Here’s a little recap from Part One in our series of unfortunate events….
Finally, after moving our bed, clothes and essentials for the next week into the guest room, we were ready…. Or so we thought. I mean what could possibly go wrong at this point?
And now, on to Part Two!
Oct 17
The morning David and his crew were to begin our AC repair, David contacted Lorne from the police station to let him know that there had been a break-in at the warehouse where he stores all his tools and he lost almost everything. He advised he would return our deposit so we could find someone else as he felt it would take about three weeks before he would be able to work again.
Lorne spent a week searching for another guy to come, but no luck. Angelina (our personal property manager) finally found a guy who came to look at the job and said he was interested but never sent in a quote. It was hard to find someone to work on a project like this without much notice. We really wanted to work with David as we knew him well and liked his work, so decided to wait for him.
Oct 27
Lorne contacted David to see if he had an ETA as to when he might be able to begin the AC repair and we were so excited when he responded “Nov 3, my friend!”. Finally, the work was going to begin!
Nov 3
David and his crew arrived bright and early to begin the repair. Scaffolding was built between the buildings, and the chiselling of the concrete walls began. They needed to dig out the coolant pipes from the current wall that the AC was on, to move them to the new wall where the AC would be going. This process was loud and unnerving, and I’m sure our neighbours hated us for it!
Nov 4
David and his crew continued working, and by the end of the day the AC was mounted on the new wall (but not connected yet) and the holes they had made in the walls were all filled in. They had also sanded down some additional areas on the walls where the paint had previously bubbled up from old water damage as they would also be repainting the entire room once the AC installation was done.
Nov 5
David had a family obligation so could not work in the morning and Lorne and I had an obligation in the afternoon, so it was agreed work would continue the following day.
That evening, security came to our door to advise there had been a noise complaint from a neighbour and that security had noticed the area between our buildings (where the scaffolding was) had not been cleaned up by David and his crew. Security insisted it be cleaned up that night, or David would not be allowed to continue working. Lorne contacted David and he sent one of his workers right away to clean up the mess.
Nov 6
At 8:30am, Lorne received a message from David “We are denied access. Please check the situation with the administration”.
Lorne reached out to the HOA administrator and after receiving no response, reached out to the HOA board to ask what the issue was. After receiving no response from them either, he headed over to the administration office. Meanwhile, David and his crew had been waiting over an hour, so he advised Lorne that he would go to another job, while Lorne figured out what was going on.
After speaking with the HOA administrator, Lorne forwarded their message to David: “Security told us your crew didn’t clean up yesterday and that is why you were denied access. Some residents complained about the dust / rocks / garbage left behind. This needs to be completely removed every day. You are now permitted access if the first thing you do is clean this area.”
David confirmed he was on his way back to clean the area and finish the job. However, when he arrived at the entrance, security started harassing him, first for not cleaning the mess and then for not cleaning it thoroughly. David contacted Lorne, then Lorne contacted security and said, “How can they come in to clean up the mess if you won’t let them in?” Security advised they needed someone from the HOA to officially confirm David could have access, so Lorne contacted the HOA again to have them advise security, and finally they let David and his crew in.
The next 30 minutes were a total blur as everything happened so quickly. David was angry that he had been treated so badly by security. He said it wasn’t the first time they had harassed him and he had had enough. He told Lorne he would not be finishing the job. He packed up his stuff, dismantled the scaffolding, cleaned up the mess and left. Lorne and I were left standing there completely in shock.
We had paid David a deposit for the work and, when he was set to start, some additional money for supplies. We had no problem with this as we trusted him, as he had done many jobs for us over the years and were certain he would finish this job as well. But he didn’t.
Lorne contacted him later that night regarding a refund. David said that he had spent the money on supplies, scaffolding rental and wages for his crew and would not be returning any of it. Words went back and forth and then that was it. We were out that money.
Now the hunt was on to find someone to finish the AC job as well as someone to paint the room and fix our bathroom ceiling – and now we needed to pay for it all over again.
Nov 8
Angelina luckily found someone to quote on the AC job. He confirmed he would be able to finish the AC install, but only the AC install. We received his quote and confirmed work would begin Nov 19.
Lorne and Angelina continued looking for someone to paint the room, plus fix the water damage on the bathroom ceiling.
Nov 19
The new AC guys showed up bright and early and by the end of the day the AC unit was installed and blowing cold air. Hallelujah!
Nov 22
Angelina managed to find another person to quote on the remaining work that had to be done. He arrived to check out the scope of the work, provided a quote, which we happily accepted, and work was scheduled to begin on Nov 24.
Nov 24
The guys arrived bright and early to begin sanding and painting the bedroom. By the end of the day, it was completely done and looked great.
Nov 25
The guys arrived again to fix the water damage on our bathroom ceiling. They also patched up all the cracks they found and, as well, repainted the ceiling.
Finally, the AC was done, the painting was done, and the bathroom ceiling was done. We were so relieved, and so happy that we would soon be able to move back into our bedroom again. However, before we could do that, we needed to get the kitchen cabinets dealt with.
Nov 26
Dealing with the mold behind the kitchen cabinets was put on hold until the AC unit was moved to be sure no additional moisture would damage the cabinets again. Lorne had advised Chay that the AC work was complete and Chay confirmed he would come the next day to measure everything and would then return on Nov 28 to do the work.
That evening, we had to empty the upper cabinets and the one below the sink, plus move all the stuff that was on the countertop, so they would have the space to be able to work.
Everything was strategically placed on the kitchen island and all over the living room, along with all the stuff that we had already moved out of the guest room. I was starting to feel like a bit of a hoarder… LOL! It was only for two days; we were sure we could live with the inconvenience.
Nov 28
Finally, the day came to work on the cabinets. When Chay removed the back of the upper cabinet, we could clearly see we were right, that there was mold growing there.
He cleaned, sanded, sanitized and repainted the wall, then attached the new cabinet back. Everything went seamlessly. Unfortunately, we weren’t as lucky with the one under the sink.
Shortly after 3pm, Chay removed the back panel under the sink and cleaned the mold. When he was ready to install the new back panel, he turned the water valve off under the sink to disconnect the pipe so he could attach the panel.
Suddenly the plastic piece behind the valve broke off in his hand and water began spewing straight out of the wall like a fire hydrant!!
His assistant ran down the hall to get to Lorne and told him to hurry and shut off the water, as Chay was trying to hold the water back from flooding the kitchen. Lorne had to run down two flights of stairs to our cistern and then up three flights of stairs to the rooftop where our tinaco was to shut off the water. And by then, the water was everywhere!
The guys managed to clean up all the water, and then Chay had to run to Home Depot to get a new valve and come back to replace it. Once done, we decided we should leave the cabinet open overnight with a fan blowing into it to make sure it was not damp when he closed it back up.
After he installed the new valve, he said to wait about 30 minutes before turning the water back on. However, right after he left, we noticed it was still leaking under the sink. We called him back and he made some adjustments and then waited while we turned the water back on to test it. Finally, at 9pm, we had no more leaks.
The good news was we had running water again and could finally make dinner. The bad news was the massive flood had soaked half of our living room rug!
We moved all the furniture off it and managed to drag it down the hall to our bedroom (which was still empty) and set up some fans to blow on it overnight.
Nov 29
In the morning, we checked on the rug. It dried all lumpy on the side that had been soaked and wasn’t really usable anymore. We managed to cut a piece from the good side of the rug to use in the living room for the time being. (Chay had offered to discount the final bill to account for the damage to the rug, but we had been planning to replace this rug in the next couple of months anyway, so it was not an issue for us in the end).
Chay arrived at 9am to finish the job. Everything had dried out in the cabinet nicely and he installed the back panel with no issue. Within a couple of hours, we were ready to clean the kitchen and put all our stuff back into the cabinets and onto the countertops.
All the repair work was finally done!!
Nov 30
Lorne and I spent the entire day doing a deep cleaning in our bedroom and ensuite so we could move back into our room. So much construction dust had to be cleaned up, and we took the opportunity to also clean all the windows and screens and all the cabinets so we would have a nice fresh room.
Finally, after sleeping in the guest room for 46 nights, we moved our bed and all our things back to our bedroom. It felt like we had just arrived home from being away for a while… it did not feel like we had been away on vacation (these past two months were neither relaxing nor fun!) but still felt like we had arrived home. It was a nice feeling.
We spent the next few evenings moving all the stuff from the living room and home office back into storage in the guest room.
Our house was finally in order again, however, with everything being all over the place, we had not been able to do our regular weekly cleaning for almost two months. The amount of dust and dirt that had accumulated was unsightly. Also, all the construction had tracked in so much stuff and left so much fine construction dust everywhere. It was a lot! After doing the deep clean of our bedroom/bathroom a few days earlier, we decided we were just too tired (and getting too old…LOL) to do a thorough cleaning for the whole house.
We contacted a cleaning company who specialized in post-construction deep cleaning and arranged for them to come in the first week of December. They cleaned our place for six hours, from top to bottom (minus our bedroom/bathroom that we had already done), inside and outside of everything. It was the best CAD$400 (USD$300) we had ever spent and well worth it, especially with the Christmas season quickly approaching.
Our Christmas was very simple with just the two of us here. We made our Christmas dinner for Christmas Eve…. we went traditional with turkey, stuffing etc. It’s been years since we had a turkey for Christmas, as we usually do beef of some sort.
And as an added surprise, we had a heat wave come through Dec 24-26, where our temperatures climbed to 35C. It was apparently the hottest Christmas here since 1971. Sitting outside eating our Christmas Eve dinner, we were sweating so much. We finally gave up and finished eating inside, in the AC!
For New Year’s Eve we made a fancy Shrimp Bisque (so good and surprisingly easy!) played some games and then sat outside at midnight to watch the many fireworks put on by all the resorts. It’s always so much fun to watch.
We rang in the New Year absolutely exhausted from all the craziness of the past few months and hoped so hard that 2026 would be much kinder to us.
When all was said and done, the final list of repairs was as follows:
- Sealing the exterior wall cracks
- AC repair round 1
- AC repair round 2
- Bedroom painting
- Bathroom water damage repair
- Kitchen cabinets mold removal
- Headboard treatment
- Post construction cleaners
Total Cost – MXN$63,000 / CAD$5,035 / USD$3,675
A few people have reached out to ask about insurance and/or HOA coverage that would help offset the costs for us, but unfortunately, in the end we were responsible for all of it.
Homeowners Insurance may have been an option, however our deductible is set at $5,000, so we were not eligible to put in a claim for any part of it.
The damage caused by the AC unit (including the mold that resulted in damage to the upper kitchen cabinets) falls under our responsibility, as we had this AC unit installed two years ago, and the HOA is not responsible for this.
The only portion of the costs that could pertain to the HOA were the cracks in the exterior walls, and the water damage on the bathroom ceiling.
However, the HOA setup for the condos in our complex is a bit different. The condos are made up of 16 towers, with a total of six units per tower (two units per floor x three floors). Each tower shares its own common area expenses among the six units of that tower.
The exterior walls of each unit are not considered common property but are the responsibility of that unit. So, the cracks that occurred on the outside of our unit were ours to fix.
Maintenance of the rooftop, which includes regular sealing to prevent rainwater from leaking down into the units, is considered common property. This is because the rooftop houses each unit’s propane tank, water tank, air conditioners and satellite dishes.
However, prior to the HOA officially forming early in 2024, the cost of sealing our roof fell to Lorne and me, as being on the top floor, any leak in the roof directly affected us. So, in both 2020 and 2022, we paid for our roof section to be resealed. In 2024, it was time to reseal the roof again, but with the HOA only newly formed, making this happen ended up pushed to the sidelines.
In 2025, the HOA was more organized and advised the condos to make plans to have their roofs sealed. However, trying to get all six units of our tower to agree to pay for this was next to impossible. One owner even went as far as to say, “your concerns are not my concerns” when we told her of our water damage in past years, and she refused to pay. Again, the roof was not sealed that year, and of course, we ended up with water damage in our bathroom ceiling from a roof leak.
At the HOA Annual General Meeting in January 2026, it was decided that to make sure the roof sealing of the condos is done before storm season, the HOA would pay for it upfront and then charge each owner back for the expense. This is ultimately the best way to handle it so the job will get done.
Now we are just crossing our fingers the job can actually be scheduled and completed before our rainy season starts in June.
Well, we warned you this was going to be long (again!)
What a difference the second half of our year was compared to the first half. In the first half of 2025, we were living our best life, enjoying the weather, the local food, and visiting with our son Ryan and his lovely wife Chelsea.
The second half of 2025 was spent dealing with so many water issues, that at various times throughout we weren’t totally sure if we would sink or swim. But thankfully we’re still standing, and so far staying dry!
It might be time for a vacation. But luckily… we don’t have to go too far… 😎
ps… Don’t forget to check out the latest Snippets!
