IncredibleIgloo posted:

Part of the absurdity of the castle place is that just across the street is a junky muffler shop. There is a subway right nearby as well.


https://www.google.com/maps/@42.913...l=en&authuser=0

IncredibleIgloo posted:

Part of the absurdity of the castle place is that just across the street is a junky muffler shop. There is a subway right nearby as well.


https://www.google.com/maps/@42.913...l=en&authuser=0

IncredibleIgloo posted:

Part of the absurdity of the castle place is that just across the street is a junky muffler shop. There is a subway right nearby as well.


https://www.google.com/maps/@42.913...l=en&authuser=0

Sirotan posted:

holy poo poo

It has its own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Castle

quote:

The site was originally developed by La Grande LLC as the LaGrande Mobile Home Park in 1957, which was one of the oldest mobile home developments in the area. LaGrande Mobile Home Park closed in 2005 to be marketed for redevelopment for highest and best use. Grand Castle LLC acquired the 23.6-acre site from La Grande LLC in May 2016 [6] and planned for a Mixed Use Planned Unit Development (MPUD) of the Grand Castle.[7]

Sirotan posted:

That is an EtherKiller™️

Zil posted:

Why would an ISP tech even that outlet plug on their truck?

Dunno-Lars posted:

Maybe they can't replace a router without proving that it is dead, and that is the easiest way?
I would give the tech a 10/10 if they fried a router at my place so they can replace it. Then run for the fire extinguisher.

quote:

Customer falls on stairs I installed, am I liable? (self.legaladvice)

Hello,

I installed a stone staircase for a customer on a hill in their backyard. If they fall or trip on the stairs, am I liable for that? I installed a handrail, and the customer was satisfied with the installation at the time of actual completion. She has contacted my company stating that if she or someone else falls/trips on the stairs I could face legal issues, because she wants different spacing on some of the stairs. Please advise if I am liable for any injury that takes place on my installation. Thank you!

Photo of stairs: https://imgur.com/a/ROtBEqm

Zil posted:

Why would an ISP tech even that outlet plug on their truck?

Platystemon posted:

Platystemon posted:

Customer falls on stairs I installed, am I liable? (self.legaladvice)

I installed a stone staircase for a customer on a hill in their backyard. If they fall or trip on the stairs, am I liable for that?

Photo of stairs: https://imgur.com/a/ROtBEqm

Pollyanna posted:

Random-rear end question. Found these while homebrowsing. Are these stairs considered crappy? If not, why? They seem like they don’t have a lot of support, but I haven’t done static analysis in over a decade so I have no idea if it’s truly sound.

StormDrain posted:

Looks like a very normal set of stairs to me. Could they be stronger? Yes. My dad broke a set like that presumably from the 70s taking a safe down them.

H110Hawk posted:

I mean he got the safe down what more did he want?

Uncle Enzo posted:

Reminds me of that guy that thought a quote for 50k for stairs at public park was ridiculous so he put in his own. They were such a deathtrap they had to be torn out immediately.

Cyrano4747 posted:

The process of getting it in was, ironically, not very safe.

koshmar posted:

https://www.reddit.com/r/grandrapids/comments/t00bzs/review_after_three_years_at_the_grand_castle/

quote:

Posted by
u/Megano0regano
3 months ago
Helpful2Press FWholesome2Silver2FacepalmTake My Energy
Review after three years at the grand castle

I originally wrote all of this to post as a google review but wrote wayyy over the character limit and I’ll have to condense it, but I did want to share my full review somewhere so I figured here might be good lol

I lived at the grand castle for three years between 2019-2022. When we first moved in it was very nice, especially since all the units were not full yet but it went significantly downhill over time. The main problems were:

1)Dog poop everywhere. Literally. It was in all the grass areas, the parking lot, parking garage, stairways, hallways and elevators. The castle makes you pay to submit your dogs dna to a company that will test any dog poop that doesn’t get picked up and see who it belongs to. I don’t think they have ever used it because dog poop will stay for months or until it just eventually decays.

2)Crime is a rampant problem at the castle. Vehicles, especially parked outside of the garage (where everyone with unassigned parking has to park), get broken into regularly. Someone stole the wheels off a truck and just left it laying on the ground. The castle won’t put any cameras up outside but does have them in the halls (though it’s questionable if they even work). Parked cars being involved in hit and runs is also common.

3)The building is built VERY poorly, I would not be surprised if it randomly collapses on itself soon. If you walk through the halls (and apartment units too) you can see large cracks forming in the walls. We had one above our bed that we watched slowly stretch across the ceiling for 2 years. Eventually, when these cracks connect (which they will) the building will just collapse. These are not just a few cracks here and there but hidden everywhere on the property.

4)The fire alarm will go off at least twice a month. The way they have it set up is the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors always have their alarms go off if there is any smoke detected and whatever floor triggered the smoke (there are 13 floors) will have its alarm go off, as well as the floor above and below it. So, if floor 8 triggers the smoke alarm floors 7, 9, 1, 2 and 3 will have their alarms go off too. These alarms would go off usually between midnight and 4am.

5)Though the cleaning staff works very hard (for less than $10 an hour I heard, shame on you Grand Castle) they can not get to every part of the castle because there are only 3-4 of them and 512 apartment units, making cleaning the place a massive overhaul. So, when someone bleeds, vomits or urinates on something outside of the building it just gets left there until it eventually becomes part of the grounds. There was blood near an entrance that stayed until it eventually got washed away by people walking over it.

6)As I mentioned before, there are 512 units in the building, with people constantly coming and going, so it’s impossible to tell who is supposed to be there and who isn’t. This was definitely shown when a man was running an illegal car repair shop out of one of the parking stalls (located right next to a main entrance). The man running the shop would sit in the stall all day (he moved some furniture in too), smoke weed and scream at his gf/wife. The worst thing about this is he did not live at the castle and was at this for months before he eventually left.

7)The featured dog park is poorly maintained and just a gated off plot of mud at this point. It’s fine to use when it’s dry out, but Michigan is a wet state so most of the time it is unusable without your dog getting covered in mud.

8)Each floor only has one trash chute located at the end of floor. The chute works so that if it is left open on one floor, none of the other floors can open their’s. For larger trash and cardboard you have to go to the back parking garage and dump in an industrial dumpster. The property is huge, so throwing out just 1 trash bag and 1 box can take more than 15 minutes. Because of this, people leave their trash everywhere (hallways, next to the trash chute, in the parking garage). Some people are nice and will take other’s trash or go to each of the 13 floors until they find which chute was left open, but it’s a major problem.

9)There is no reliable way to receive mail if it comes from anyone except USPS. That means Amazon packages will say delivered but be missing for days, weeks and, in my case, even 3 months. I’m not sure why this happens but it was a problem the entire time we lived there. I felt bad seeing new residents wonder why the mail carrier said their package was missing (but marked as delivered), not knowing it would be a mystery amount of time until it showed up. Every time I went into the package room I would see at least one roting food subscription box (hello fresh, blue apron, etc) because A) it didn’t get delivered on time or B) the box was just left in the room and the person waiting for it was never notified it arrived.

10)The building is concrete which is good for keeping neighbors noise out but bad for A) hanging anything up that’s heavier than a command strip can hold and B) insulation. Not being able to hang stuff up without a drill and concrete bit was pretty frustrating but not the end of the world. The heating/insulation on the other hand was really bad. Many apartments, especially the ones in the “tower” (the taller back part of the building), are left freezing in the winter and cannot keep in any warmth. People would blast the heater, not be able to get their apartment above 61° and then have a $400+ electricity bill at the end of the month (the heat is electric, not gas).

11)Drug paraphernalia can be found just laying around. That’s really all I have to say about this one.

12)A community garden was started, which was nice, but they used a pile of dirt from the parking lot for soil. Our bed’s soil had large glass shards in it so we didn’t participate.

13)The front doors of each apartment are extremely thin so even though you can’t hear your neighbors while inside your apartment, in the hallway everything can be heard with alarming detail. If someone is taking at a normal volume in their apartment, it can be heard word for word in the hallway. So anyone participating in “adult activities” is very easily heard, especially if they are loud.

14)This last one just felt like adding insult to injury. One day we came home and saw many more cars than usual parked outside. Apparently a “charity fashion show” was going to be held in the courtyard. Residents could watch from their windows (if their windows could see the courtyard) otherwise it was $100 a ticket. There was no prior notice to the residents that this would be happening. I came home to an elevator full of rich WASP’s asking me to show them to the bathroom, with no idea of who they were or why there were there. Someone mentioned this event in a google review and the castles reply basically was, “We just wanted to throw a cool event for the residents, sorry you didn’t like it,” but the thing is, it WASN'T for the residents. The tickets were $100 each and no one was told about the event until it was happening. It really just came across as, “Me and my rich friends are having a party, but you can have our scraps if you want!”

The apartments are the largest, cheapest, and newest in the area but it would not be worth it to live there unless you have no other option, in my opinion. Everyone who works there is nice, though a little impersonal (with one exception). Even though I lived there for three years, I doubt most of them would recognize me if they saw me around town. The castle’s ONLY saving grace is Paul. When we first moved in Paul was part of the maintenance staff but was recently promoted to being one of the property managers. Paul would carry dog treats in his pockets to give to residents dogs when he would see them and even remembered my dogs names. When he was working in maintenance he always went above and beyond to fix any issues. Since Paul became a property manager I think there have been improvements to the castle, so hopefully he can lead them in a better direction. tldr The Grand Castle apartments are sketchy and I would not recommend living there

value-brand cereal posted:

For those on mobile.

I must once more reiterate that this garbage building replaced a mobile home yard, the construction, maintenance and comfort of which was probably far better than this poo poo hole of a building.

canyoneer posted:

on the other hand they were never besieged by Huns in the whole three years he lived there

Pollyanna posted:

So is it not weird that there’s no like, beams or poles or other support extending downwards from the bottom of the stairboards? I’d be nervous about somehow punching through the stairs with my big fat rear end, as happened above. Do stairs not need bottom support?

Pollyanna posted:

So is it not weird that there’s no like, beams or poles or other support extending downwards from the bottom of the stairboards? I’d be nervous about somehow punching through the stairs with my big fat rear end, as happened above. Do stairs not need bottom support?

Pollyanna posted:

Random-rear end question. Found these while homebrowsing. Are these stairs considered crappy? If not, why? They seem like they don’t have a lot of support, but I haven’t done static analysis in over a decade so I have no idea if it’s truly sound.

Bad Munki posted:

quote:

Kealii Cabrera, a construction supervisor who bought his new $390,000 Kanehili home in 2020, said his problems started almost immediately. A week after moving in, he said, sewage started backing up through a downstairs shower drain, flooding part of the first floor. Cabrera said he had to relocate his family to a hotel for a month while repairs were made to the flooring and walls.

quote:

Timothy McBrayer and Iwalani Laybon-McBrayer learned that firsthand.

For more than a decade, the couple has unsuccessfully sought DHHL’s help to resolve alleged construction defects that they say have been present almost from the time they moved into their new home in 2007. Shioi Construction, which built the home, disputed their claims and noted that the city and a DHHL special inspector had checked the dwelling.

quote:

Even though the court in 2009 found that the state breached its trust obligation and was liable for damages, the litigation has dragged on for years, and more than one-third of the original plaintiffs, many of them elderly, died without seeing a resolution. Lawmakers on Tuesday approved a separate $328 million appropriation to settle the case.

quote:

A department official said the agency was grateful for the one-time infusion but noted it would need up to $6 billion to clear the entire waitlist.

Bad Munki posted: