So our house in Virginia uses heating oil for both heat and hot water. Instead of a modern furnace and normal water heater, we have a boiler, which is affectionately referred to as the Boilersaurus Rex, because it's older than Keith Richards. This sucker has service tags on it from before my parents were married, and those are just the ones we can still read.
Correction: We HAD a boiler.
In January, it decided to crap out. And of course, seeing as how the Stone and Bronze Ages have both ended, the parts are no longer available.
Translation: New boiler, or at least, new heating unit and water heater.
The price? A lot. A hell of a lot. A shitload more than we have available.
But, it had to be repaired right away, or we can't get a new tenant in. The Communistwealth of Virginia frowns upon renting out homes that lack heat or hot water. Picky bastards. So it was repaired, and our property manager asked the oil company (who did the repairs) if a payment plan could be worked out.
The answer? No. They want all of it. RIGHT NOW. To boot, the first bill they sent us was listed as 30 days past due. WTF? The repair wasn't even completed 30 days ago, you boneheads.
Fine. Eddie calmly e-mailed them and explained the situation. Asked again if we could please work out some sort of arrangement, because really, this is not the kind of money that most people can find after a routine search through the couch cushions. Even our tax return isn't going to cover more than half of it, and that's if we're lucky.
They e-mailed us back, "NO. WE WANT OUR MONEEZ NAO." Okay. You want it. I don't have it. WTF do you want me to do? "DON'T CARE. JUST SEND MONEEZ NAO."
So we checked out every option we could think of to pay for it.
Homeowner's Insurance? Nope, doesn't qualify as a catastrophic enough repair. (WTF??? How much more catastrophic does it need to be??? Why the hell am I paying for homeowner's insurance if I can't get an eleventy billion dollar emergency repair paid for??? Does a fucking meteor have to hit the house??? Oh wait, that would be an Act of God and still wouldn't be covered YOU SONS OF BITCHES)
Navy Marine Corps Relief Society? (provides emergency funds in the form of a loan to sailors and Marines that are in situations like this) Nope, because it's too much money (WELL NO SHIT THAT'S WHY WE NEED HELP!) and because the house is not our primary residence (nevermind the fact that it's not our primary residence because THE NAVY moved our carcasses to the other side of the world HAHA NAVY HAHA VERY FUNNY).
The Bank (3, actually)? Nope, because we aren't making enough money (nevermind the fact that our income has taken a hit because there are next to no jobs available here for me and - dun dun DUNNNNNN - we can't RENT OUT THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW because of the very repair we're trying to pay for).
Back to the oil company. We got down on our knees, gave them puppy dog eyes, and pleaded for mercy. We're military, living overseas, we can't get fundage from any of the places that one would normally seek such fundage, and could they please let us work something out because for the love of God, the money isn't going to magically appear in my back pocket?
"NO. WANT OUR MONEEZ NAO."
You sheisty, money-grubbing asshat bastards. We can't be the only customers you have that don't have this kind of money just lying around waiting for something like this to happen. We've been loyal customers for 4 years, we've always paid on time (even that time you took $1200 out of our account instead of $100 without giving us a polite little heads up). We've been good to you, we just need a little help here.
Work. With. Us.
"NO. WANT OUR MONEEZ NAO YOU PEASANT BASTARDS BWAHAHAHAHAHA."
Okay, I feel better now that I've gotten that out of my system. Now if I could just pull a stack of Benjamins out of my ass, I'd feel even better.
And if you happen to live in the mid-Atlantic region and need heating oil for any reason, please shoot me an e-mail and I will give you a glowing recommendation of one company that you should avoid at all costs. Unless, of course, you have eleventy billion disposable dollars lying around, in which case, please e-mail me and see if we can work out a payment plan...
(And yes, I am checking out available jobs, but they are very few and far between here.)
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have they already done the work they are demanding payment for or do you have to pay up front?
ReplyDeleteIt's already done, which is why we're super-screwed.
ReplyDeleteSo if you don't pay they are going to what? go back and take it out?
ReplyDeleteI think I would make a payment plan and just inform them of it. It sure beats them getting no money.
I agree with misa. You're not saying "Won't pay," just "Can't pay."
ReplyDeleteUnless you've mastered the art of pulling Benjamins out of your ass?
The biggest issue is that if we don't pay them on their terms, they can send a Letter of Indebtedness to Eddie's command, which can cause serious problems with his career. They can also fuck up our credit, send us to collections, etc. And, to boot, this will put a lien on our house, which will make it much harder to sell (which we're currently trying to do). It's hard enough to sell a house right now without a lien attached to it.
ReplyDeleteSo...we're going to send them what we can. They can't turn our money away, but they can cause problems until we pay it off.
FUCKING ASSHATS.