My Fence

Archive: January 10, 2007

You might expect that I would find my patio fence on my patio, and you'd be right. But typically in a more vertical arrangement, serving the purpose of dividing my patio from the next.

As I've mentioned before, the particular arrangement of the building and patio wall serve to create a wind tunnel which, particularly in the winter, generate incredibly strong gusts across the front of my apartment. That coupled with the damp wood-rotting coastal environment was sufficient to strike a serious blow to the integrity of my fence.

You can see here the first hit as I discovered it the next morning. Fortunately it collapsed away from my window, and I didn't have to deal with rain and debris blown into my livingroom.
My noisy pot-head neighbor at the time (who has since moved out) took it upon himself to stand the fence upright again. Of course a few days later it was windy and snowy and this was the result, collapsing completely.
Once the weather cleared up a bit, my noisy pot-head neighbor decided to stand it up again, its structural integrity marginally exceeding that of a house of cards, but perhaps not quite reaching the level of a house of soup cans. The latticework part which got completely separated was tidied up and conveniently deposited...
...in the corner of my patio farthest from his. The only thing that really bothers me about this is that in order to stack up the fence parts in this corner of my patio, he would be standing directly outside my bedroom window.

By this point I had long since reported the broken fence to the resident manager of the building, and he assured me that he would take it up with the building council and once the weather had cleared up, it would be repaired. After a few months passed he quit, and we got a new building manager, who I again reported the broken fence to, and he assured me that he would take it up with the building council and once the weather had cleared up, it would be repaired. A contractor was brought in to make an estimate which was provided to the council, and rejected. Later on, another contractor was brought in to make and estimate which was provided to the council, and rejected. The contractor subsequently provided a revised estimate which was approved.

Recently the fence did get fixed, a year and a half later, in June of 2008.