Murky waters at Jõe 5/7

Estonians are a strange lot. They seem to be quite friendly and pleasant towards others, though not that often not towards one another. You can never tell what an Estonian is up to, they often say one thing but have something completely different in mind...

Estonians are a strange lot. They seem to be quite friendly and pleasant towards others, though not that often not towards one another. You can never tell what an Estonian is up to, they often say one thing but have something completely different in mind...

Six years ago, i bought a couple of properties with the address  Jõe 5/7 in Tallinn. The street name ‘Jõe’ means river in Estonian, since a river once flowed in the vicinity. The building has been converted from industrial to residential by a fly by night builder, who quickly liquidated his business soon after the building was completed. Needless to say, this building has it’s share of problems, the least and most of them water related.

Now if these problems were only due to flooding from a river that once flowed through there, i could understand it, but it’s become apparent that the building itself seems leaky by design. In the past 6 years my properties have suffered flooding from leaky pipes at least half a dozen times.

The former building management refused to deal with the first incidents, where my bicycle, some furniture and much of my sporting goods suffered damage from rusty water and subsequent mold. For two years i fought tooth and nail to get the problem rectified and damage compensated to no avail. I eventually refused to pay management fees until the damage was repaired, then reached an agreement with building manager Aleksandr that they would quickly repair the situation and i would pay as soon as the repairs are done. Fair enough, or so i thought...

Except they didn’t do the repairs, nor did they make any effort to find the source of the problem. I instead got a threat and legal action taken against me. Being overseas at the time, i was ill-prepared to defend myself, though i did eventually argue my case with the judge. They won on technicality, i had to pay them and start a new legal case to recover my losses.

But now the building management team had changed, and more reasonable people seemed to be in control, so i decided not to pursuit legal action. At a property owners meeting, they listed all the sins of the previous management, including pilfering of funds. The new management gave their commitment to get the house back in order. I believed them, or at least i wasn’t as skeptical as before...

(being edited)