My Roof Horror
The Story
April 3, 2023 (Monday): Roofers show up at my apartment building, with no prior warning. My girlfriend woke me up with her scream, followed immediately by all the roofing noise. Roof bits were coming through the kitchen vent, into the breakfast she was making.
I went outside. A roofer said "we are redoing your roof. Your management company should have told you. We are removing the shingles today and tomorrow (April 4). On Wednesday, April 5, an inspector will be by. On April 6 and 7 (Thursday and Friday), we will be putting in the new roof."
I asked if they could be careful around the kitchen stove vent. They actually removed the vent hardware completely. I had to tape a large piece of cardboard to protect us from further debris.
April 4 (Tuesday): At 11:13am, I left a voicemail with management, trying to find out more about the roofing, and why I was never notified.
April 6 (Thursday): No inspector had arrived on Wednesday. I planned on calling the management company in a bit to enquire, but first I wanted to get some of my home work done. I went to move some tapes of a client from my apartment to my garage. When I opened the garage, I saw roof debris all over everything in the garage. I work as an archivist. As my apartment is not large enough, I have tens of thousands of dollars worth of video equipment in my garage, so I can archive tapes of clients.
All of my collections of posters, toys, records and tapes were covered in this roof debris.
At 7:12pm, I left a voicemail with management. At 7:35pm, I left another. voicemail with management.
April 7 (Friday): I called the building management, and spent 19 minutes asking what was going to be done about the damage to the contents of my garage. I was told that all that should be in my garage is a car, and that garages are only meant to hold cars.
I spent $200, and tarped the interior of my garage the best that I could, with my disabilities.
April 11 (Tuesday): After a week of no work being done on the roof, I called the management company. After getting sent to voicemail, I left a message asking when the roof would be done, and again expressing my anger that my garage contents were damaged.
April 12 (Wednesday): Building management called quickly, and told me the name of the roofer (Superior Roof Solutions - contractor #C-39 1062840). I proceeded to do a lot of Googling. I found that the roofing company had abandoned equipment at their business location, according to the people that lease the roofing company their property. Doing a license check on their contractor number on the Department Of Consumer Affairs Contractors State License Board, I found that their had lost their license due to lack of workers comp insurance, which expired on 2/14/23.
April 13 (Thursday): At 3:54pm, I received a call from the management company. I begged them to please send people over to tarp the roof, as weather reports said it would be raining. I was told that tarping wasn't required, as it would not be raining. I kept requesting tarping, but was told I was overreacting. I was also told that since they had spent $14,000 in advance on the roofing, they refused to spend any more money, even though my garage was completely exposed to the elements.
Around 7pm, it started raining. After a few hours, while watching TV, my girlfriend and I started hearing dripping. Water was dripping from the ceiling. Watered dripped down in the bedroom onto my girlfriend's dry-clean-only clothes. I quickly ran to my computer room, and found water dripping from the ceiling, through my collectible posters, onto boxes of CDs. And that point, after screaming, I stood there trying to decide what to save. I gathered up my computer equipment and put it in my car. I then called the management company (10:11pm), and alerted them via their voicemail that it was raining inside my apartment, and that I better get a call at the beginning of business on Friday. I then spent until 2am Friday morning playing whack-a-mole, trying to put pots and cups under drips.
April 14 (Friday): I went into my garage, and found the weight of the water that came into the garage caused most of the tarping to fail.
I took a breath, and went into proactive mode. I rented a 9' van, rented a Public Storage space, bought a lot of boxes, and started moving the contents of my apartment into storage. I've had to take two days off of work to continue packing and moving. As of right now (April 17), I am only about halfway done.
At 6:48pm on Friday, the management company called, to inform me that a few men would be coming over to tarp the roof...a day too late!
April 17 (Monday): Around 10:30am, a single roofer and a young helper showed up to the apartment building in an unmarked white truck. As they didn't speak English, my girlfriend had to translate via speakerphone. The roofer said he was removing and repairing some roof beams, and that then they were going to be putting on the new shingles later in the week (when supplies would be ready).
As the roofers were going to leave without putting tarp over my garage, I had my girlfriend tell them they needed to. They applied the tarp.
April 18 (Tuesday): I returned the 9' van to Budget, and went to work. I did not see any further work done, but saw more water damage to my ceiling.
April 19th (Wednesday): It drizzled. I was not able to sleep, fearful of additional leaks.
April 20th (Thursday): I rented another van on my day off, and resumed moving my apartment and garage contents into Public Storage.
April 21st (Friday): Though the immense pain in my body, I continued moving my apartment and garage contents into Public Storage. The roofers continued their prep work.
April 22nd (Saturday): The highlight of the day, other than the pain of moving, was the roofers throwing more debris into my kitchen through the overhead stove vent. Along with the usual roof / tar bits, they added a water bottle.
April 23rd - 25th (Sunday through Tuesday): I went to work, and when I got home I continued to move things into storage, using my car.
April 25th (Wednesday): I took Nora to get a colonoscopy. I could not do any moving today.
April 26th (Thursday): I rented another 9' van, and moved most of the remaining music items into the Public Storage. I also rented my third 10x15' space! Moving continued through Friday and Saturday
April 30th (Sunday): I pulled an all-nighter, getting all the remaining CDs loaded into the van, and off to Public Storage, before returning the van, and then doing a six hour shift at work. When I got home, I tackled digging deeper into the garage. I loaded my car up with hundreds of posters.
May 1st (Monday): I woke up near 6am, and used my car to move all the posters from the night before into Public Storage. I then did a six hour shift at work.
May 4th (Thursday): It rained again, rather heavily. And again, I had no faith in the construction of the roof. While no leaks appeared, I was still on edge all night, bouncing from the apartment to the garage. I did not sleep. I did, however, discover in my mail a notice from the management company...raising my rent 10%!
May 25th (Thursday): On a rare day off, I went through more of the damage in my garage. I found a box of mint children's 78s that had been broken open from items that fell on it during the rain on April 13th. The rain water puddled into the box, rendering hundreds of dollars of collectible records into a moldy mess. Also, promotional bus benches for Depeche Mode were victims of the dirty roof water. As only five of the bench ads were ever made, that was very distressing to find. I'm almost done clearing the garage. I'm still scared to see how bad the computer equipment in the back of the garage got hit.
The Damages
For brevity, "roof debris" refers to the debris the initial roofers coated the contents of my garage with when they initially removed the shingles and other materials from the apartment building roof. This includes rocks, dust, tar, leaves, nails, gravel and wood. "Water" is contaminated water that has passed through the exposed roofing. The "water" is actually brown in color. NOTE: This list is both incomplete, and a work in progress.
| Item | Damage | Cost To Replace |
| Depeche Mode - Exciter Tour (60x40 US Leg Poster) - 5 posters | roof debris / water / mold | $500-$1,000, if you could find one. |
| Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus (60x40 Promo Poster) - 1 poster | roof debris / water / mold | $274.95 |
| Depeche Mode - Singles Box Set 1991 (US 18x24" Promo Poster) - 1 poster | roof debris / water / mold | $100 |
| Depeche Mode - Strange (24x36 US Promo Poster) - 1 poster | roof debris / water / mold | $101.00 |
| Depeche Mode - The Singles 81-85 (UK 1999 reissue vinyl) | roof debris / water / mold | $300+ |
| Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence (UK PL12 BONG 34 promo vinyl) - 2 copies | roof debris / water / mold | $65 each |
| Depeche Mode - Goodnight Lovers (German red vinyl) - 2 copies | roof debris / water / mold | $60 each |
| Martin Gore - MG (German Promo Poster) - 10 posters | roof debris / water / mold | Literally not replaceable - priceless |
| Otari CTM-10 Radio Cart Machine | roof debris / water | $400-500 to clean, or $300.00 to replace |
| Sony DSR-2000A DV/DVCAM Tape Deck - 2 tape decks | roof debris / water | $400-500 each to clean, or $14,573.00 each to replace |
| Sony BVH 2000 1" Video Tape Deck | roof debris / water | $400-500 to clean, or $7,820.00 to replace |
| Sony J30 Video Tape Deck | roof debris / water | $400-500 to clean, or $5,999.00 to replace |
| Sony SVO-9620 SVHS PAL/NTSC Tape Deck | roof debris / water | $400-500 to clean, or $1,340.00 to replace |
| Stan Kenton And His Orchestra - A Presentation Of Progressive Jazz - 78rpm set | water / mold | $32 for a mint copy |
| Woody Woodpecker And His Talent Show - 78rpm set | water / mold | $10 for a mint copy |
| Frank Sinatra - Songs By Sinatra, Volume 1 - 78rpm set | water / mold | $100, for a mint copy |
| Bugs Bunny And The Tortoise - 78rpm set | water / mold | $20, for a mint copy |
| Bugs Bunny In Warner Bros. Looney Tunes And Merry Melodies - 78rpm set (two copies) | water / mold | $15 each, for mint copies |
| Depeche Mode "Delta Machine" promo bus benches | water / mold | $500 each, but only 5 were ever made. |
The Expenses
The expenses detailed below are everything I had to purchase to deal with moving the contents of my apartment and garage into a storage facility. This includes boxes, tarps, and the rentals of both the storage lockers, and the equipment needed to move everything. NOTE: This list is both incomplete, and a work in progress, as of May 2023.
| Date | Item | Cost |
| 4/06/23 | Tarp (to cover roof contents after initial roof debris damage - Lowe's) | $198.19 |
| 4/14/23 | Weathertight Containers (Container Store) | $478.41 |
| 4/14/23 | Small Boxes (for vinyl - U-Haul) | $57.75 |
| 4/15/23 | Palettes, kneeling pad (for floor of new storage locker - Home Depot) | $137.68 |
| 4/15/23 | Storage Locker #1 (Public Storage) | $253.20 |
| 4/15/23 | 5-Tier Shelf (Lowe's) | $120.17 |
| 4/15/23 | Sharpies to mark boxes (Staples) | $13.77 |
| 4/15/23 | Small Boxes (for vinyl - U-Haul) | $64.17 |
| 4/15/23 | Gas (Arco) | $35.00 |
| 4/16/23 | Weathertight Containers (Container Store) | $599.21 |
| 4/16/23 | 5-Tier Shelf, Packing Tape (Lowe's) | $125.27 |
| 4/18/23 | (Lowe's) | $72.72 |
| 4/18/23 | Budget Truck Rental | $270.02 |
| 4/20/23 | Bubble Wrap (Staples) | $16.52 |
| 4/20/23 | Broom, 6 27-Gallon totes (Lowe's) | $81.96 |
| 4/20/23 | Gas (Arco) | $13.00 |
| 4/21/23 | Budget Truck Rental | $35.94 |
| 4/22/23 | Itoya Art ProFolios, 2 36" Kraft Tubes (Blick Art Supplies) | $82.83 |
| 4/25/23 | Weathertight Containers (Container Store) | $96.04 |
| 4/26/23 | 5-Tier Shelf (Lowe's) | $131.20 |
| 4/28/23 | Key Ring (for storage locker keys - Lowe's) | $5.03 |
| 4/28/23 | Storage Locker #2 (Public Storage) | $52.53 |
| 4/29/23 | Hand Truck (Lowe's) | $153.25 |
| 4/30/23 | Gas (Arco) | $25.00 |
| 5/01/23 | Storage Locker #1 Rent (Public Storage) | $422.00 |
| 5/01/23 | Storage Locker #2 Rent (Public Storage) | $409.00 |
| 5/03/23 | (Lowe's) | $66.06 |
| 5/02/23 | SpaceTent bags for Dewalt shop-vac (Amazon) | $16.99 |
| 5/05/23 | Itoya 24x36 ProFolio Poster Binder Sleeves (Amazon) | $109.49 |
| 5/05/23 | Itoya 24x36 ProFolio Poster Binder (Amazon) | $126.96 |
| April 2023 to Now (July 2025) | Public Storage rentals (average $1500/mo) | $39,000 (approximately) |
| Total (so far - not counting monthly storage rent) | ||
| $4,203.30 |