Life in Playa

Cutting down trees…

So I have been really busy with life…it has just been sneaking up on me. I have been neglecting the blog for quite some time now, which bugs me because I think about it a lot. So here goes, I have a few extra minutes, I am going to just do a little filler.

My company was recently given the administration of another building, Las Margaritas on 25th and 22nd. One of the first complaints we got from the owners was a dead tree in the middle of the parking lot, a “Huaya” it is called. The tree is actually two trees, one large and very dead tree with a smaller live tree growing up from the roots.

In one of my past lives I learned how to cut down trees responsibly and even got a certificate from the forestry department that says I am allowed to do so, so I figured no problem, just knock it down. When I brought the idea up to the Val, who is now maintaining the gardens around Margaritas, he said that I can’t because it is protected.

I know that Val is full of useful knowledge but I was skeptical about his grasp on local botany law, but I figured I should ask around anyway. I asked a few people and they all confirmed to me that I cannot just knock a tree down, I have to ask permission. The rumor even came out that I would have to plant two trees in place of the one that I cut down, which sounded like a fair proposal to me, I like trees.

So I wrote a letter (Mexico is big on letters) to the director of the department of environment here in Playa Del Carmen asking to cut the tree down, explaining that it was a risk to public safety and an eyesore that detracts from the aesthetic beauty of Playa Del Carmen. I attached some pictures of the offending tree to the letter and marched down to Medio-Ambiente (the environmental dept.) in city hall.

Medio-Ambiente is located in the same office as Desarollo Urbano, so I was familiar with the office and the girls behind the counter are always very helpful to me. I showed them my letter and my pictures, somebody went in the back office for a while and returned with the in-house biologist. The biologist looked at my letter and my pictures and we chatted for a few minutes, then she told me that my permit was approved, I would just have to wait for them to draw it up.

I waited about a week and finally received an email telling me that I could pick up my permit, I went down to the office today and got it. I was absolutely amazed at how easy this process was, I was expecting a hassle.

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Minor Miracles…

So I have been working on getting my FM3 for myself and my business partner, Dave, for the last month or so.  I submitted the paperwork on the 27th of August and was told to come back in eight days to pick up the FM3′s, which I knew was wishful thinking but I follow directions well anyway.  I have been going back every week or so, but I am pretty sure that the papers won’t be done until the end of August.  No big deal, I am in tramite so I am legal to work.

Dave has his other home in Galveston, Texas, so this last week he decided he probably needed to go back to take care of the damages that were caused by Hurricane Ike.  He let me know on Sunday that he was going to be leaving on Friday, so I should probably do something with immigration.  I told him that probably wasn’t enough time, but I would see what I could do.

Last Monday morning I went in to immigration to ask for a permiso for Dave to leave and enter the country.  I wasn’t sure of the process, but I had written a letter asking for permission.  When I got to immigration, I was given a list of things I would need, about eight items.  I went back home and got the stuff together and was back in immigration in about an hour.  I waited in their office for  four more hours and finally at about 3:30 I was done with submitting the process and was out of the office.

They told me to come back on Thursday, I had no faith that on Thursday the paperwork would be ready and I told Dave that he might not be leaving, he assured me that everything would work out.

I went back on Thursday morning at 8:30am and got my number.  After waiting for a while, they called our number and Dave and I went to the counter to get the paperwork.  I gave the clerk the file number and he looked it up, it was not done yet.  The guys at immigration usually have a pretty good attitude, he joked about why would anyone want to go back to the US right now anyway?

He looked through the papers I had brought with me, everything was fine except at some point I had lost the payment receipt for the $260 peso payment to immigration.  I had copies, just not the original.   He suggested that I go get a new bank payment and he would draw up the paperwork for the permit to exit.

I ran to the HSBC on Juarez but the line was out the door.   My next option was Santander, three blocks up.  I made it there and despite the small line at Santander I was back in immigration in 15 minutes.

I got back, I made the payment, we got the letter of permission to leave the country(in triplicate), all was good.  Its a minor miracle.

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Pump Solution

Well, I figured out the solution to my water problems.  Most of them at least.  I fixed it myself, which meant climbing into the cistern and unbolting the pump from its brackets and lifting it out and redoing the plumbing.

Here are pictures.

The cistern entrance

Me going in, see the smile.

Well, I wouldn’t say that fixing the pumps is fun or anything like, but at least it is done and I don’t have to think about it for a while.   I know that it isn’t going to break tomorrow, which I cannot always assume when I have a technician take care of the problem.

Now I just have to get somebody to come look at the electrical problem caused by changing the switches.  I cannot figure it out, maybe I better look it up on google.

I’d better cut this post short, I was just informed that Telmex was digging a ditch in front of Lomas Mariposas and cut through the water line feeding the building.  I’ll need to fix that.

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Water Mayhem!

Let me start out by saying that its been touching 99 degrees here for weeks and I am beginning to feel a little bit cooked.

This week was going to be “tranquilo”, I didn’t have anything planned to do and all the paperwork for PlayaResale is either done or submitted for approval at a later date. All the heat makes people use their air conditioning a lot, when people use their air conditioning a lot, abnormal stress is put on the electrical system here in the yucatan peninsula. We get brown outs, we get black outs, we get power surges and voltage fluctuations. All of these abnormalities in the electrical system cause mischief with things like air conditioners and pump control boxes, I have had it happen before and expect to see it again. I have not encountered any viable options for safeguarding all of the electrical equipment in my buildings against this, its just not realistic to put voltage regulators and battery back-ups on everything.

So, on Monday morning I got a phone call from a property manager that lives in Las Olas and keeps an eye on the place. This guy got PDC Management the job for Las Olas, he takes great pride in the appeance and functionality of Las Olas, he is a big help with the daily operation because he is always around and can let us know if anything is wrong. I know that if I start my day with a phone call from him there are problems, but usually we can get them taken care of quickly.

There was no water in the building, but the pressure gauge was reading a little bit of pressure. I figured it was something easy like the float switch was broken or the cistern was empty, so I headed over there. The cistern was full, the float was fine, the pumps had power, they were just not working. The limit of my expertise with pumps is connecting wires and pipes and troubleshooting simple problems, the pump system at Las Olas is a complicated system using submersible pumps and control boxes and little electrical switching mechanisms that have never worked right and I don’t understand. I have known for a while that the electrical switches were a problem, because they blow quite frequently and have to be replaced.

I know how to replace them, you write down which wire goes where on which switch, take the old switch out, go to Promesa and ask for a new one. You put the wires back where they go and the pump works again. That is simple. I don’t know how it works though. Electricity should work with two, maximum three, wires making a circuit, this electronic switch takes nine wires and has all kinds of funny cryptic markings on it. I do know that these particular switches are microvolt sensitive, which means minuscule fluctuations in the voltage makes them stop working correctly.

Anyway, both of the pumps were not working and I couldn’t get them to start, no matter what I tried. I didn’t really have time to change the switches myself, so after discussing with the property manager our options we decided to try a new guy that he had heard of through the contractor that was taking care of various projects around the building. We called the guy, who was an engineer, he showed up promptly, with an electrician. We were very pleased with his timeliness.

The electrician looked at various parts of the system and pointed out a burning smell and odd noise coming out of one of the electrical control boxes, claiming that it needed to be replaced. He told me that the electrical surges we had been experiencing in the recent days had burnt out the box and the switches, they all needed to be fixed. I took it at face value, this guy is a trained electrician and the engineer came highly recommended.

So the electrician started tearing out control boxes and electrical switches and I decided that I did not need to watch, this is a trained professional and I need to give up a little bit of control over my pumps. Everything would turn out alright, whether I was there or not. I went to do some PlayaResale business and about an hour later I got a phone call, the engineer needed $5000 pesos for new parts. I went over to Las Olas because this seemed a little excessive to me.

The electrician had pulled apart the main switching box and decided that the pressure switches needed to be replaced as well, he gave me a detailed list of what needed to be purchased and what needed to be done. The pump control box was going to cost $2500 pesos, the new pressure switches, $1000 pesos, the new electrical switches $1500 pesos. Wait, new electrical switches? I had to explain to him again that I wanted the mechanical switches, not electrical. I had to explain why again. I thought I got the message across this time. The engineer went to the store and got the parts and the electrician started to put the pump back together.

Later on that night the engineer called me to tell me that it was done, I should come and inspect it and pay him. I checked out the work and it looked incomplete, everything was put back together but they had disconnected the part of the control system that allows me to turn the pumps on manually, now they were controlled completely by the pressure switches. That doesn’t work because some times I need to be able to turn on a pump for testing purposes without waiting for the pressure in the system to drop low enough to trip the pressure switch. I explained this to him. He said he would fix it tomorrow, but he still wanted to get paid today. I know better than that, I paid him half and told him that I would pay him the other half when the switch started working properly. He said tomorrow. He also pointed out to me that the second control box was going bad and would need to be replaced soon. My feeling on this was dismissive, I thought he just wanted more money.

The next morning I was awoken again by a frantic phone call from the property manager in Las Olas, neither pump was working and there was no water again. I rushed over there. Again, I couldn’t figure out how to get the pumps to turn on and I was extra-annoyed that there was no manual override so I could turn on the pumps by myself.

I called the engineer, he came promptly, but the electrician didn’t show up. The engineer looked around for a while at the pump and decided that the problem was that through the night the second control box had burnt up and that there was something wrong with one of the new pressure switches they had installed. He started fiddling with the pressure switch with a screwdriver to get it to kick on, but to no avail.

We waited for an hour or so and the electrician showed up, he looked around for a while and started testing things with their voltage-meter. For some reason there was no power coming into the pump that had the good control box. After about 30 minutes more of investigation, the electrician found the problem, the wires were connected so that both pumps had been run through the second control box, which went bad, therefore when it burnt out both pumps had no power.

This is when it starts to get good, the electrician said that it was not wired that way when he left the night before and I must have changed the wiring. I have one of those managers that has really had to work hard on not losing my temper, I have learned that not saying anything at this point and leaving is a good way to deal with situations like this. I left with the parting comment of, “Just fix it.”

I went and got a cup of coffee at Coffee Cafe, talked with Robert, the owner, for a little while, and decided I could go back to Las Olas to see if I could get this fixed. When I got back, the electrician had a pump wired to the correct control box(the brand new one) and was testing it.

I managed to walk in to the pump room as the same time as the pressure gauge was just about to reach 100psi. Normal systems run at 25-45 psi. We keep Las Olas at 55-65 psi usually, but that is a controversy because things like the hoses for toilets and sinks are not made for use at anything higher than 60psi and they break sometimes. I have explained this but the board of directors likes hard showers, not my decision.

Anyway, 100psi is too much pressure, and why wasn’t the pump shutting off at a normal 55psi like it was yesterday? The engineer looks at the pressure switch and the spring that controls shutoff is broken off(think back to the engineer digging around with a screwdriver), they volunteered to fix it for free. Thats great, but the problem is still that my building has no water, we cannot leave the pump running like that.

Engineer comes up with a great idea, he leaves the electrician in the pump room to watch the pressure valve while he goes to look for a new pressure switch and a control box. But first he wants another $2500 pesos for the new control box. I left because I had to get other things done and I figured this would all be taken care of in its own time, I didn’t need to be there. I reminded them about putting the switches back so I had a manual override.

Six hours later the new pressure switch showed up but no control box. The electrician installed the pressure switch and they told me that they would return the next day with a control box. We had water, but I started to get complaints about different hoses in various apartments exploding and flooding the apartments.

The next day came and went and there was no control box, but we had water. The problem is, I have grown to be very nervous when there is only one running pump in Las Olas, I know that they go bad. Running water is very important to the people that spend that kind of money for a vacation rental, I understand this.

On Thursday afternoon, the control box shows up, the electrician shows up and installs it. There is still a problem, the pump is not pumping water. They decide that the problem is the pump motor, they will need to replace it. I am starting to lose it. I just want my pumps to work, but this is getting silly. They give me a price of $10000 pesos to fix the pump motor, I tell them we need to make sure that is the pump motor. The engineer says he will come the next morning to take the pump out of the well to see if that is truly the problem.

Friday comes, no engineer. I call, he doesn’t answer his phone. I called a few times, the phone is off now. I start making arrangements to get another technician to come, but the problem is, I have gone through this before and I have a long “Don’t Use” list of technicians. It will all wait, we have one pump working and I can get a guy that I know is competent to come in from Cancun next week, that will have to do.

Las Olas is pretty full, it is hot, the guests are taking lots of showers. The building is using a lot of water. Saturday afternoon at five I get a phone call from the property manager, again the building has no water. I become really worried about what is going on since it is the weekend and there is no water, so I rush over.

I opened the cistern lid and could see the problem right away, an easy fix. The city water was not running into the cistern and had not been and the safety float switch was not allowing the pumps to pump the rest of the water out. The cistern was about one quarter full but the safety switch is set to not let it pump at that level, I overrode the safety switch. One quarter full on the cistern is 3000 gallons of water, so I figured that we would be ok. There was now water in the building.

Now here is the kicker, while I had my head in the cistern and because the water level was pretty low I could see the submersible pumps very well. Usually they are pretty distorted by all the water and it is usually pretty hard to get a good look at them. The pump that was now not working that needs a $10000 peso replacement motor had broken off of its feed pipe. This happens sometimes, especially when the pressure in the lines gets to 100psi.

This excites me, I immediately go to the switching station and turn on the “burnt-up” pump(I had to trip the pressure switch with a screwdriver because there is no manual switch). I rush back over to the cistern cover and look in, I gleefully watch as the water swirls around in the cistern from the broken off pipe at the end of the “burnt-up” pump.

So, at the end of all this, I can fix the problem myself. On monday morning, a $5 peso PVC fitting and a little bit of glue will fix the $10000 peso pump problem.

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Fixing Buddha…

Recently, PlayaResale received a Buddha fountain into inventory, a very cool piece but it was broken when we received it.  It had been handled a little roughly on the journey over from Indonesia and one of the brackets that holds the two pieces together had come loose from the fiber-glass.  Over the year that it has been in Playa Del Carmen, the bracket piece became lost and the pump had been mishandled so that it only worked if you shook it a couple of times and then sat it in the correct position in the water.

The Buddha Fountain

We had a little bit of free time around PlayaResale, so we decided that the best thing to do was fix the fountain.  First, we started out by sanding around the area that the old bracket had been attached to.  Val and I have been playing with fiber-glass every chance we get for the last couple of years, somebody taught me how to do it a few years ago as a cheap way to fix leaks in tinacos.  I have been trying to perfect the art because I have a fantasy about one day building a boat or something.  Anyway, it was a pretty easy fix and we used a piece of metal we had in the useful-stuff pile to make the bracket.

We didn’t know the pump was broken until we plugged it in, it just didn’t work.  Then when I picked it up to look at it it started to hum a little bit.  After a good shake it actually started to sound like a pump, but it wouldn’t move any water.  Val and I kind of looked at it for a while and decided that we could fix it.  We couldn’t.   I went this morning and purchased a little fountain pump from the pool store on 2nd and 35th for $450 pesos.  I was happy enough with this price, I had looked around at other fountain pumps and they were over $1000 pesos.

The rock place in the Ejido, 95th and Constituyentes(sort of?)

I went out to a little tile place I remembered in the Ejido to get some river rock to fill up the fountain, boy that place has changed.  I remember a few years ago the tile place was just a corner local on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.  When I went today I got a chance to look at the massive stone-yard they have, as well as their “Casa de Muestra” which is an enormous, out-of-place building with about five different type of architecture and stone finishes everywhere.  I was really impressed.

So we got the fountain running and stuck the rocks in it.  I hadn’t even thought about the fact that the rocks were filthy and that filth would come out in the water.  I think we are going to have to do something about that, maybe change the water, but for right now it looks good in front of PlayaResale.

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Break In at Lomas Mariposas

There was a robbery a few nights ago at Lomas Mariposas.   The break in happened in one of the long term rentals we have whose owner was in the States.  I knew something was wrong when I saw that the potted plant that is on the balcony of the apartment was knocked down, but I wasn’t sure how the robbers got into the apartment until I looked around a little bit more.

It turned out that they had ripped the screen out of the small hallway window that goes into the kitchen above the sink.  They then rocked the kitchen window until the locking mechanism disengaged and then opened it.  They crawled in there.

So, I still didn’t know how the thieves got into the building.  I thought maybe they had climbed up the metal grating that goes up the front of Lomas Mariposas, that would explain the turned over plant on the balcony.  The gardener later informed me that the lock on the front gate had been broken.  They had used something to pry the cover off of the lock so that they could slip a finger into the bolt and undo it.

The only things that went missing were the flat screen TV and a cell phone.  The computer and all other valuables were left alone, it looks like somebody knew what they were going for. 

My opinion of what happened is that it was only one person, they grabbed the TV and left.  They seem to have left through the balcony doors and passed the TV to the landing of the stairs which is accessible from the balcony(where the plant was knocked over), then he crawled down into the stairway himself and exited through the gate.

I replaced the gate lock with the newer model of the same type of lock.   The lock store told me that they no longer sell the old type of lock but the new one is very similar.  It was pretty close, it had some design changes to make it sturdier but also didn’t quite fit the hole that the old lock used.  I had to modify the door a little bit.  I also got the new lock rekeyed to fit the old key, since changing keys is a bit of a hassle in a rental condo building.  Rekeying the lock cost only $100 pesos and key copies have gone up to $12 pesos in almost every key shop, so with 9 units in the building it is more or less the same price.  Installing the new lock took about 2 hours but it works great.  It is still vulnerable to having somebody break it with a hammer and chisel like the old lock, but I have asked all of the tenants to start locking the deadbolt at night, so thieves won’t be able to do the same thing again.

I went to Telcel on saturday to report the cell phone stolen, the line there was atrocious but I finally made it.  I explained to them the situation and it ended up not being that big of a deal to get the old phone canceled and the number transfered to another phone.  Not so bad. 

It is really too bad about this whole thing but I guess the upside to this is that in the last couple of days there has been a big uproar around Mariposas and with the surrounding buildings about security.  We have been installing security bars in all of the sliding glass doors that do not have them and investigation secondary lock options for the windows.  There has been discussion of sharing a security guard with the building below Mariposas.

The neighbors have also been talking about putting up some barbed wire or broken glass over the wall that separates our buildings, though I am not so sure as to how effective this will be.  The glass is very ugly also, but I guess that is the price you pay for better security.

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Pressure Washers Remove Cement…

My meeting last night about the land didn’t turn out so bad, but the owners didn’t show up.  It was just myself and their agent.  It was good though, we talked about the details and now I just have to find a buyer.

Last night at about 9:30 at night the guy from the machinery shop called, my pressure washer was ready.  I went to Dairy Queen with some friends, we sat on La Quinta and discussed the world.  It was nice.  The blizzards there are always so good, they remind me of home.

Today was another hot day in Playa Del Carmen, my cable internet was not working when I woke up this morning.  Obviously it didn’t stay off for too long.  I picked up the pressure washer this morning early and took it over to Lomas Mariposas to test it out with Agustin, the gardener.  We played around with it for a few hours and found out all kinds of things that a pressure washer WILL NOT clean.  Pressure washers DO NOT get the bird droppings off of the white paint on the walls.  The pressure washer WILL NOT take the black stuff out of the conchuela marble tiles.  The pressure washer DOES, on the other hand, take the paint off of any surface that has been in the sun for any period of time, leave gouges in the stucco on the walls, and gets lot of small particles of paint/dirt/etc in the pool.   I am pretty happy about it anyway, it will get lots of use.

Agustin started using the potting soil today, it looks good.  He seems to have spread a fine layer of dirt over the whole lawn, he says that it is because the sand comes to the surface and the grass won’t grow properly if you don’t add more dirt.  I guess that makes sense.  The pile of dirt is getting a little smaller, its still an eyesore.

I had lunch at HC Monterrey on CTM, an order of arrachera to go.  Excellent stuff.  The order was $100 pesos but it is enough for another meal later,  the roasted potato was excellent.  I wish I could get them to come out like that on my BBQ.

I had to get a padlock for the systern at Las Olas because a few of the condo owners have repeatedly found construction workers dipping buckets into it to make cement.  That should take care of the problem.

The new “For Sale/For Rent” signs were done today, they look good but I am worried that they are a little small.  We will see if I still get the same amount of phone calls.  I used to screw the signs into the side of the building with little wooden anchors, but they tend to get blown off after 6 months or so, this time I attached them with transparent silicon, the people at the sign store said that would work better.

There is some sort of talk by a buddhist monk tonight, I am going to try to go.  I went to something like this out in SacBe a few years ago, it was very cool.  I am hoping this will be the same.  I was told that it was at the Hotel Alahambra, I am going to check into Tai Chi classes while I am there.  I will talk more about it tomorrow.

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Another typical day in paradise…

I got up this morning and it was already really hot out.  The dog had knocked the screen door off the track at about 6:30am, so I woke up then….but I laid in bed for another hour I think.  I got up and went to Lomas Mariposas, one of the buildings I manage, where I showed up just in time for the gardener leaving an hour early.  I asked him why and his very logical answer was, “I am going to get some breakfast.” I didn’t feel like this was a good way to start the week, so I asked him to go back inside and finish up his time there by spreading out the potting soil he harrassed me to buy that has been sitting in bags in the yard for the last five days.  He watered the lawn instead.  I decided that this was a fight I was not going to win, so I continued on my daily rounds, leaving him to his thing.  I wonder if he stayed around or left right after I did?

I then went to electric company to pay the bill for one of the other buildings I take care of, the self-service machine in front was not giving out receipts and I figured I couldn’t risk putting $4000pesos($400 USD) into the machine without getting any proof of payment, so I waited in line inside.  The air-conditioning in that office makes it all worth while.  I waited there for about 30 minutes, there were about 15 people in line and only one teller taking transactions.  Not so bad, I have had to wait for longer periods before.

I later got some banking done and got some “For Sale” signs made up, the bank really didn’t take that long.  Which was nice, I really cannot ever complain about the bank though, it is air-conditioned as well.

I went over to the little machine shop in my neighborhood where I have been trying to buy a used pressure washer for the last two weeks, they seem to be putting it together piece by piece.  Today the machine is assembled and there is a hose associated with its operation(though not yet attached), the only thing missing is the spray-gun.  He tells me that it should be done today.  I can only hope, some of the biggest excitement in my life these days is imagining all the things that I can get washed when I get that pressure washer.

I later got a call from the architect that is in charge of putting a new wood post on the terrace of one of the apartments at Las Olas, the building I manage close to Mamitas Beach Club.  We have been waiting for a few weeks for the piece of wood to come in from the jungle south of here, it is a special type of post that is actually a hardwood tree that has been attacked by a creeping vine(also a hardwood), killing the tree but leaving an the vine to grow into an exterior tree on the outside.  It is a pretty cool finished product, mother nature does good work.  I will try to include some pictures.  Well anyway, the post finally arrived today and the architect wanted me to come and have a look at it to make sure it was ok.  I didn’t think much about it at the time, but it turns out that the post was much too big and she wanted to see if I would notice.  I did.  The post was about 20 centimeters too wide, which would have thrown off the whole look of the building.  The building owners are funny about that sort of thing.  So I had to send it back, I hope it doesn’t take another 3 weeks to get another post…Arquitecta Lupe told me that these posts are cut to order, I don’t exactly know what that meant.  It was really too bad, the piece of wood they brought had some really amazing patterns that would have shined up really nicely in the finished piece.  Asi es.

I am going to finish my day today rooftop meeting with some guys from Mexico City that want to sell a piece of land by the beach and their real estate manager here seems to think that I will be a useful addition to the land sale, so we are going to talk about terms of the sale.  I am pretty excited because this will be the biggest deal that I have been involved in so far, it will be a learning experience.  I am also excited because the owners are members of the Mexican National Soccer team, so they are somewhat celebrities down here.  We shall see what comes of this.

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