When do you pick a fight?

Due to some gas infrastructure need, the local gas utility has been working very hard to replace the pipes from the main line all the way to the meters. In our case, that means to our meter, inside our house, in the basement. I've mentioned before that I have a very solid old house - masonry with plaster for exterior walls. Wires and pipes that were not put in place when the house was built, well, they don't get added in later without some creativity.

This was NOT a creative solution.

 

The photo is a crappy photo from my crappy phone, but it tells the tale well and imbues this with a sense of the crappiness. They drilled through the exterior wall and then spiraled around in the corner before dropping to the meter below.

I could live with the new steam-punk gas lines on the front of the house. Those are almost cute, in a pipe-fitters fantasy sort of way.

But this is just obnoxious. This is in my dining room, in the corner where we used to have my great-grand-father's grandfather clock. For a sense of size:

That's the drink I'm having before I ponder if I need to pick a fight about this. Resale value and all that. We've worked hard to put this place together, been creative with our upgrades, found ingenious ways to install A/C, learned new skills to keep our original windows. On the other hand, this is a "free" improvement, given to me by my benevolent utility provider, likely underwritten by gov't support. "Free" perhaps, but half-assed and done for reasons still unclear to me.

So, what would you do? The gas workers are likely still on the block tomorrow... I still think they could have run this through existing holes for the radiator and water supply, but they obviously decided to route that f'er right into my dining room. If you were looking a this house to buy (not that I am selling, but it's a good rubric) would this skeeze you out? What on earth are my options?!

Comments

[Angela Lauria]

Oh my god! That's OFFENSIVE! You have to pursue this. That is not right! Get a supervisor's contact info and just be a pain in the neck until they come back and fix it at their cost. Good luck. Be vigilant!

[Susan Messina]

Yeah, I would pursue. If that truly is the only recourse, well, then, build a cabinet around it. But I'd want to know for sure that this was necessary.

[ush]

I just love that they gave you (free of charge) something new potentially hazardous for the girls to trip and fall over. awesome...not in a good way.