It only gets worse

Steve Lerner Programming Director HGTV . Dear Steve, I have not heard back from you since my April 7 missive. Don't worry, I won't take your lack of response personally . I realize that a) you must be either very busy performing a gut renovation of a 12 room/8 bathroom home in Indianopolis for $3600 b) in Tahiti,on a beach dreaming of how you can renovate the Taj Mahal for $7400 or c) dead. I'm guessing it's (c) because only an incredible insensitive dick wouldn't have responded to my cri de coeur, but, in the vain hope that it's (a) or (b), I'm again asking for your help. As of last April, I had spent $37,900 on the renovations and I had no permits and no no contractor. In theory, I slept better knowing I was in an asbestos free zone. In practice, I slept not at all, worried that the IQ tests I took in childhood must have been incorrectly graded, because only a mental defective would spend that much, get nothing for it and not sue anyone. Some might say things have been moving forward since April. I have ordered the door handles for my closets and doors for $1000. They're quite nice and are sitting in a carton at the bottom of my hallway closet. I have ordered my kitchen cabinets for $17,000. I last saw them in the store, where, like the door handles, they appeared quite attractive. Since October 6, I have been paying $5 a day for their safekeeping in a warehouse, in addition to an upfront charge of either $25, $50 or $5000. The blood pounding in my ears made it difficult to hear the amount. Although I have my kitchen cabinets and door handles, I do not yet have a contractor. Some might view that as good karma, since I do not yet have permits and the architect has yet to finalize plans to give to the contractor. For some reason, I can't help viewing it as a clusterfuck. You never seem to have problems getting permits, Steve. My permit applications, on the other hand, were filed in September, rejected, resubmitted and apparently exiled to oblivion. I had not one, but two, New York City agencies, to kiss up to: Landmarks Commission and Department of Buildings. DOB I get. Landmarks, not so much. My building is a post war monstrosity which was probably the blight of its charming low-rise west village location when it was erected in the '60s. I'm replacing the lights that are currently on my terrace with lights that actually work. The terrace will look no different and, in any event, is not visible from the street. Am I paying the price of their failing to save Penn Station? Am I paying the price of not paying the inspector a price? Am I cursed? My expeditor does not appear to have expedited the process. I know I paid him thousands, because I was told you can't get a permit in NYC without retaining an expeditor, but I have no idea what an expeditor does. Does he/she bribe the inspector, bed him/her? Was the bribe inadequate, the bed-ing only so-so? Aware that I was upset and frustrated that work had not begun, my architect sent partial plans to a contractor who did a walk thru of my apartment. In doing so, he observed a telephone riser cable that would would have to be moved by Verizon in order for the kitchen work to be performed. My architect had not observed it. In fairness, it was behind clothes in my closet. On the other hand, despite planning to move a wall in its location, she never looked. Fault, however, is not the issue. The issue is getting Verizon to move the cable. Verizon's heart is in the right place. I know. I own a piece of their heart(pension, stock.) However, their brain is up their ass. As a result of 11 calls, each of which required going through a lengthy menu before speaking to a retarded representative and explaining my issue, I was sent two repairman, both of whom were delightful, told me relocating the riser wouldn't be a problem, but it wasn't their department. The second repairman gave me additional good news...it wasn't only a Verizon cable that needed to be moved, but a Time Warner cable as well. I couldn't wait to call Time Warner, go through their menu , be thanked for choosing Time Warner and be sent a repairman who would advise me that moving the cable would be a snap, but not his snap. Steve, until today,I seriously suspected I was delusional. I was merely imagining that someday I would have renovations, that there was some purpose for which I had shelled out $60,000 and sustained a serious increase in my blood pressure. My acquaintances, I suspect, also thought I was la-la land since I had been speaking about non-existant renovations for almost two years,packed my belongings in cartons and still had my old kitchen, bathrooms and walls. But , like a shipwrecked sailor on a raft, who sees a boat in the distance coming to save him, knows it might be a hallucination, but grasping at straws, takes hope, today I took hope. I was able to contact a human at Verizon who said he would help me. Although he didn't say when he would help me, who he would send or what could be done, he did say I had contacted the correct department. I cried when I read his e-mail. My renovations are a non-work in non-progress. It is possible they may be completed within my lifetime if the actuarial charts are correct and I live 20 more years.Should that possibility not come to pass, I volunteer to star in a reality horror show about doing renovations in a coop in NYC. Steve, if you're not dead, call me. Carol