First time homeowners, old home (built in the 1940s, I think, brick townhouse in Brooklyn). We went in knowing it was a fixer upper. We also went in thinking we knew what needed fixer-uppering, already having an architect, a contractor, and an expediter to get things going.

First off, I honestly didn't expect things to be so slow. People say "I'll do it Monday" or "We'll be there Monday". I now know that means "We'll be there/do it sometime in the next two weeks, probably, if you remind me". People don't seem to pay attention to my emails. I am very direct: "Hi Architect, here is material X that we want to use. As per our understanding, the contractor is going to arrange getting it". Architect responds "yes". Two weeks later, architect asks if we got material X yet. No, we didn't, he said that the contractor would handle it. Turns out, he was saying "yes" to a different part of the email and didn't specify. So now we're two weeks behind on that.

On top of shit like that happening never-endingly, when they came to do the final water meter reading, it wasn't submitted properly. So they took another, after we'd been in possession of the house for a month. Now, for the first 2 1/2 weeks we had the house, we were on vacation (we literally signed the day before we left on this vacation we'd had planned for a year). When we left, the water was TURNED OFF. A week and a half later, they do the final water meter reading again - and the bill is 7k.

The previous owner is contesting it, and according to our real estate lawyer, we shouldn't pay any part of the bill, but may be on the hook for around $500 of it (if it doesn't get reduced), because of when the final meter reading was taken - even though we were GONE for 2 1/2 weeks and THE WATER WAS OFF. That is fucking bullshit.

Then, yesterday, I get an email from our homeowner's insurance company. The paperwork was submitted incorrectly, so our policy was rejected. They can reinstate it, but first we have to get the check they sent us with the rest of the year's payments, send it BACK to them, then they reprocess everything. Ok, when do we get that check, I ask? Well, it was cut on Wednesday, but he's not sure if it went out to us yet or not. Just be sure to get it back to him ASAP.

This is only the tip of the iceburg. The number of random things that have gone wrong is just...amazing. Our kitchen (which is tiled) has a sinking floors During the home inspection, it seemed like just loose tiles. But since then, the floors have literally SUNK in places. Turns out the concrete substrate or whatever wasn't poured properly or something, so the whole floor has to be redone. We had a doorway that we wanted turned into an archway. We were VERY clear about that. Yet somehow, it's been turned into a solid wall as of today. My husband already told them they did the wrong damn thing, and the basic response was "Well, I'll have to talk to my boss about that, but he told me to put a wall here" and "I don't know when we can turn it into an archway" So now, I have a wall in a place that is frankly, a fire hazard (Luckily, I also have emails with the architect clearly staying that we wanted to turn the doorway into an archway, so I have clear proof that they fucked up).

I knew this was going to be a lot of work. I knew there would be hard stuff. I knew stuff would go wrong. But this is seriously fucking ridiculous.

Is this really normal? Or are we having a bad run of luck?

edited to fix words