When a company signs a lease to use a building for their business, they expect it to be ready when they move in.
What would you do if you were sent to set up some things in the new building and found that nothing was working, not even the AC, water, or fire suppression systems?
That is what happened to the IT guy in this story, so he helped get the city involved and ended up getting the building condemned.
To start: This is about the company I work for and a trip I took because I had to wire a building for a computer network because the building owner wouldn’t.
Backstory:
Our company was moving a remote site to a new building.
As the IT guy for the company, I was asked to look at the new building and get network ports marked out.
The landlord refused to put in any low voltage lines, and we got quotes, but they were thousands of dollars.
Running cables can be a lot of work.
Enter me, my car, and 4 boxes of cat 6 plenum.
It’s about an 8 hour drive, and I was doing about 30 drops.
Not a ton, but still, a few days work in someplace that’s already built up and its drop ceiling with insulation on top.
Messy, itchy work.
Story:
Day 1. We get there Monday morning at the start of the month.
It’s actually a cool summer morning, and we’re from further south, so no one notices the AC not working for about an hour.
Slowly, the building begins heating up.
It gets to 80 by noon, 85 at 3 PM.
The rooms with floor to ceiling windows are greenhouses.
It’s absolutely miserable.
We’ve been told by the workers still on site that the leasing company was told there was no AC in our building 3 weeks ago.
The other thing is there are STILL WORKERS ON SITE.
The building isn’t completed.
So much for being ready for a handover day 1.
It would be miserable to work in those conditions.
Day 2. We’re getting agitated.
Its 80 degrees in the AM when we first walk in.
Its sweltering.
The other guy that came up with me is the facilities manager.
He’s screaming at people over the phone to fix the AC.
We’re all exhausted from the heat by 3 PM.
I found a 4 foot hole in the ducting when I opened the ceiling tile.
The AC was blowing, but there was no cold air.
We are told the compressor is broken.
Day 3. More of the same.
Miserable in the morning, I’m finally getting the last lines punched in on the patch panel.
The AC guys arrive about 10 AM.
They finally fix the unit at 2 PM.
We ask them what they did.
They said “A lot of things” We again said “what did you do” the reply was “we can’t tell the tenants”.
RED FLAG ALERT!
We contacted our realtor, she said she would look into what was done.
She sends an email later that night that says “they changed the refrigerant from r22 to r410a.”
I tell the facilities guy “No way dude. Thats like putting gas in a diesel motor, they’d have to change out the entire system. They didn’t do that in 4 hours.”
They basically duct taped and wd-40’d that thing back together and it will run poorly for a month or so, then give out, and we’d be stuck with a replacement.
How did the building owner think they were ready for occupancy?
Day 4. Still no running water to some areas, still workers on site, the AC can’t keep up with the noonday sun, and it still hits around 80 by the end of the day.
AC runs continuously.
We’re packing up all the stuff we moved in and moving out.
I notice all the fire sprinklers look like they have moved, and the metal protection around the drop tile has fallen to the floor.
The sprinklers are no longer protruding from the tiles in places, in others, they are quite a bit lower than they were.
Yep, the AC fools STOOD ON THE FIRE SPRINKLERS to fix their lousy duct work.
We are looking for a friendly way out.
We contact the landlord and say “You haven’t delivered a finished building, we’re moving out, the lease is broken.”
Landlord has a 36 page lease.
Landlord won’t let us out of the lease, its 5 years.
This is NOT starting off well.
We get in contact with the corporate lawyer and the realtor, they both agree we’re out of luck.
We are desperate for any way out.
I start looking at the fire system (I used to run all kinds of low voltage lines, fire, security, etc).
There is no fire panel in our portion of the building.
No smoke detectors are hooked up to anything.
More red flags.
One of our employees that was moving the heavy gear says “Oh yeah, I meant to mention, I never saw any building permits anywhere”
DING DING DING.
They did this buildout, including demolition, running new plumbing and power lines, and destroying the fire system— WITHOUT A CITY PERMIT.
Cue the call to city inspectors office.
Day 5. I wasn’t here for this part, but the facilities manager told me this: “The city inspector pulled the permits for the building. There weren’t any. He finds multiple violations of city code. Red tagged our area, removed the certificate of occupancy. When I told him to check the fire system like you said, he just goes ‘Oh no, no, no, I have to make a call’. He calls the fire marshal.”
When the fire marshals get involved, it is serious.
Day 8. Fire marshals arrive on scene.
Find no active alarm system in our portion of the building.
Red tag.
Find the sprinker riser for the ENTIRE building in our area.
No water pressure.
Condemned the entire building.
Basically, they wouldn’t let us out of the building because we signed a lease, even though they never delivered a building in any semblance of working order.
Wow, the building owner is really out of luck here.
Called the building inspector, got them smoked, who then called the fire marshal, who condemned the entire building.
They are still trying to fight us over it, but we’re pushing for them not only refunding our deposit and the rent, which they have already done, but for all the time spent moving gear in and out, and all the wiring.
Our lawyer says they don’t have a leg to stand on, and he’s happy for them to pay his fees as well.
What kind of commercial real estate company was this? Did they really think they would get away with it?
Let’s look at the comments to see what other people have to say.
I’m sure this guy has seen a lot of things like this.
Some people just don’t know when to give up.
Fire Marshalls can shut things down fast.
Yup, the owner was definitely shady.
Those work conditions do seem horrible.
What was this building owner thinking?
