It was late 2004 when my wife and I stood in front of a vacant lot in a growing tourist town on Mexico’s west coast. A light breeze off the sea was against our backs, unbroken by the chain of beachside hotels across the street. In front of us was a golf course, dotted with palm trees, gently swaying. Next door was a half-finished two-story home being constructed laboriously with thick walls of ladrillo – the soft red brick of old Mexico – painstaking laid course by course by underpaid shirtless young men.

 

They worked for the most part without power tools: the chink-chink of hammers on chisels was an intermittent chorus of iron as dusty hands carved channels in the brick walls for conuit and pipe. Men hauled brick and debris back and forth in wheelbarrows while others mixed cement right on the ground with water and a shovel. We watched for some time, while men on bowed scaffolding troweled concrete out of a bucket onto the slowly rising walls. They would butter the top of one course of brick and lay the next course while the mortar was still wet, slicing the excess mortar from the sides of the walls with their trowels.

 

We looked back out at the palms. Below them golfers in shiny white carts moved soundlessly by on pathways of ladrillo, laid along the fairways, oblivious. It was a special moment for us because the land we were standing on was our own – the very last lot in a development of houses set side-by-side along the golf course. The wall we were watching being built would become the west wall of our own house when it was finished. It was six or perhaps eight courses thick.

 

I smiled. We would never hear our neighbors.

 

The developer had four models, and we had requested the one with a curved, turret-like entry that extended up to the second story, and was topped with a round cupola. When it was finished, the cupola would have a blue and white azulejo tile finish, and would shine with color in the Mexican sun.

 

My wife was ecstatic. “We’re going to have our own home in Mexico,” she said softly.

 

It made the mental vision real. We would see those palms every day from our dining room window, about where we were then standing. It was the home we had dreamed of, and for which we saved and waited for ten years. We had signed a contract with the developer’s real estate agent that morning, and given him a check for the lot. We would pay for the home as it was built – in monthly installments. The whole process would take the rest of the year, and we would pay the final installment upon inspection and delivery of the deed. They would give us the keys and we would have our vacation home.

 

The developer was among the scarce ranks of truly wealthy Mexicans – the cloud people. Dealing with him and his agent was much like it is in the U.S. except that we never got to see or speak with the man himself. His agent was our only contact, and even he got his instructions from the developer’s secretary. The real estate agent was a crisp, cordial man who never failed to greet us and ask how we were when we came to his office. Still, he told us he would not present an offer to the developer for less than full price, as this was the last available lot and the market was appreciating rapidly. We knew it, and decided not to haggle.

 

We were enthusiastic, even romantic, about the process, but we weren’t foolish. There are no title companies in Mexico. The job of handling the closing of a real estate transaction is handled by a notary. Called a notario in Mexico, this person is a licensed attorney, and takes the place of your title officer, with one important exception: the notario will not hold funds. The notario acts as a neutral party to document the transaction and the taxes due to each party, and notarize and record documents. He collects 1.5% of the sales price of the property for his trouble.

 

We were using the notario recommended by the developer, so not only did we have no representation, but there was a chance that the notary might lean toward the seller if faced with an awkward decision. We hired our own attorney. She did a title search, including a search for liens on the property. It was OK. She also reviewed the developer’s sales contract before we signed anything – especially a check.

 

The contract had been written by the developer’s lawyers, and the real estate agent represented the developer’s interest. We wanted someone on our side. Our lawyer made several changes to the contract that equalized the rights and obligations of the parties. When we took it to the real estate agent’s office, he was quiet and looked concerned. I think he was annoyed at our presumption. It was highly irregular for buyers to make changes to his bosses’ contracts, and now he would have to perform the uncomfortable chore of approaching his boss with this. He would look weak.

 

So, we were surprised when the developer – disregarding the insult to his status – signed off on our amended version of the contract. With his approval and our signatures we had an agreement in place, and I handed over the money for the lot, while obligating myself to make eight more monthly payments throughout the construction process. The developer was obligated to deliver the house at the end of the eighth month. There was some loose language about the developer’s responsibility to complete the house in a timely manner, but we weren’t too concerned about it. This was a vacation home, and we had a place to live while we waited for the construction process to run its course.   

 

As we made each payment, my wife was careful to ask for a receipt from the developer’s secretary for each of the payments. In retrospect this was shrewd. If we had come to a point where we felt the developer had not performed, and were faced with legal action to get our money back, those receipts would be invaluable as evidence that our payments had been made and received by his secretary. We would come uncomfortably close to this situation just prior to taking delivery of the home, as the changes we had requested in the original plans had not been incorporated into house, even at the time it was supposed to have been completed.

 

Though we made our payments on time, construction lagged throughout 2005. We visited twice during the process, and despite the slow progress, we liked what we saw. The walls and roof were up. Workmen were painstakingly laying and leveling tile floors. The stairs to the second story were built and they were setting the steps and base molding in a stone, quarried in Mexico, called cantera roja. The cantera base lay on top of the floor tile, surrounded the perimeter of each room and giving it a rustic and nicely finished look. Construction had begun on the cupola, and I went up on the roof to watch.

 

If you have any appreciation for craftsmanship, you must see the construction of a cupola dome. Imagine building a dome by laying brick and mortar over a wooden frame; adding a layer of plaster and azulejo tile; and then removing the frame. The structure stands erect on the principle as the arch – the balanced pressure inward from the cupola’s walls keep it from collapsing into the bedroom below… potentially killing your in-laws.

 

Impressed as we were, the process went slowly, and construction was not completed until January, 2005. Prudently, we reserved our last payment for the day of closing, despite objections from the developer’s office. His secretary had requested that we make a deposit in the developer’s bank account prior to the day of closing. Once the deposit had cleared, the developer would agree to sign the deed. We demurred. After some negotiation, we compromised. We opened an account at the developer’s bank (Banamex) before the day of closing and wired money from our bank in the U.S. to fund our own account. We would bring a cashier’s check to closing, and the secretary could simply call the Banamex branch to verify funds.

 

During our second visit to the property, we noted several important things that still had not been accomplished. There had been the usual snafus due to poor communication between the developer’s office and the subcontractors. We found that the developer’s secretary had failed to communicate our original change orders to the general contractor. The main floor guest bath was supposed to be converted to a closet, yet it was roughed-in for a half bath. The bath in the laundry room was supposed to be a half bath, but was roughed in for a shower (a quarto de servicio in Mexico is often a living space for a maid). No provision had been made for venting the clothes drier outside the laundry room – a situation that presented an obvious problem in a climate that averaged about 80 degrees Fahrenheit and over 50% humidity from spring through fall.

 

We practically dragged the real estate agent over to the house to point out the mistakes. He made notes of everything and promised to relay the information to the developer. Not satisfied, we called the developer’s office and gave the list to his secretary over the phone. She seemed completely unperturbed, and simply said that the changes would be made before the delivery date. OK.

 

Sure enough, on our final visit to the property, the work had been re-done in accordance with our original change orders. Everything was in its place. The general contractor guided us through the house, explaining how the York mini-split air conditioning units functioned; where the systems were located; where the TV and phone jacks were; and so on. In the walk-through, we saw that one of the “mini-split” air conditioning units was not working, and was dripping water on the floor. Since the developer was obligated to make repairs to such things for the first year, we gave it little thought, and decided to close anyway.

 

After all, we were on our third trip to inspect the house, and had already transferred the funds to our account at the developer’s bank for the closing. We had flown down from the U.S. for the purpose of closing the transaction, and were reluctant to leave without a deed. We took a chance and accepted the house subject to a punch list of items left to be completed.

 

We met Arturo Vazquez for the first time at his office in a downtown hotel. His secretary greeted us politely and ushered us to a well-appointed room with furniture done in traditional wood and leather. We took our seats at a large wood conference table, with Arturo only about fifteen feet away, seated at his desk, apparently making arrangements for a cruise for his family in Italy. He was going with a retinue, and was checking the accommodations and itinerary.

 

The notary showed up, introduced himself, and took a seat. We waited.

 

My eyes wandered over the books, knick-knacks and artifacts in the office, while I continued to eavesdrop on Arturo’s conversation. My wife chatted with the secretary, partly to ease the awkwardness of the three of us waiting at the table while Arturo finished making his vacation plans.

 

When he was finished, he hung up the phone and came over to the table with a smile and a warm greeting. We all relaxed and let the notario distribute the papers and collect signatures. Arturo’s secretary presented the punch list along with the other papers, and he signed it with hardly a glance. Then he turned to his secretary to ask about the final payment.

 

This is when the fact that the notario does not hold or guarantee funds becomes an important exception to the way real estate transactions are handled with a title company as the neutral agent. As the buyer, we did not have the comfort of wiring funds to someone who would hold them, pending release only upon completion of all the requirements of the contract. The seller, on the other hand, had no assurance that the check he was receiving at closing was good funds, as they had no time to clear through a third party.

 

I presented the secretary with my certified check, denominated in pesos. It felt a little like a drug deal: we slid the certified check across the table to the developer’s secretary. She called the bank to verify the check while the developer signed the deed. I waited breathlessly for someone to grab something off the table and go running from the room. No one did, and we all parted cordially.

 

When the closing was over, my wife and I celebrated by walking down to the beach to a restaurant that has tables set up on the beach itself, complete with the little candles and everything. We ordered, and I slipped my sandals off and looked out at the surf while sipping a cold Modelo. The construction of the house had lagged through all of 2005, but the finished product was beautiful. The floors were polished marble, with cantera base trim. The stairs were cantera, and they had affixed an ornamental iron railing to the stone steps. The countertops were granite, and the kitchen had a separate alacena – a pantry closet. The marble floors continued out the double-door sliders on to a covered patio in back, with a beautiful view of the golf course, and above the patio was a shallow balcony off the master bedroom with the same view. It was everything we had dreamed of.

 

I ran my toes through the sand as we toasted our accomplishment with shots of Sauza Hornitos. It was a good day.

 

On the way back to the house, we stopped to pre-pay our property taxes, water, and electric bills at the respective offices. In Mexico these errands are all done on foot, or at your bank. The mail system is a complete failure, and no one pays for their services by dropping a check in the mail. It’s a pity because the greater part of a day can be devoted to riding the bus into town, just to make the monthly payment on one’s water and electric bills. We chose to pre-pay an amount that would get us through the rest of the year. It is a privilege of wealth that allowed us to make just one trip per year instead of twelve. The locals, for the most part, trudge back to the utility offices monthly or stand in line at their bank to make those payments – wasting untold hours.

 

With the taxes and services paid for the year, we stopped at Coppel to buy a refrigerator and a washer and dryer. They were delivered the next day. The delivery men unpacked the washer and dryer from their crates and put them side by side in the laundry room, taking the boxes and packing materials with them. I leveled the refrigerator; connected the washer’s supply hoses, and attached the propane gas fitting to the back of the dryer. The dryer vent that had been buried in the corner of the room looked a little odd, but was functional. The hot air vented outside the front of the laundry room instead of inside it.

 

We loaded our first basket of laundry into the washer and high-fived each other as the machine began churning the first load of a very large pile of laundry. Then when the wash cycle was complete and the spin cycle started, the washer began to vibrate violently. It rocked from side to side making a loud banging noise. We checked under the hood. Everything was evenly distributed, but as soon as we put the hood down and started the cycle again, the washer repeated its violent shaking and banging.

 

“That’s funny,” I said. “In the U.S. Whirlpool is a good brand. I guess we’ll have to dry the clothes by hand until Coppel can send someone out.” My wife was on the phone immediately, but Coppel could not send their service people out for about a week – not until the day of our flight back to the U.S.. We told them not to bother, and that we would call them again in the fall. The appliances, like the house, were under a one-year warranty. We took out the wet clothes and spread them around the house to dry.

 

In the meantime the developer’s air conditioning contractor, a likeable young guy named Angel (án – hel) had come twice to diagnose why the mini-split system in the guest bedroom would not cool, and continually dripped water. On the second trip, he traced the system’s drain tube to the soil pipe under the guest bathroom toilet; pulled the toilet off its moorings; and ran a plumber’s snake up the air conditioner’s drain line. Sure enough the drain line from the air conditioning unit was plugged. About a cup of concrete had gotten into the line during construction, and the snake cleared it out. Angel left, satisfied that he had solved the problem… leaving the toilet sitting in the middle of the bathroom.

 

We called the developer’s secretary to ask that someone come back to the house to put the toilet back over the soil pipe. OK, this requires no real training, but it was a job I didn’t want to do. She said she would send their plumber, but he failed to show up by our departure date, and we left the house with the washing machine not working, and a toilet sitting in the middle of the guest bath. We had hastily contracted with Tropico Jardeneria – local landscaping company – to have the grass mowed while we were away. When they saw the Marina address, they quoted us an unconscionable price, but we didn’t have time to shop around for another bid. In retrospect, we should have planned for more time in Mexico after we bought the house, but we had pressing matters in the States, and had to leave. When we closed the door behind us, we felt reasonably sure that our problems would be solved with a few phone calls on our return.

 

We also had friends in Guadalajara, which was not far away, and invited them to come to the house over the summer to enjoy the nearby beach and check on things. They did, and reported that everything was fine (although they too declined to restore the toilet to its place on top of the open soil pipe). Curiously, in one phone conversation they mentioned that two cell phones had disappeared from the kitchen counter. They had left the phones on the counter that afternoon, and when they returned in the evening the phones were gone. They thought someone had been in the house.

 

They asked us if anyone else had a key to the house. No, not that we knew of. Were they sure the phone was stolen? No, they weren’t. Perhaps it was simply misplaced. Did they lock the deadbolt on their way out of the house? They thought so, but weren’t sure. The conversation ended with confusion on both sides, but some concern on my part that one of the contractors may have kept a copy of the key to the house. I made a note to have the locks changed upon our return.

 

Buying the house in Mexico was part of a greater change of lifestyle. That summer was full of projects. We sold our loft condo in Denver, feeling uncomfortable with the market, and moved to the country. We bought some art and furniture, and installed a satellite dish to bring the place into the twenty-first century. We spaded the garden; planted fruit trees; installed a stereo system in the kitchen; and cleaned out the basement. That was a process that involved taking two truckloads of cherished family memorabilia, clothing and knick-knacks to the County landfill.)

 

When we were done we had art on the wall; TV in the living room; stereo in the kitchen; roses in the garden; and eight fruit trees planted around the house. It was a busy summer.

 

So it was with a sense of fresh empowerment and optimism that we arrived back on the doorstep of our Mexican vacation house that fall; dropped out suitcases on the porch and opened the front door. That, my friends is when the nightmare started.

 

We stepped inside. Instead of the fresh, new home had left seven months earlier, we entered a humid, smelly cavern with a layer of gray-green mold covering the floors and the aroma of sewer gasses filling the upstairs. There was mold everywhere on the ground floor, and the door to the laundry room had absorbed so much water that it was swollen and de-laminated. Apparently the place had been inundated with water for some time. Perhaps some passerby had noticed water coming from under our front door and had shut the water off at the meter.

The kitchen cabinets seemed fine, except for the bottom of the base cabinet that held the kitchen sink. The developer’s plumber had talked us in to purchasing a water filter, which he installed under the kitchen sink. It had leaked, and the bottom of the cabinet was soft, rotten and moldy.

 

I stepped gingerly through the kitchen and into the laundry room where we had the guest bath. I looked under the pedestal sink. Sure enough, one of the supply hoses had burst and was dangling in the air. I walked back to my wife, who was standing in the entryway, speechless.

 

“I don’t believe it,” I said as I surveyed the room. “I have never seen mold grow on marble before. I didn’t know it could do that.”

 

We carried our suitcases upstairs and dropped them in the bedroom. There was no mold here, so the leak on the first floor must have been the only one. Well, of course it would be. Once the water spouted from the downstairs hose, the pressure in the entire system would have dropped. I turned on the faucets. Nothing happened. If someone had shut off the water at the meter, then the cistern would have run down to the point where the pump shut itself off. That left us with a moldy house; a supply line to replace; a lot of clean-up to do; and the toilet in the upstairs bath still sitting off its perch.

 

We looked at each other in silence. “OK,” my wife said. “It’s late. Where do we take a shower?”

 

“Grab a change of clothes and a towel. We’re going to introduce ourselves to our neighbors.”

 

We grabbed towels and fresh underwear and with no small amount of embarrassment went to one of the neighbor’s houses and rang the doorbell.

 

“Buenos noches,” I said to the rather surprised woman who greeted us. “Somos vecinos, y…” and I explained as best as my Spanish would allow what had happened. Could we use their bathroom just long enough to take a shower?

 

“Sí,” said the woman, “Pasele.” She motioned us inside. The husband came out of the living room, where he had been watching a soccer match, and his wife explained what had happened; that we had no water and needed a shower. He looked unsurprised, as if we had just dropped in for a cup of coffee.

 

I told him about the flood; the moldy floors; the broken supply line. I told him how much we appreciated their help, and assured him it was just for tonight, and that tomorrow we would move into a hotel down the street.

 

He said he was happy to help, and they showed us to their guest bath. I was filled with envy to see a clean, nicely decorated bathroom with mirrors, towels on the towel bars, some ornaments on the countertop, and a toilet firmly anchored where it belonged. We took long, hot showers, and by the time we were dressed were actually joking about the whole situation.

 

Once over their surprise, our hosts talked to us at length about what we should do. They gave us the name of their own cleaning lady, recommending her in glowing terms, and told us that if we needed to come back tomorrow night it was OK.

 

“Gracias por todo, pero no les vamos a molestar otra vez con este problema,” I replied. They had been more than gracious and I was not going to reward them with another late night visit. We took the name and number of their cleaning lady; went back to our moldy, empty house, and went to sleep.

 

The next morning I awoke and checked the cistern. It was less than half full, but the pump was not working. “Just as well,” I thought, since the water would have ended up on the floor.

 

The grass in the yard was overgrown and full of weeds, and I made a mental note to fire Tropical Jardeneria for their negligence.

 

We picked up our suitcases and walked several blocks down the street to the hotel where I owned a timeshare. Normally reservations were made a few months in advance, and over the phone, but I walked up to the counter, introduced myself as a timeshare owner and said that I would like to use two weeks of my contract… starting right now. This irregularity required a manager, but he accommodated us as best he could. He would put us in a studio apartment for two days, and then move us to the first one-bedroom unit that came available. That would be fine.

 

As we entered our studio apartment, the sense of relief between us was palpable. We popped open two beers from the refrigerator and flopped on the bed. There we were: drinking cold beers in an air conditioned room, with our bags still on the floor, unpacked. Still, our problems were four blocks away, and we began making plans to get the house clean and the water turned back on.

 

We did what people do when they don’t now what else to do. We made a list:

 

We had the luxury of a hotel room and could go without water, so we would start by making the house habitable. We started by looking in the local newspaper classifieds, and found an ad placed by a guy who polishes floors and tile. My wife called him, and he agreed to meet us at the property the next day. That was great.

 

He showed up with a van and a floor polisher and quickly went to work. In two days he had polished the floors in the entire house – upstairs and down – and had done the stone walkway from the gate to the door at no extra charge. We thanked him profusely and overpaid him, taking care to save one of his business cards, then went back to the list.

 

The phones were working, so my wife called our friends in Guadalajara. She gave them a synopsis of our situation and asked if they knew someone who could help us. Well, they knew someone here who made draperies. We didn’t need draperies right now, but any contact was a starting point, so we took down the name of the drapery lady and my wife called her. I walked back to the guest bath and examined the broken supply hose that had caused the flood.

 

The hose still had the fittings connected at both ends, but had apparently just popped open – right at the junction of the hose and the connector. I unscrewed both ends and walked back into the kitchen.

 

“I found it,” I said, holding the hose aloft.

 

My wife looked up from her notebook, phone to her ear, and nodded. She was talking to the drapery lady, trying to get the name of a good plumber. She could have called the developer’s secretary and asked her to send the guy who plumbed the house, but he was the one who installed the faulty plumbing we were now trying to fix. I might say that our confidence in the developer’s contractors was ebbing. We needed our own people.

 

“I’m going out to get a new one,” I said into the air, as my wife had turned her back to me and was taking notes on the kitchen counter. I flagged a taxi and went to Ferretería Amutio downtown. It was like stepping into a plumbing supply house in the U.S.. A few Mexican contractors and a large number of Anglo expatriates were milling around the counter, trying to make eye contact with the busy salesmen. The floor was jammed with plumbing displays and stacked boxes.

 

Despite their apparent inattention, the counter clerks actually had a pretty good idea of who had been waiting longest. When it was my turn, I held up the broken hose and asked if they had “una manguera de mejor calidad.” I had in mind the type that looks like wire mesh. It’s flexible hose, but tougher than plastic.

 

What they brought me was an exact replacement for the one I brought in. I bought an extra, and returned home. My wife was on the phone again, this time to Arturo’s secretary. About nine months had passed since we closed the deal, and the house was still under the developer’s warranty. The air conditioning unit in the guest bedroom no longer dripped water, but had never worked properly. It stopped working again right after Angel unplugged the drain line. Could they send Angel out to look at it again?

 

She smiled as I walked by, holding my new supply hoses in one hand; a wrench in the other. Back in the bathroom I removed the remaining supply hose to the sink and began screwing in its replacement.

 

The ends of plastic supply hoses have metal sleeves that turn inside the threaded fitting on the end. That way the hose doesn’t turn and kink like a snake when the ends are screwed on. I was a little concerned when I began to tighten the end of the supply line to the faucet and the hose started twisting with each turn. I loosened the fitting, jiggled the hose to see that if moved freely, and began to tighten it again. The same thing happened: the hose began to turn and kink. I held the metal sleeve in place with a pair of pliers while I tightened the threaded end with the wrench… tighter… tighter… amost there. Then with a “pop” the metal sleeve came off the threaded end.

 

My good mood evaporated in a tirade of obscenities. I sat down on the bathroom floor, looking at the dangling broken hose and wondered aloud in colorful language how a brand new plumbing hose simply comes apart in my hands.

 

The moment passed and I calmly removed the new supply line; grabbed the one I had just taken off; and re-installed the old hose. The second hose held together as I tightened it in place by slowly turning the wrench, just to the point where I felt the fitting would not leak.

 

“What happened,” asked my wife as I emerged from the bathroom.

 

“Oh… the new supply line just popped off its fitting. It’s OK. I’ve got the faucet working again,” I said, forcing a smile. “Any luck finding someone to check the cistern and pump?”

 

“Yes. I got the name of someone here who has a drapery business.”

 

“The drapery lady is going to check the cistern?”

 

“Noooo.” My wife closed her eyes. “The drapery lady gave me the name of a guy who can do it. His name is César, and she said he’s honest and very good.”

 

“Great!” I wiped my hands on a dry towel, looking around the room at the polished floors and felt genuine relief. Arturo’s secretary had assured us that Angel was coming back to check the air conditioning. César would solve our plumbing issues, and soon we would have water. All we had to do was stay calm and await the impending arrival of the cavalry.

 

“Let’s go back to the hotel and have lunch. Besides, I need a shower,” I suggested.

 

“Me too.” And off we went.

 

César came the next day and set to work examining the water pump. He was a fit man in his early 30s, who was polite and knowledgeable. He brought along a helper, whom he sent down into the cistern to retrieve the water pump. He examined the pump while his assistant scrubbed down the walls and mopped the sand off the floor of the cistern.

 

Public water in Mexico is generally not safe to drink. There is a lot of sediment, for example, that gets sent down the water mains along with the drinking water. With that in mind, we decided to ask César to install a filter in the line between the cistern and the pressurization tank for the house – up on the roof. It would help keep the faucets and shower heads from getting clogged with sand – a problem I had already noticed in the short time we had owned the house.

 

César showed me a broken rod that extended from the pump. “Tengo que cambiar este por una nueva,” he said. He couldn’t repair it. It would take a couple of days for the new part to arrive. No problem, I told him. We still had our hotel room.

 

Angel came and went. Each time he spent some time up on the roof, working with the compressor or checking the coolant level of the system. Each time he came he left with the unit still pumping out warm air. On the third visit he announced that the condenser had burned, and he would have to order another one. Fine. How long would that take? Well… maybe a week.

 

And we waited. Angel never came back of his own accord. Each visit necessitated a phone call to Arturo’s secretary, who would then call him. Angel would then eventually call us. We all observed the polite formalities that characterize Mexican social and business relationships – complaining as politely as possible that our air conditioning unit was still not operating, and would they please send their contractor again. The developer’s secretary was apologetic and always promised to attend to our problem right away.

 

The repair process was taking on a predictable rhythm of hurrying to get a contractor to the house, and then waiting while parts were ordered – a process of punctuated by a few days of activity and then a period of anxious waiting.

 

With our current problems diagnosed, my wife and I focused our efforts on what we had come to do: buy furniture and make the house livable. We bought a bed, which allowed us to stop sleeping on the floor. The curtain lady showed up with several sample books of curtain material, and we picked out colored fabric for the curtains – green in the front of the house and blue for the back.

 

After the third trip, Angel became short-tempered and evasive. When asked why the problem persisted, he would blame a component of the York mini-split system. The more questions we asked him, the more evasive or general his answers would become, until he finally resorted to saying, “Don’t worry, it’s not a problem. I’ll fix it.” He didn’t, and it was the beginning of the end of our relationship.

 

This underscored the importance of informal networking in Mexico. If you want reliable people, you don’t open the Yellow Pages (Paginas Amarillas). You ask your neighbors for a referral. You call your friends. You ask your babysitter. You ask people who know you to refer the people they use for their own home repairs. This does not necessarily get results, but at least it brings people to your door who are motivated to earn your business.

 

The air conditioning continued to malfunction after the year warranty expired in January 2007. In fact, as of the date of this writing, we have burned no less than five compressors in the mini-split systems. We burn out two units, on average, every summer. We hired a company that specializes in air conditioning installations and repairs, recommended by César, and after testing the electricity and pressure throughout the systems, had no idea why the compressors kept failing. They were genuinely baffled.

 

César was a good example. Althought the curtain lady never returned to pick up her samples or get our order for curtains (?), César was responsive and professional. When he returned with the part he needed for the pump, he told me he had been trained in an “electro-mechanical” program. He had worked on the refrigeration units and commercial appliances at the tourist hotels before deciding to freelance as a handyman. He loved working for himself. He was better paid; set his own hours; and arranged to be home every day at 2:00 to fix dinner for his family and spend time with his children.

 

After installing the repaired water pump, he installed the sediment filter on the roof. Then I asked him to tear out the leaky water filter and tighten the leaky drainage plumbing under the kitchen sink. He showed up with PVC pipe, elbows, and copper tubing in several sizes; then went to work with solder and a butane torch. As I watched him remove the cheap materials the developer had installed and begin bending and soldering a new copper supply line to the sink I knew I was in the presence of a man who knew plumbing.

 

To connect the supply lines from the valves under the base cabinet to the faucet required him to neck down the copper tubing twice – each time cutting the copper and soldering a sleeve to make a new connection. An experienced plumber will drain each section of copper tubing of any standing water; sand the ends of the tubing to be fitted and soldered; brush on a cleaning agent that removes any grease or dirt from the ends just sanded; then apply the solder to the pipe while heating it with a butane torch. When done correctly the solder is actually drawn into the space between the pipe and the copper sleeve into which it fits creating a lasting and impenetrable seal. César was such a plumber. He finished by tracing the edge of the hot fitting with solder to create a ring around the edge where the two supply lines connected – just as a jeweler might surround an engagement ring with a band of silver. It was beautiful.

 

After two days of work, we had a clean cistern; a filter installed in the water line; a “bomb proof” system of soldered copper supply lines to the lavs and kitchen sink; and an even flow of water through all the faucets and showers. Our water problems were solved, and the possibility of future flooding virtually eliminated. We over-paid him and kept his phone number.

 

The next day was Saturday, and we celebrated our progress by taking an afternoon stroll to the marina for lunch. We sat in a sports bar run by an American expatriate couple and munched on barbequed ribs. It was a beautiful winter afternoon in Mexico – sunny and mild, with the bougainvilleas in bright bloom and people of all nationalities strolling along the boardwalk at the marina, admiring the expensive yachts of the super-rich.

 

When we got home I put the key in the door’s deadbolt and turned. It was stuck. No, wait a minute. It was open! I turned the handle and the door opened. “That’s funny. I could swear I locked this door when we left.”

 

As we stepped in, my wife ran to the dining area where she had been working on her new HP computer. “My computer!” she shouted. “Where is my computer!”

 

We stared at each other for a moment as it dawned on me that I had not forgotten to close the deadbolt at all. Someone had opened it from outside; entered; and then left with my wife’s new computer.

 

In seconds she was up two flights of stairs and into the master bedroom. She walked into the closet and began checking the shelves. We had just returned from the United States, and the two most important, and expensive, items we brought with us were the laptop computer and a semi-professional Cannon D8 digital camera. Sure enough, the Cannon was missing as well. The two most valuable items in the house had disappeared in the time it took us to walk to the marina for lunch.

 

In tears, my wife got on the phone and called the police. I sat on the stairs, entertaining angry and violent thoughts. Someone had been watching the house. They knew when we had left, and had been in and out with the computer and the camera, probably in a matter of minutes. I went back to the front door and examined the deadbolt. There were some marks around the exterior of the lock, and indentations in the wood, as if someone had been working the deadbolt with a tool.

 

I grabbed the face of the deadbolt by the edges and turned. It rotated in my hand. I turned some more, and as it turned, a sliver of an opening appeared. It would have been possible to slip a small tool – something like a dental tool – between the face of the deadbolt and the door, and slide the deadbolt open by stroking it with the tool.

 

“Oh no,” I said out loud. My wife was sitting on the bottom of the stairs, crying. “I remember the deadbolt was sticky and hard to close when we moved in. When I examined it earlier, I found the metal ring around the lock was bent.

 

“What?” demanded by wife.

 

“Well,” I said with a growing feeling of regret and embarrassment, “the metal plate that screws into the door jamb was bent. I thought it was just another piece of careless work by the developer’s crew when they were finishing the house. But it wasn’t. Someone bent that plate by prying from the outside. They weren’t able to open the bolt that way, but they bent the plate enough that the bolt didn’t slide easily back and forth.”

 

“So what did you do?”

 

“I removed the plate,” I said, I said with a sigh.

 

She just looked at me with her mouth open.

 

“The deadbolt was so sticky when I opened and closed it that I was afraid I was going to bend the key. The bolt still worked with the plate off – it goes into the hole in the door jamb just like it’s supposed to. The difference is that with the plate gone it’s easier to side the bolt in and out.”

 

“Then taking the plate off didn’t matter?” she said carefully.

 

“No, I’m afraid it did matter. By removing the plate I made it easy to move the bolt back and forth. Someone could have actually pulled the bolt back just by stroking it with a tool inserted between the door and the edge of the bolt.” I turned the deadbolt ring and showed her the small space that opened alongside the ring – just enough space to slip something inside and jimmy the deadbolt.

 

My wife returned to the stairs and sat, waiting for the police to arrive. I stood at the door, contemplating what an elaborate set-up this had been. Someone had jimmied the door months ago. That explained the disappearance of the cell phones while our friends had been in the house. The thieves had waited the entire summer for us to return – waiting for five months for us to bring something back from the U.S. that was valuable enough to be worth stealing. When we did, they started watching the house.

 

It had been worth the wait. They got away with several thousand dollars worth of electronics, all of which was readily accepted by numerous pawn shops – probably in Guadalajara or Mexico City. The only positive in the situation was that my wife’s computer was so new it had no financial information on it: no credit card numbers, bank accounts, or other financial information that would allow someone access to our credit cards or accounts.

 

I looked at the kitchen counter where I had left my cell phone. It was gone as well. Now I was getting really angry. Just as I had gained a sense of safety and peace of mind, it had been wiped away in a single moment. We had begun to feel that our house in Mexico was truly our home, and now we realized that we had been set up and stalked… for months. Someone had been watching our house and waiting for our return.

 

 I had been robbed twice before. Both times it had the same effect on me: when the shock wore off I would indulge myself in recurring revenge fantasies. I thought of how satisfying it would have been to have been in the house when those bastards came in through the front door. I had a club in the master bedroom I kept for defensive purposes, and would have wielded it with elan and great energy upon the heads, kneecaps and ribs of any intruders unlucky enough to let me come between them and the front door.

 

After about a week I became psychologically resigned to the fact that it had happened, and, although there was something I could have done to prevent it, I had been occupied with other problems, and it never occurred to me that I was being watched. Well, I knew it now, and I was not going to be a victim a second time.

 

While my wife was talking to the police, I went to the phone and called the woman who had been coming over to clean our house. I needed another reference.

 

“Bueno,” she answered.

 

“Hola Mavi,” I said, “Habla Rob. “Te puedo pedir un favor?”

 

“sí.”

 

“Conoces on buen cerrajero? Necisito cambiar los cerrojos en mi casa.”

 

“Sí, conosco a alguién,” she said. “Déjame buscar su numero.”

 

Mavi gave me her locksmith’s phone number, and then offered to actually drive me to his place of business. That was great. The following day, she picked me up and drove me her neighborhood – a working class colonia just outside of town. It was bustling with evening activity. We parked the car and walked together to a small storefront, more of kiosk really, where a large Mexican man was making keys.

 

His name was Francisco, and he greeted me in Spanish and shook my hand while Mavi explained the situation to him. He told me he would be at our house the next day, and could change out our locks for high-security locks. They had special keys that could not be duplicated on a conventional key-cutting machine. 

 

Sure enough, he arrived promptly the next morning with his tools. He examined the deadbolt on the front door, pointed out to me the marks around it, and said that someone had been trying to force it open. He agreed with my hypothesis that someone had been trying to pry a tool between the lock and the door and then force the deadbolt open, pointing out the dents in the wood around the lock.

 

He installed a new bolt and put a new faceplate on the door jamb. The high security keys were simple metal bars with grooves and depressions machined into the bar. The location of the grooves allowed the key to slide into the lock, and the location of the circular depressions allowed the key to turn in the cylinder.

 

Barred windows and security doors are a common sight in Mexican neighborhoods. They are a silent testament to Mexico’s number one problem – a lack of trust among the members of its society. When Francisco finished, I asked if he could build an iron gate that would enclose the entryway. Our friends in Guadalajara have one in their entryway. Robbery is still pandemic in the country, but if you make it difficult enough, the thieves will pass on your home and rob the neighbors instead.

 

It turned out that Francisco was more than just a locksmith. He had iron workers who did work for him whenever he needed it. They could fabricate a frame and a swinging iron door, also with a high-security lock, to enclose our entryway. He took measurements and drove away to have his iron workers fabricate the cage that would enclose the entry. In about a month he had the door in place, anchored into the concrete arch. The decorative ironwork in the door was nice, and it looked as much like a decorative addition to the house as a security feature.

 

We stood in the yard and admired the finished product. Painted white, the ironwork looked as if it had been planned and built into the entry from scratch. Then my eyes wandered up to the double windows on the second floor. There was a small landing outside of that bedroom, and then the iron rungs of a ladder embedded in the wall led up to the roof. All the water pressurizing equipment, the propane gas tank, and the air conditioners were located on the roof. An easy access from the upstairs to the roof was necessary, as one frequently needed to get to the roof to do maintenance on these systems. It dawned on me that what served as an access to the roof would also serve as an access to the house from the roof if anyone was inclined to try to enter from above, rather than through the front door.

 

I asked Francisco if he could install locks in the windows as well, and he followed my gaze up the second story. He thought for a moment and then said he had a friend who did window installations. Installing window locks is specialized work, he told me, and his friend would have the locks we would need as well as the experience to install them. As Francisco drove away I felt I was slowly regaining my comfortable feeling of security.

 

Francisco’s friend showed up with his crew a few days later. I was more than impressed. He took a standard window lock, which has a cylinder that passes through the frame of the window, and a latch that is housed inside, and he cut off one side of each cylinder with a hacksaw. Now the lock would be housed only on the inside portion of the window frame, from where it could be locked with a key. From the outside the window frame looked the same, and no one could tell that a lock had been installed. Turning the key brought a metal latch down over a catch that he created in the opposite frame simply by cutting a square hole to receive the metal hooks of the latch.

 

Anyone trying to open the window by sliding a thin piece of metal between the frame and the jamb, and then lifting the window latch might succeed, but they would still not be able to open the window. The second latch would be invisible to the intruder, and its sturdy metal hooks would be difficult to dislodge even if the intruder encountered them with his tool.

 

With the window locks installed on every window and sliding glass door; the high security lock and deadbolt on the front door; and the iron entry cage bolted into the portico out front, our house was transformed into a secure fortress. The only way a burglar could enter would be to smash a window. In fact, if he planned to carry out anything bigger than a bread box, they would have to smash the glass on one of the sliding glass doors in the back. The cost of our entire security effort had been just a little more than the cost of the stolen computer and camera.

 

Our dream of a vacation home in Mexico had survived a rude run-in with reality. In spite of the flood, the low quality materials, the poor service from the developer’s contractors, and the robbery, we were still optimistic about the future. Most of our problems were behind us, and now that our travails were over we could look back without bitterness and chalk them up to lessons learned. There were a lot of years ahead, and we intended to enjoy them as we had originally planned. We were determined that our dream would not die from a few initial setbacks.

 

It was time for me to return to the U.S.. There were bills to pay and business that needed my attention. I packed my suitcase with blue jeans and knit shirts that I had brought to Mexico. It is simply too warm on the Mexican coast to wear jeans – almost any time of year. I wanted to carry only my briefcase, so I tossed my $800 Nikon digital camera, zipped inside its leather carrying case, inside my bag, and buried it under a layer of clothing.

 

They do security screening in Mexico by hand: you open your bags while you are in line and a screener rifles through your stuff, looking for prohibited items. It’s not high-tech, but it’s thorough. When you are cleared, the screener accompanies you to the counter and places your bags on the scales, while you show your passport and get your ticket. It’s actually a pretty good system.

 

On the day I checked in, there was a woman with a white shirt and a large badge hanging around her neck casually walking along the front of the line of passengers. She would disappear through a door to the baggage area periodically, then reappear again and resume her casual appraisal of the security operations.

 

The security personnel looked through my baggage, paying passing attention to the leather camera case buried under the first layer of clothing. The woman in charged lingered in the area, but did not seem to take any particular interest in my things. I had an uneventful flight back to the United States; passed through customs and arrived home late that evening. When I opened my suitcase, my camera was missing. The leather carrying case was there – unzipped and empty – but the camera was gone.

 

“I don’t fucking believe it!” I shouted out loud. In the space of thee weeks Mexican thieves had entered my house; stolen a $3,000 Dell laptop computer; taken my cell phone off the kitchen counter; taken my wife’s $1,500 digital camera from our bedroom closet; and now stolen my $800 Nikon camera right out of my luggage – possibly with the complicity of the security personnel at the airport. A wave of despair washed over me. All my hopes for a happy and secure future as a part-time resident of Mexico turned to ashes as I contemplated life in a country where every fellow citizen is a thief, and I am a walking target. The thought that the people around me, including the security personnel at the airport, were watching for an opportunity to steal from me left me profoundly sad and depressed.

 

I opened a bottle of cold vodka from the refrigerator and between shots wondered aloud and in increasingly more colorful language if our dreams of a pleasant retirement in Mexico were unfolding as a nightmare of incompetence and treachery. I longed for a safe neighborhood in the suburbs, surrounded with boring, predictable people.

 

Then I though of Francisco and César, and the workers they had brought with them. They were the first contacts of a network of reliable and honest people we would one day regard as trusted friends. Furthermore, by bringing their own workmen and contractors to our renovation and security projects, they were rewarding their own people of confidence with jobs and money. We were building a verticle network of people who could trust each other inside a country where no one trusted each other. It was a frustrating process, but it was working.

 

I returned to Mexico a different person than the one who had arrived earlier in the year. I had suffered for my inexperience, but was wiser and better prepared for it. Our cleaning lady, Mavi, became friends with my wife, and they spent some time chatting over coffee each time Mavi came to clean the house. César came back occasionally as we had periodic problems with the water system. Francisco returned to help us extend the patio at the back of the house – doing a first class job of laying a foundation, leveling the concrete, and then laying the tile and cantera base above it. We found someone else to do our curtains, and soon had window coverings of deep blue and bright green on the windows. Furniture arrived, and we enjoyed the luxury of sitting on a sofa to watch television, rather than sprawling on the floor.

 

Before we left for the U.S. again in the spring, Mavi agreed to come to the house once every two weeks, open the windows, turn on the air conditioning, and then close the house up again after she was done cleaning for our neighbors. She dutifully called my wife from the house each time to let her know that everything was OK, and they would talk for a while before my wife thanked her and hung up, secure in the knowledge that a trusted friend was watching over our property.

 

We returned to Mexico again the next fall; dropped our bags outside the barred entry; opened two sets of locks, and stepped into a freshly cleaned home. The floors were dry. The water was on. The air conditioners were working, and the toilet in the guest bath was in its place. Our things were just where we had left them. The bed was made, and all we had to do was make a trip to the grocery store to pick up where we had left.

 

I went upstairs and pulled back the curtains in the master bedroom. I looked out at the palms, ever swaying in the breeze that came in from the ocean. Perhaps I would spend the afternoon sitting on the balcony; my feet up on the railing; reading a book. I settled into a deck chair with a book in my hand when the gardener arrived and began trimming the grass.

 

“Bienvenidos,” he called up to me.

 

I smiled and waived back. “Yes,” I thought. “Welcome home.”

 

(June 2008)

 

 

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El Hoyo de Dinero