STBX balks at repairs

Avatar for susieyippin
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2003
STBX balks at repairs
4
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 3:14pm

I'm so fed up with STBX. We have steps from our path down to our driveway, which are made out of railroad ties. They've been needing to be replaced and are rotting. In November 2003, we put in a cement path from the top of the steps to the front door. I have taken a couple of tumbles down the driveway steps a few times, and each time, I've jammed my lower back and blown out my sacroiliac joint. Well, the other day, it happened again. I stepped on a step that was either broken, or rotted and spongy, and took a tumble. My lower back is blown out. :-( When it happened, STBX was waalking right beside me, so he saw what happened.

In early April, my cousin, his wife, and their newborn daughter visited me here. My cousin's wife lost her footing on the step, and took a small tumble. THANK GOODNESS she wasn't carrying the baby at the time! I told STBX about what happened to my cousin's wife, and that we needed to fix the stairs ASAP, before someone got seriously injured. His comment, "I'll put it on my list". @$$.

So when I took my tumble this week, (I also have a very sore ankle), I said to STBX-- "we HAVE to get this fixed. Someone IS going to get hurt, and then we're screwed. I have people coming to the house for my business, the UPS guy uses these stairs, the USPS lady, etc." His comment? "Oh you're just mad because you fell." Again: @$$.

Oh, get this! On both sides of the steps are RR tie retaining walls. On the right side of the steps, a piece of RR tie was bowing out from rot. I'd been thinking, "I hope nobody pulls that out, as the ties on top of that will collapse." What does STBX do? He pulls out that rotted piece. The morning of DS's HS graduation, I find the rest of the wall collapsed onto the steps, along with soil and some plant matter. I thought that my 9 year old had pulled the rotted piece out, so he got in trouble for it. I found out later, that it was STBX. Now one of the steps is loose, in addition to the not-level and rotted ones. Just beautiful.

So, today, I asked STBX, "What would it entail to just do the steps, without getting into the retaining walls yet?" His reply, "Oh, I'll call my old boss (from 25 years ago), and see if he can give me a price" (this guy lives on Cape Cod, we live 60 miles away, off-Cape). People on the Cape DON'T travel off-Cape in the summer, AND there's road construction on BOTH bridges at the canal. The only ways to get off-Cape, other than boat or plane. Also, he said he wasn't going to call until Monday. On the premise that the guy doesn't want to be bothered. ???

There are landscapers in our town who do retaining walls and steps. We had one of them give us a quote a few years ago, when he came out to look at our steps / walls. I'm going to tell STBX that he has until Monday to get a quote from his ex-boss from 25 years ago, and then I'm going to call someone local.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 3:42pm
Are you selling the house or keeping it. Either way it sounds like the repairs need to be made, but if you are keeping it, you might want to take on getting them fixed yourself. If you have to pay out of pocket, you could keep the receipt and have that accounted for in the final division of assets. You could do that even if you keep the house. Do you both have attorney's now? If you plan to sell it as part of the divorce, you could call and get an estimate from someone nearby, and then have your attorney right a letter stating that the steps must be repaird at $xx cost and since you will both benefit from the proceeds of the sale, you should share in the cost to fix the steps.

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Avatar for susieyippin
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2003
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 4:31pm

Hi, thanks for replying. We aren't selling the house. It's 20 years old, we've been here 15 years, but as it was a "quickie-house" (went up in about 2 weeks, my neighbor who is a builder told me), a lot of things are starting to wear out. Thing is, STBX has known for probably 10 years that the steps are rotting, and thus, a hazardous condition. He thinks of it as, "Oh it'll keep the relatives away, so I don't have to deal with them". When I suggest to him that this needs to be repaired, or that needs to be repaired, he takes it as a personal attack, and starts in with, "I'm just one guy! We're a one income family! I can't repair that, I need to get my race car built!"

I have an attorney, STBX does not. I saw my attorney at the bank the other day-- 15 minutes after I fell, in fact, and I briefly told her about my spill.

I AM tempted to just go ahead and have someone else repair the steps. In fact, I'd feel more comfortable if some else did the repairs. STBX gets stressed, has a meltdown and makes it a nightmare for us when he works on projects at the house. He won't listen to any input, and then complains when no one wants to help him. He makes everyone miserable, so who would want to help? Today I told him this. He was saying we could use a certain type of building material, and I said, no, we'd decided to use the same material as the path, so it matches. He said, "yeah, but I don't know who poured the concrete." I said, we did the path in Nov 2003, look for the cancelled check, and it'll have the name. He got all huffy about that.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 5:50pm
My thinking is that you'll have to be taking care of these things soon on your own anyway, no reason not to start now. Get it fixed and then make sure pays part of the bill when the assets are divided up, by keeping the receipt and documenting it was a nessary home repair (write down what happened to you, have your relative document her spill down the steps, get a note from the guy who does the work, take pictures before it is fixed). That way when you have to buy him out of the equity, you can deduct his share of the expense from the amount he will receive.

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Avatar for susieyippin
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2003
Sat, 06-11-2005 - 5:56pm

Hmmm, that's a very good idea. I'll definitely take pictures, and document anymore mishaps. I know my chiro has a record of my falls down the steps, and he's seen how that can jolt and jam my hip bone, which in turn pops my SI joint out.

I'm used to STBX taking care of these things, but I guess I'll start calling around myself.

Thanks for the suggestions. :-)