who all has old buildings?

[amanda]

just wondering how many posters out there have old scary buildings, and if they have any pictures out there. Sounds like everyone does have scary ones, ours is leaking right now! O YA!

[Victor Franqui]

Hi Amanda, just wondering has this forum helped you in any way??

Vic

 :?:

[amanda]

yup yup

new ideas especially

its nice to be able to compare what you and your store are doing, and get advice if you need it

[yburan]

Who is the beautiful model infront of the building?

[amanda]

i hired her to stand in the photo to make it more appealing for u guys

lol!

[Austin]

Yeah, that building about looks like ours. But hey, it was cheap!

[Victor Franqui]

Amanda is this a lease or your own property?

[amanda]

we lease that piece of crap  :up:

[Victor Franqui]

:hiding:

[Hardcopy]

Actually my building looks fine from the outside. The city forces that.

They even got a grant recently to remodel the entire upstairs apartments. They tore the roof off in the begining of December and everything.

Yup, that is right, they tore the roof off in December. Guess what happened to ALL 3 apartments right above us. The pipes burst. Big surprise right? We were flooded, not once, not twice but 5 times total.  

We managed to keep this from affecting our customers.

Then when we first moved in the building inspector forced us to put in a drop ceiling (we had a turn of the century tin molded archway type ceiling in) because he said that a metal ceiling was a fire hazard.() This had the effect or covering all the heat ducts. So for all intents and purposes we have little heat in there.

Beat that.

Rich.

(BTW the part of the store we use we have been able to keep warm enough and dry through all this. We use only about 900 sq feet of the 2500 or so we lease.  The nearest store front we can move to and is in decent shape is 3 times the cost though)

[yburan]

Presuming that this building looks just like others along the street, it is not a "piece of crap". I think it is nice and bright. Have you given a thought to a bigger sign?

[amanda]

Beat that.

Rich.

well.... ahem

when we first got into our building. it was a mess. It hadn't been used in years. We got the water and power hooked up. Thats where it all started going wrong. Water turned on, there was water EVERYWHERE all the lines were busted. Got those fixed, one of our bathrooms still doesnt work. Tried it out, hmmm... no hot water. Hot water tank needed to be replaced. Ok.. working out the kinks in the old store. Power.. wiring was everywhere, hooked up in some places, others not. Had to rewire the store to make it legal. Months later.. something smells... like burning. Wiring starting on fire.. interesting. Once that smell was gone, we smelt something else, a rotten smell.. hmm.. the drains arent hooked up right, its draining underneath the floor! Our waterlines are underneath the building and are not insulated, so we have holes in the floor where a fan is constantly blowing warm air in.
 
We literally had to patch up holes in the walls, where the daylight was coming in. (like 1 ft by 1 ft holes)

When it rains, our entire front wall is leaking in water because it rolls in underneath the siding in the front into our store. That wall is pulling away from the floorboards, and has pulled away an extra inch since 2003. Our VHS room is now leaking, because they put a tin roof over the existing, and didnt seal up the screw holes, so it is leaking onto the existing roof, thru the insulation and all over our disney movies. Just this last week, or bathroom light started flickering and it seems the roof leak has extended down more of the roof into the ceiling.

ill get back to when more stuff happens... lol  

[amanda]

Presuming that this building looks just like others along the street, it is not a "piece of crap". I think it is nice and bright. Have you given a thought to a bigger sign?

the more money i make, the bigger the sign will get. Ill show u a pic if i ever get a new one  :wink:

[BeckyJo]

The building we are in is old also.  It is three stories tall and the upper floors are all empty.  The roof doesn't leak but the drains from the roof do leak so someone has to check them all the time.  The basement extends out from the building under the street.  This means that the space under the sidewalk is hollow.  The business right next door to us gets deliveries all the time and instructs the driver to just pull up over the sidewalk to make them.  We have warned them but the delivery guys just don't listen.  The city was removing snow one year and their equipment actually fell through the sidewalk.  That repair didn't cost us a thing but when the trash truck went through, we ended up doing the repairs ourselves.   One of these days we will have to do it right and spend many thousands to fix it to code.  We are hoping that day is far into the future!  

Our sign is huge but needs to be replaced.  There is a business in our town who will do a vinyl sign for us that is the same size as our existing one  and will cost only a $250 to $300.  That is a lot cheaper than the original wooden sign cost so we'll probably go for it.  A big, huge lighted sign would be nice (if we could afford it) but there is no place to mount one on this old building.

[Hardcopy]

We got to the store one day and found the back door kicked in and an extension cord run down from the apartments upstairs so that squatters could have electricity.