Nightcrawler: "I live in a 32 family building. The LL has no keys. He has everyones phone numbers and can get in touch with them if need be." "I live in a mega apt neighborhood, huge tenements, most LL do not take keys." If that is true, then the property owners in question are idiots. Nightcrawler's solution if there is a problem is for the property owner to go up the fire escape, smash the window, and get in like that, or just wait until the tenants show up (if ever). Last week we had a complaint of considerable water coming in through the ceiling of a bathroom in a multi-unit (55)apartment building. There are four bathrooms on four floors immediately above the one with the leaky ceiling. We had to go into each unit to find the problem, which was the goofball tenant on the top floor was washing clothes in the tub, left the water running, and then went to work. If I followed Nightcrawler's technique, I would have had two choices: 1) track down four different tenants, and wait until they showed up (some might be out of town), with potentially thousands of dollars of water damage occurring in the interim; or 2) climb up an ice encrusted fire escape, smash four windows ($100+ each), climb over broken jagged glass without slicing myself open, and then have the tenants complain that there is broken glass & a broken window in sub-zero temperatures. Of course it would then take days to get those windows fixed (for example, try to get a window fixed over a holiday weekend). Let's look at some other reasons why it is a good idea for the property owner to have keys, instead of doing hundreds of dollars of damage by smashing a window or door to get in, or paying a locksmith $100 or more to come and change the lock: 1) Tenants losing keys; 2) Tenants leaving for the christmas holidays to some other country, leaving a window open that cannot be reached from the outside (potentially causing pipes to freeze & thousands of dollars of damages); 3) Surprise fire inspection from the city (resulting in a fine if the inspection cannot be completed at that time); 4) Surprise housing code inspection from the city (also resulting in a fine if the inspection cannot be completed at that time); 5) Tenants asking for a specific repair to be completed, we arrange for a plumber / electrician to come, tenants are not there at the appointed time, cannot be reached by phone, and the plumber / electrician charges us $150 just to show up and do nothing; 6) Tenants ask for a new appliance, we agree, arrange for a specific delivery time, tenant is not there, so we have to pay a delivery charge for nothing. We make sure we have keys, but each of these examples actually happened with tenants who thought it was a good idea to change the locks on their own without giving us a copy. In each case they were either charged the full cost of their action plus double penalty, or were evicted. We change the deadbolt locks for each new tenant. Your property owner is exposing himself to significant potential liability if he did not change your deadbolt locks, and you should insist on them being changed. But if you change them yourself without giving him a copy, you are exposing yourself to significant potential liability if a problem arises and it is difficult to get in, and damage to the building (or to persons) occurs as a result. We also do a full criminal / credit / background check on maintenance personnel. If they would steal from the tenants, they'd steal from the owner, so it is in our interest to make sure they are 100% ok. Dreamgarden: The property owner does not want to take your crappy stuff (kitchenware? old CDs? I don't think so). You are much more likely to get robbed by someone you know. If you don't like property owners who are proactive and try to maintain things to a high standard (ie fix stuff before it becomes an emergency, or install brand new windows in your case), then there are many buildings where you can move to where the owners never fix anything, and could not care less if you had a leaky faucet or drafty windows. Nightcrawler "If you lived in a house would you let a real estate agent bring prospective buyers a tour through your house while you were at work?": Of course, that is standard practice.

Thank you all! You are making me so happy. :) I am not really a cook and have to say that the new space is inspiring me. I love being in the kitchen. Roserx - the faucet is Grohe's Bridgeford. It is awesome. Megaul - the window is an Andersen 400 series. The sides are casements and the center is a fixed picture. The dimensions are 6 feet wide by 3 feet tall. We originally discussed a taller window but it didn't work out and now I am so glad - with the taller backsplash behind the sink we get to see more granite and we don't have all the water splash on the window! :) I love my new window! :)

We've lived 13 years on our house and only did a few projects (play ground for kids, deck & shed, finish 1/3 of basement). But, now that I'm almost done with my kitchen, I find myself looking at the rest of the house and thinking what I want to do in each room....and I want to do it NOW! Of course, then my DH reminds me we have no remodel $$ left...that we need to *gasp* save before we can tackle anything else! (No loans for remodeling!) But I so know how you feel (when I'm in our MBA I find myself looking askance at the vanity, faucets, lights, floor, ...). I think it's all your fault TKOers! You turned me first into a TKOer when all I originally planned to do was tell my KD...do whatever! You showed me the error of my ways and, of course, it doesn't stop w/the kitchen! So....are we really THOers or TROers (Totally House Obsessed, Totally Remodel Obsessed)?

I find it despicable that some employees have no rights concerning sick days It's not that employees don't have rights concerning sick days. It's that there are not separate and additional days given for sick time. No one says you can't get sick or that you can't have time off if you are. They are saying that if you ARE sick, you can easily prove it with a doctor's note. If you need time off you can use vacation time or take the time without pay. If you knew your employer was OK with 5 days a year as sick time, for example, you would use them. Maybe a few of those days you would call in sick because you really were, but some of them were used for sick children, "Mental Health" fun days, a last shopping day before the Holidays, whatever. With Paid Time Off (PTO) you get x number of days throughout the year to use as you see fit. Vacation, sick, anything. If that's all you get then you need to budget those days and keep a few for illness. I agree that 2 weeks is pretty low, but it's not unusual. Have you watched the news lately? Companies are struggling to stay open; paying employees when they aren't at work is an expensive item. In some companies close to failure, employees have chosen to give up all vacation time in order to keep their health insurance. It was one or the other. Just for the record, your decision not to sign the warning has no effect one way or the other. All they'll do is put a post-it note on the paper in your file that says "Employee refused to sign". You were out. They told you not to do it again. They don't need your signature. Your refusal just makes them think you plan to do it again and then say "But I didn't know!". I stand on my prior advice. Don't fight them, just talk to them. What are you gaining by this? If your relationship with them was good, then you are destroying it. If it was shaky, then you've confirmed for them that you are a problem. If it was bad, then you've taken them one step closer to termination. Is there part of this story you haven't shared yet? You don't have to tell us any of this but you should consider that it may have had an impact on how this was handled. Did you not call in the first day within 30 min of your start time? Did you call in every day that you were out? (Usually it's a requirement). Were you written up the prior week for something unrelated to attendance? Did you come back in on Thursday in almost perfect health so they questioned whether you really were sick those days? Are you habitually behind in your work? Do you treat your boss with disrespect or anger? Do you often talk about how great it was at the place you worked last? You said you've been there 2 years so by now you know the people and personalities you work with. I bet you can figure out exactly why this happened. I'm not saying this was your fault - your boss may be a total jerk - but in a confrontation with a supervisor, the employee almost always comes out the loser. Time spent 'managing' your manager is time well spent. Don't fight; talk.