An update and why we can’t sell

The update:

The burst pipe is in our ceiling/neighbor’s floor over our walk-in closet at the back of the apartment in our bedroom. The water came in through the walls and ceiling and reached the living room. We currently have some holes in our ceiling and will need that to be replaced along with portions of the walls.

Our wood floors are the hardest hit and are already bowed and buckling. Since we live in a sub-grade space, the floors are wood over engineered wood and they float (can't really put normal wood floors on top of concrete). Since they float, there are ready-made channels for water to flow and that's exactly what it did. When we step on boards in the living room, for example, we see water seeping up. It should dry out quickly—this is winter after all, and the driest time for Boston. But the floors are ruined.

Next steps involve figuring out if the condo association makes an insurance claim or goes with a special assessment. The risk in another claim is that we had a huge claim from 2009 and apparently there was another water situation in 2004 (don’t know any details about that). The condo association runs the risk of not being renewed next year if we file yet another claim around water. But a special assessment won't go over well with the owners either. Now I'm really glad I won't be at the condo association meeting. I would have a hard time biting my tongue.

Once the financials are settled, then the painful reconstruction starts. With three cats in the house, it's a chore to make sure contractors shut the door so they don't get out. And all the commotion freaks them out anyway. Add in my travel schedule and Kent's travel schedule and well, I get overwhelmed just thinking about managing this mess.

Why we can’t sell:

The very technical picture (fear my mad PowerPoint skills) shows how the seven apartments make up the condominium association. Originally, 1 and 3 Claremont Park were two separate brownstones, but the lady who owned both buildings ended up making a one floor apartment that spanned both buildings.

So we have two buildings joined by one apartment which means we have one condo association. The blue units are the garden units and both flooded last year (we live in number 7). The Ferals live in apartment 2 and they are the ones who had the frozen pipe for three days and refused to let the plumber open any walls to find the leak. In fact Mr. Feral spent an hour yesterday morning lecturing the master plumber on how to do his job. As you might imagine, that didn’t go over well.

The Hatefuls live in apartment 4; they are the ones who are suing the condo association and the people in apartment 5 (for proper serial construction, we'll call them the SuperNice).

Until the lawsuit is settled (and it has nothing to do with our 2009 flood and everything to do with their sense of entitlement about other issues), no bank will underwrite loans for apartments in our building. The potential risk of a huge special assessment is just not one any bank will take. So we are stuck.

Once we can sell, believe me we will. And we are seriously considering renting. Given how we haven't yet landed someplace we believe will be our home for decades, and how volatile the job market is, we think we need to stay flexible with housing.