Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Jack
Jack, the old man next door, is a real character. He swears up and down that SBC is out to get him. SBC is his phone company and he says they are charging him over $100 a month for his phone service.
I went over this morning and looked at his bills. The only SBC bill he had was from August, for $70. I called SBC and they said that was the last payment they had received, he owed for Sept and Oct. And that he should get a bill next week.
I told him to let me know when that bill comes and we would look at it.
Later that day he calls me again and says that he has heard lots of people are taking SBC to court for overcharging. That they are a bunch of crooks. Then he says he don't know why he lets his bills slip.
I went down in his basement and found he had cut one of his water lines and had stopped it up with something because the pipe was leaking. Then I looked at his water heater and he said he had just put in a new one. Instead of doing the job right, soddering with copper pipe he had used a rubber hose with clamps.
He asked me why his shower didn't work in his master bath. I told him to call a plumber and get the pipes fixed and then I would help him put new fixtures in his bathroom because he had taken them all out!
When I told him it may cost $200 to fix the pipes he couldn't understand why it would be so high.
His central air and heat are out from him trying to fix it. He has heavy electrical wires running through his frontroom to his fireplace where they are hooked up to heating elements and that heats his house. He dosent want to spend 4000 to get new heat and air. He has said he has enough money but doesn't want to spend it.
He has no children and from what I can gather he doesn't talk to many people.
I don't know why but I try to avoid him but once he gets my attention I want to help him.
Sometimes I think he has dementia, but when I told him on Sunday that I would help him on Tuesday he remembered and called me Tuesday morning at 9am.
# posted by Grumpa @ 3:44 PM 1 comments
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