It won't be long now (and not a moment too soon..)

I can pretty much just continue from my last post (2 years ago this month) and report that next month I'll be relocating, at least temporarily while the old Chesterfield Hotel goes through a renovation.

Since receiving that notification letter back in 2012 it's taken a full two years for the grant[s?] to be approved, and all the business details to be completed. Finally the construction will begin in about a month.

Maybe the building is aware of the changes coming. Twice today our new fire alarm system has gone off for no apparent reason. A detector in a entryway was the source of both alarms occurring just hours apart but it wasn't smoke/fire that set it off. That's the only good part of having to evacuate the building twice in the same day and wait until the fire department checks and gives the all-clear (and shuts off the alarm!), at least there was no actual fire. I'm sure the fire fighters, like the residents, have better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than respond to false alarms.

I wasn't even sure that the building could be renovated. There is so much dry rot evident in and around my apartment and the vinyl siding separating in so many places because the nails holding it on don't have any decent wood to attach to. The wood sills in two out of three of my windows are rotten and the single 'modern' window started separating from my wall when I tried installing an air conditioner in it. Just the fact that water was able to get into the framework around those windows, for who knows how long before I moved in makes me wonder how much mold is in the walls.
The apartment next door had a shower stall leaking into the apartment below for quite a while and the apartment on the first floor (# 1) supposedly has a recurring issue of sewage backing up.
The shingles (at least on the back section) have been falling off faster and faster all of which contributes to water getting into places it's not supposed to be.
The foundation (a very old one) has a serious leak (when it rains) that flows across the basement floor and required a sump pump (cheaper than fixing the foundation but pound foolish in the long-term).
I've only been here two years but I get the feeling this building has been neglected for much of it's later life.

I certainly hope the renovation includes some badly needed energy saving improvements, and after the work is done I would hope the property is maintained better than it has been recently. The same goes for the other properties being renovated.

As I hope we've heard the last of the fire alarm.


- Edited on 9/30/2014 4:49 PM

An Unwelcome Coincidence

The building today, September 16, 2012

And here we are.... Back in Western Mass after 33 years.

I'm told this apartment building is the former 'Chesterfield Hotel'. At what point it was turned into apartments I haven't discovered yet.

Now I've mentioned some coincidences between my former residence and this one. Both are former hotels and both are owned by similar organizations. The reason I had to move out of the Endicott was because they decided to do a major renovation (and upgrade) of the building and that required all the tenants to move out.

Last letter from CATCH / MB Management regarding moving out.

For the previous several years I had been entertaining the idea of moving back to Western Massachusetts. By the time my father passed away in April of 2006 I'd already stopped my security blogging on the Concord Monitor Online website and really had nothing significant tying me to New Hampshire. My mother was suffering from Alzheimer's and though I knew moving to Mass would mean a significant increase in my cost of living I'd be able to visit her much more. Unfortunately I was still waiting to hear from the management of Nash Hill Place when she passed away in March of 2010.

Fast forward two years to March 2012. I've just recently moved into this new apartment and I'm trying to settle in. I need stability and absolutely hate the disruption associated with moving. So imagine what it was like to get this letter:

Deja vu?

Seriously, what are the odds? Of course nothing was mentioned to me about this when I was shown the apartment or when signing the lease nor at any time in the month (or so) prior to receiving this letter. I don't know if it would have made any difference because Nash Hill Place still didn't have any openings (and couldn't/wouldn't even tell me where I was on their waiting list..), I hadn't found anything else and I felt I was over-staying my welcome where I was staying. This place was suddenly available, the price was right, and despite being further away than I'd hoped it is a nice quiet place (well, except for occasional sudden heart-stopping outbursts from my neighbor's autistic son next door). I have birds singing and wind rustling the leaves (& a collection of wind chimes down on the porch) and crickets and peepers to listen to instead of the sounds of city traffic in downtown Concord, New Hampshire.

No, compared to the noise* of a busy city intersection with buses & trucks, amateur drag racers, motorcycles (especially during the Loudon race week), and every four years politicians and their supporters literally banging drums out in front of my building at 8 AM with those "Honk if you support _________" signs, this place is wonderful..

I recently heard that the grant for the renovation was not granted but then just the other day I received another letter implying that the process was ongoing, and if renovations do occur it won't be until early 2014. Maybe by then I'll have finally moved all the belongings out of my storage unit in Easthampton (it's a long process when you have no help and try to do most of it using a Toyota Camry).

So there you have it, my first blog post in ages.. It feels good to start writing again. I think it might be the weather picking me up. This first real taste of cooler dry air is nice.



*Of course the narrow space between my building and the recently built office building 20 ft away worked to amplify those sounds and *especially* the emptying of the dumpster every day around 7 AM.


Edited on 9/28/2014 (I added 1 word and added a space between sentences.)