by Ivo Henfling

One more time, I'd like to prove to you that climate and real estate are definitely related to each other, especialy Costa Rica real estate. When you purchase a property in Costa Rica, you should not only look at the property you are buying, but also at the surroundings. In a former blog, I wrote all about checking our the surroundings of a property before you buy and the damage water can do to your property. In another blog, I told you all about the mess of an unfinished job by irresponsible engineers in charge of a constract that they are doing for A y A (The Costarican Water Company). In another blog, I have told you about sending an email to the Mayor of Escazu, complaining about it.

Yesterday, on June 24th of 2011, I recieved the following not from the office of the Mayor of Escazu:

Dear sir,

Following the Mayor's instructions, attached you will find the answer to your request, you can collect the original signed copy if needed, in the Escazu Municipal offices.

The attachment, with the Mayor's of Escazu letter head, reads as follows:

Escazú, June 24, 2011
DA-371-2011


Mr. Ivo Henfling
present


Dear Sir,

We received your mail dated April 15, 2011, which shows us the damage to the roads caused by A y A and others, and we want to inform you that we have sent notes to A y A demanding improvements to the work (attached copy of note).

We expect this answer to be satisfactory to you request.

Thanks for caring about Escazú

No more for now,

Sincerely,

Bach. Arnoldo Cortes Barahona
Mayor

This was the first communication I have ever received from our Mayor about anything in 30 years. Some of you would maybe respond that it took the mayor 2 months to respond, but honestly, I can live with that. It is an answer and an honest one at that because the administration of the old road belongs to the Province and not to the City of Escazu. That's why he cannot order the A y A (water company) to fix it, but he has to send a note demanding improvements.

Last Tuesday though, before I received the Mayor's letter, it was raining quite a bit and while driving on the old road, I decided to come back later when it would be raining a bit less. I did and below you can enjoy the photos of the finest roadwork done by A y A while "fixing" our water problems. Not the water going "over the road" now that we don't have any more drain ditches. You can probably guess that these pictures were the answer to the Mayor's letter, like it was waiting to happen. I should have called this blog "The self digging ditch". Follow the pictures and I'll show you why.

The owner of the bag is in hiding for the spraying water

Who knows what that cover on the left is for

Here is one storm ditch at least, somewhere

No ditches, nowhere to go except right over the road

These ditches dig themselves it looks like

In one more week, we'll have a ditch here

And don't even try to use the sidewalk

And next year, it will look like this (actually taken 50 yards up the road)

Honestly, I hope that before the rains really start, someone will wake up and that it won't be in a ditch.

By Ivo Henfling, your realtor who loves to sell properties in Escazu but worries about you being able to get there. GoDutch Realty's agents are trained to help you make sure the property you are buying doesn't have any problems like the above, unless the are registered as such so you can do something about it.