three maintenance workers have been by none of them know the cause of the leak in my kitchen. I am tempted to hire a plumber and charge it back to the landlord.

Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the
Plumber to come and fix it.

Joe drives to Obama’s house, which is located in a very nice
neighborhood and where it’s clear that all the residents make more than $250,000 (I think its down to $100,000 now) per year.

Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room
that contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem and tells Obama, who is standing near the door, that it’s an easy repair that will take less than 10 minutes.

Obama asks Joe how much it will cost.

Joe immediately says, “$9,500.”

“$9,500?” Obama asks, stunned. “But you said it’s an easy repair!”

“Yes, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more
than $250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less than that for free,” explains Joe. “It’s always been my philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied government to pass this philosophy as law, and it did pass earlier this year, so now all plumbers have to do business this way. It’s known as ‘Joe’s Fair Plumbing Act of 2008.’ Surprised you haven’t heard of it, senator.”

In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there’s no way he’s paying that much
for a small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves.

Obama spends the next hour flipping through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he finds that all other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of business. Not wanting to pay Joe’s price, Obama does nothing.

The leak under Obama’s sink goes unrepaired for the next several days.

A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and there’s a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls Joe and pleads with him to return.

Joe goes back to Obama’s house, looks at the leaky pipe, and says “Let’s see – this will cost you about $21,000.”

“A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!” Obama quickly fires back.

Joe explains the reason for the dramatic increase. “Well, because of the ‘Joe’s Fair Plumbing Act,’ a lot of rich people are learning how to fix
their own plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free
plumbing I’m doing for the people who make less than $250,000. As a
result, the rate I have to charge my wealthy paying customers rises
every day.

“Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work from the group of people who get it for free has skyrocketed, and there’s a long waiting list of those who need repairs. This has put a lot of my fellow plumbers out of business, and they’re not being replaced – nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they won’t make any money. I’m hurting now too – all thanks to greedy rich people like you who won’t pay their fair share.”

Obama tries to straighten out the plumber: “Of course you’re hurting,
Joe! Don’t you get it? If all the rich people learn how to fix their own
plumbing and you refuse to charge the poorer people for your services,
you’ll be broke, and then what will you do?”

Joe immediately replies, “Run for president, apparently.”

Earlier I asked the Real Estate community if they felt it necessary for me when selling, to disclose the fact that I had plumbing problems in my condo since it was built (2003) even though the builder had repaired them last July (2006) and I have not had a problem since. I was overwhelmingly encouraged to disclose with information regarding the corrections. I agree after reading the responses that I should disclose. However, the builder contracted the repairs at their expense as it was considered a warranty and they never gave me any paperwork detailing the nature of the repairs. Is there a law that says they must provide this info or some way that I can insist on getting documented evidence of the repairs? I want to have something in writing that outlines the corrections to present to a potential buyer otherwise I fear I will never be able to sell. If anyone has any suggestions for how I might go about getting such info from the builder without hassle, please advise. Thanks!

I just want to know if I have a case and if it is too late to file. Here is a basic overveiw of the situation. In Febuary of 2006 my husband and I began looking into purchasing a house, we had never bought a house before, so we contacted a real estate agency in our area who showed us a few properties that did not suit our needs, he then directed our attention at this location. After we had done our first walk through he put us in contact with someone he believed could help us get financing, then we were asked to come in and sign some papers, one of those was a dual agency disclosure, he told us it was no big deal, his company did this all the time and he would still be representing us whole heartedly, but that it just meant that his company happend to be listing the house for the sellers. He told us all in all the house was in pretty good shape, and that it was a great price. We never thought
there was any reason to question much as it seemed he had it all taken care of and we were getting a great peice of property at a bargain price. It was only after we purchased it in April of 2006 that we realized the faulty well pump switch, the leaky heating fuel tank, the shorted outlets and light fixtures, bad wiring, leaky plumbing, mold in the floors, as well as in the walls and other areas, the house has a major problem with mice and other small rodents, and the downstairs ceiling is literally stained with the urine and defication of the mice that live between the ceiling of the main floor and the floor of the level above, the floors are rotting and unlevel and worst of all the foundation and support beams are caving, cracking, and crunmbling. Hydrolic tractor fluid and other wastes left in an old shed from the previouse owners logging business have stained some of the soil and nothing grows in those areas. We began cleaning up the property and working on the house as soon as we got in, but it is just more than we can manage, we are an extremly low income family, with 4 children at home, 3 of them being special needs. I did contact the realtors office the year after we bought the house and was told that the real estate agent who handled our case no longer works there but that they were sure I had been told everything that they had a legal obligation to disclose and that there was no proof the agency or the seller had had any prior knowledge of the problems with the house. I have confermation that they did, the posts that we thought were mere support posts are actually jacks used to lift and straighten the cross beams and supports of a house. (they are failing) So after realizing this I began looking closer over our documents from the purchase of the house, I came across the appraisal notices and several questionable entries including..1)the area asking if there are any adverse site conditions or external factors such as easments, environmental conditions or land uses is marked NO, but we do not have our own drive way, we have an easment to the highway, and we were not told about the logging business run here or the heavy equipment that had been stored here or chemicals used here untill after the purchase. 2)in the area that states describe the condition of the property (including repairs, deterioration, renovations, remodeling, ect.) it is marked SUBJECT IS IN AVERAGE CONDITION FOR AGE OF HOME, QUALITY OF CONSTRUCTION IS AVERAGE, NO NEEDED REPAIRS OR REMODELING NESSASSRY. 3) in the area that asks are there any physical deficiencies or adverse conditions that affect the livability, soundness, or structural integrity of the of the property it is marked NO. We can barley afford the payments for the seller carry back and the mortgage, let alone the nessesary repairs to keep the home livable, one of a few things is going to happen if we can’t find any course of action, either the floor is going to cave in under our feet, we are all going to get sick due to mold, rodent waste, lead paint ect…or we are going to end up in foreclosure with no where to go. There must be something we can do. Please contact me and let me know what you think. Oh I almost forgot to mention, we are
located in a rural town in Minnesota. Please do not be judgmental, or rude, I realize that I should have done my homework back then, I wish I had been more knowledgable and less immature and blind, but I wasn’t, so please look at the situation for what it is now and give me any ideas on what I can do, now that I am looking more into all of this stuff I am surprised we were ever given a loan for the amount that we were, it wasn’t realy ever in our price range. I was even looking into selling to one of those WE BUY OLD HOUSES things just to get out from under it, even considered letting someone take over payments straight up, but then found out that the mortgage would still be under our names so we wouldn’t be able to get a loan to get us into anything else, and if we sold it to them for cash since we have no equidy we would still owe the mortgage

I intended to fit a thermostatic mixer shower with my new combi boiler heating system. However, the plumber has advised me that the water pressure I have is so low that the water flow would be poor and that for a more enjoyable shower an electric shower would be better. Is this correct? I have sought advice from various plumbers who all give different advice. Please help.