Friday, December 5, 2008

All washed up... (thank God!)

Oh man.

We had our water shut off this week.

I have mentioned before that we have being trying and trying to get our property tax and water bills and have not been having any luck. We are supposed to get it every 2 months, we have been in the apartment for 3 1/2 months, and still have not gotten one.

I have been calling at least once a week. Each time I call and try to explain the situation, they kept telling me that I needed to learn "savlanut"- patience. "It will come. It is just a little delayed. Don't worry."

Well, I was getting nervous that it was now 4 weeks late. I finally got through to someone and was told to bring our lease down to city hall and they would deal with it. I did. I did not know they close at 1 most days. Ok, so I would go back.

I went back. still a no go. they needed JAson becuase his name was the one on the lease and the teudat olah.

Ok, Fine, so he plans to go this Monday, the day they are open in the afternoon after ulpan. In the meantime, they cut off our water for lack of payment.

Huh? It is only lack of payment for a few weeks. It is not like we are talking about months behind here (not to mention there is no notice whatsoever).

Called Lorien in a panic. My inlaws are here and I ahve no water! HELP!!!

So Lor tells me about a hotline for making payments. Tells me to call it and make arrangements to pay only the water portion of the property tax bill so that I can get my water turned back on. She is coming over ot help if I need it. So I do. Well, it turns out that the previous tenants had not paid any of their bills since the end of June! We have a bill sitting on our tab for over 4000nis!

Ok, so I work out what jtsu the water portion of the bill is, plus the cost of getting the water turned back on (an additional 120 nis). Arrange to pay it by credit card. The credit card is declined.

Person gets really bitchy with me about how I am responsible for my bills, and I should know better...

I have no idea what is going on. turn out we had a "preauthorized" charge for the rental car in case anything should go wrong of 3500 nis on the card (even though we had returned the car and it should not have been there anymore) thaat should have been removed. It wasn't. IT put us well over the limit on our card.

Call the bank.

Oh right. It is after 1pm. Bank is closed. I could wait for the bank;s evening hours, but that would be after the water hotline closed so I would nto have water until the next day.

Baruch Hashem then Lor comes in. Puts it on her card and I write her a check.

Water is back on in about 45 minutes.

Monday morning we need to go deal with the rest of the property tax issue.

Meantime we called our landlord to tell him there were back payments owed. He expected us to call the previous tennants and work it out. I freakin think not!

Current mood. Very, very frusterated.

No comments: