Work on the House

In August 2011 we had some severe rain storms. We got inches upon inches in just a few days. That on top of the regular rain we get on a weekly basis. The paint on the lower walls of our house started to bubble and then corrode, for lack of a better word. I took pictures in September 2011 after the bubbling was getting worse and spreading along the walls.
I took the pictures into the housing office to show them and have them contact the landlord. He made an appointment with me to come see it, but never showed. Really, not an uncommon occurrence, at least, with my landlord or property manager I guess would be a better term.
In October 2011, we had some more issues that needed to be resolved, so I went back in to the housing office and had them document that he never showed in September and now had something else I needed him to take care of. We had an appointment, he did call the housing office to reschedule that, then came to the second appointment we made for October.
So, October 2011, he came out once to look at the water damage and then came out a week later with the repairman to see what they could do. We could need to do a few things. 1: The land surrounding our house on the south and west sides needed to be dug up and have a plastic barrier put in to prevent this from happening again. The room where the damage was the worst had been built about 3 years prior, so I don't know why that wasn't done at that time. But, I'm a teacher, not a building contractor. 2: The inside walls would need to be jack-hammered away, a plastic layer put up and replastered. That would take two full days. The following week, they would come back and seal it. A month after that, they would come back and finish the project by sanding and painting it.
OK, bring it on. I wasn't getting called from the school to substitute, lets knock this project out. I will hear from the housing office when the contract has been finalized so we can schedule some dates.
November 2011
December 2011
January 2012 housing office calls to schedule the dates. The last Wednesday and Thursday of the month. Low and behold, I had work scheduled for those days.
February 2012 the workmen are at the house. We had to shut off the heater so they could remove the radiators from the walls. They had to plastic up everything including the entry ways to the living room making us look like we're living on the set of E.T. The fireplace was in use, so they couldn't plastic up that hole, so we have dust all over the main floor of the house.
Now, while it has irritated me to no end that this process has been such a long time coming, and on the coldest darn week here in years, the workmen are great. They've been very kind and courteous. They've worked hard and steady. 8-12 lunch 1300-1600. They've communicated, patiently, with me via my phone and google translate.  They were so nice, I even made some butterscotch brownies to share with them yesterday.
They'll be done cementing the walls today and I'll be left to clean up dust....until they come back next week. Tons of plaster dust that resists my swiffer duster like oil and water. One cool thing that we got to see was the inside of the wall in the living room. That is part of the original house and we knew it to be quite old, the landlord said about 200 years old. From the outside you can't tell how old it is because it has been renovated and looks very modern. But that wall, is OLD. It was just stones mortared together with mud, so neat to look at that history. So nice to know why my house is so stinking cold. If I would have thought about it, I would have grabbed one of the stones that fell out of the wall to keep from our Belgian house.