Monday, June 16, 2008

Moving to a New Flat!

Okay, we have had it with Deep Blue (DB)! DB is one of the worst management companies that we have had to deal with! Lets talk a bit about the issues with this apartment:
1) The wireless internet is accessible through out the building, however, the modem is only in one or two of the flats in the ENTIRE building. And it is directly connected with the cable service BT...for some reason the cable would go out and when that happened the internet would need to be reset. So I would have to call the management office for DB and ask that they come over to reset the internet since I couldn't get into the apt where the modem was....

Well, we got a friendly email when we were traveling over our first Bank Holiday in Nice, France that DB was going to go to a different service provider due to the issues that we have had... and the management expects that the broadband (internet) will only be out for a few days and that the new cable will be set up soon with hopefully only a week or two of the disconnection. Okay, well we did get the wireless back in a few days - which was good since Chris needed to be able to work from home.....but we didn't have tv for WEEKS! We only got four channels... BBC, BBC1, BBC2, and the Hallmark Channel (?)... I got so tired of only being able to watch Monk while Alden napped. And this really stupid show called "Treasure Hunters....."

I called the DB management weekly to find out when we we were going to be reconnected and I was told that "they did not have a connection date set up with Sky TV"... okay, so why did you cut off service with BT if it was going to be weeks for Sky? I checked in every Friday with the management office and I always got the run around with my emails not being returned or my phone calls not being returned. (I am sure that I was the American that DB just didn't want to deal with! Finally we spoke with Elisa, our placement coordinator in the US, and she was able to get the DB management to tell her the date of connection... from start to finish it was 5 WEEKS! So rediculous! Especially when part of the 1200 pounds that Amazon is paying weekly is supposed to INCLUDE cable tv?

2) Our neighbors upstairs... right above us was a family from India...we are talking Mom, Dad, Uncle, Aunt, Grandma....and another 10+ people in a 3 bedroom ABOVE our heads. They were up all night, moving the furniture and dragging it around, cooking, laughing, and talking LOUDLY at 3 am. They woke Alden up multiple times and I had to go upstairs in my PJ's at 4 am when I had had it! Chris went up a couple times as well and these people were just nocturnal. I had had it after the 3rd night of being woken up by these people. They just didn't seem to be adjusting to the time zone!

3) There are no screens on the windows in London flats. We were located right above a business (Mailboxes Etc.) and the employees and patrons would stand outside to smoke their "fags" and it would waft into our apt. It was awesome. We had our windows open to get ventilation as their isn't AC either....... so we were both concerned with the second hand smoke wafting into our flat.

We ended up moving the afternoon my parents went back to the USA. We had considered moving right at the beginning of their visit but I didn't want to have them move when they were our guests.... Our new place was actually a 3 bedroom (it was advertised as a 2 bedroom) and it would have been a great place to be with guests but we waited until after they went home... We loaded up a large van with our luggage and Chris hauled all of our bags up to the 2nd floor (which is actually the FIRST floor in the UK as the GROUND floor is the 1st..are you with me?) But all in all, we were glad to be in our new place which was located 3 blocks away from our first place and located in Marylebone Village right near our favorite supermarket -Waitrose - and great restaurants. There was a play ground right behind our flat that Alden loved to "walk" around and swing on the swings.

No comments: