would call up a plumber. David called again at about 8:00pm, and said the plumber would come in the evening. But as we waited and waited, nobody showed up. Meanwhile, we had to scoop the dirty water out of the small sink once it was filled. We kept our eyes on the sink until 3:30 in the morning and went to sleep. At 7 o’clock in the next morning (Sept. 17th) we were waken up by sound of drippings, and it was already too late-the toilet table, the floors of washroom and bathroom were flooded with waste water from other apartments (we were told later by the plumber that four households share the pipe). Everything (Jia’s contact lenses, lenses solutions, accessories, jewelry, cosmetics, headwear, new towels and tissues, some medicines, unused shampoos, and laundry) in the drawers and closets are soaked in the dirty yet still warm water. While feeling extremely sickening, we had to clean them immediately with our clean towels and bare hands, not to mention we had to stand in the dirty water on our bare foot. We called David again and were told the plumber would come in half an hour, but nobody showed up, as usual. We called Michelle at 9 o’clock; she said she would find a plumber ASAP. We did not hear anything until 11:30 when Asieh, another manager called to tell us a plumber would be here in 20 minutes, but he did not make his appearance until 1:30 pm. It had been 18 and half an hour since we reported the problem, and we had been in panic and been sickened for more than 18 hours, not to mention our anger and depress by our damaged belongings. We feel we are entitled in every sense to some compensation. First, it is not us who made the pipe clogged and we were totally victims in this incident, which might be caused by the old plumbing in disrepair per se. Second, though we reported the problem as soon as we found it, we waited so long to have it fixed, while we were promised again and again that the plumber was coming ASAP; we could have had called for a plumbing service. Third, many of our personal belongings are damaged because of the delay; for items we did not feel to throw away, we had to spend a lot of time to clean them. Fourth and the most importantly, we suffered from this extremely sickening situation, both physically and mentally, for 18 hours, we totally lost our appetite for that day and Bin caught cold because of dealing with water in the morning. We fully trust our property managers, who are from decent and credible **** company, would understand our sufferings and give us a proper compensation. If you need any further questions, please contact us at ***-****. We are looking forward to your response. Your attention and consideration will be highly appreciated Sincerely Bin Zhang, Ph.D Jia Lin posted by lmeimei @12:41 AM| permanent link| | |
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