The Dog Pound Blog

In yesterday's post, I complained about the situation with my yard and the water meter. After talking to Julia, I get a voice mail noting that they're not going to do anything at this time, that they can't just go raising and lowering the water meter. She said that we're just going to wait until the sod's been installed, and to see if the landscaper can do anything creative to help lower the level of the yard, to match the level of the water meter. In response, I sent Julia the following email, complete with digital pictures, so that she could see just what I was talking about: "Hello, Julia. I received your voicemail, yesterday, and I'm afraid that I can not accept the idea that we should wait to see if the landscaper comes up with something creative in order to fix this problem. As of right now, I have a 8.5 inch deep hole in my front yard that measures a foot wide in one
direction and almost a foot and a half in the other. Attached are pictures of the yard that we've been discussing. The three pictures, smooth-from-house, even-at-sidewalk-1 and even-at-sidewalk-2 show that the lawn has been graded, quite nicely and smoothly, from the house to the appropriate level of the sidewalk, with the appropriate downgrade to allow for proper drainage. The picture, measuring-device, shows you the 11.5 inch stir-stick I used to demonstrate the dimensions of the hole in question. In depth-of-hole, you can see that the hole is nearly 9 inches deep. In width-of-hole-y-axis, you can see that the hole is nearly a foot wide from front to back, and in width-of-hole-x-axis, you can see that the hole is nearly 18 inches wide from left to right. In reality, there is nothing that the landscaper can do, creatively and acceptably, to bring the level of the yard down to the level of the water meter, and still maintain the proper height and smooth grade of the yard. This is not an acceptable situation, and the idea that I should have to wait until the sod is laid, simply to have your crew come out, tear up that fresh sod, raise the water meter, and then have to lay that sod, again, is ludicrous. This situation needs to be addressed immediately, and the manner in which it needs to be addressed is to raise the water meter to the appropriate level...before the sod has been laid, so that it doesn't have to be torn up and relaid, after the fact. I will be at work, today, at (XXX) XXX-XXXX. I will expect a call from whomever it is that can actually get this issue taken care of. Thank you." You know, if it had just been done correctly, in the first place, none of this shit would be necessary. Bloody hell!!!