Punishment for Intelligence

Okay, I am only going to state the facts in this situation. I tend to start to go on my redheaded rampage when I talk about this, so facts only...here we go.

While Seth and I were living in the {A} Apartments, we used community washers and dryers, and Porter looked like this:

Please note the red blotches.

We took Porter to the doctor, and Dr. {M} diagnosed him with baby eczema, and suggested we use Aveno baby soaps and lotions while bathing him. We were already using the baby detergents.

So, we started using Aveno, and Porter continued to look like this:

Red blotches not as noticeable, but there's some on his forehead and he constantly had little bumps all over his little body that you can't see...but they're there. They just never turned pink.

I asked Dr. {M} if this was normal for eczema, and she said yes.

So, I thought, since community washers are used by so many people, not all the soap that is irritable to Porter's skin is going to be washed out. Maybe that's why he still gets breakouts. We should get a portable washer and dryer!

Genius!

I looked off craigslist for a portable washer and dryer and found these beauties:

A washer that connects to a sink and a dryer that works from a regular outlet. Perfect! Plus, the people selling them lived at the {GG} Apartments we were moving into! Even more perfect!

We moved into the {GG} apartment and moved these right on in with us.

Porter started looking like this:

Even less blotches! Nothing on his back and he rarely broke out. Problem solved!...or at least mostly averted.

Now, after we moved in to the {GG} Apartments, we have had the owners, the maintenance, and the managers in at least 8 times before the most recent time. And, they saw the washer and dryer and never said a word to us about them.

Until about a month and a half ago.

The manager and the maintenance man came in for a "quarterly inspection." It just so happened that I was doing laundry that day, and the washer was connected to the sink. (When I did the wash, it took about at day and a half if it was big, but when I was done, Seth would push the washer back into the third bedroom.) The maintenance man saw the washer, looked right at me, and said, "you can't have that." Um, what? "It says in the rules that you signed that you can't have any appliances in the apartment." What? I think I'm going to check that. "Okay, you do that, but you can't have those."

I was totally taken aback, and, truthfully, upset. So, I looked at the house rules sheet they gave us and this is what it says: Appliances cannot be added to or removed from the apartment.

Well, these are portable, so they're not added to the apartment. We're not breaking any rules.

Seth came home at this point, and I told him the situation. He went over to the manager and the regional manager, {K}, and told them, The washer and dryer aren't added to the apartment. They're portable like a TV or a microwave. But the argument didn't "work." So, he told them the reason we had them at all, which was because of Porter's skin condition. When Seth told {K} that, she said, "Well, why didn't you say that in the first place? Write a letter to the owners explaining that, get insurance on them, and I bet you'll be able to keep them."

So we did.

About a month later, we were called back into the office and given a form for Dr. {M} to sign. We took it to her, and she said she couldn't legally sign it because Porter's skin condition cannot be labeled as the "disability" the form required. But, because Dr. {M} wanted us to keep the W and D since it helped Porter, she wrote a note to the owners that said that.

We came back to the office with that note, and {K} told us, "The note isn't good enough. You can't keep the W and D unless the doctor checks the two boxes on the form saying Porter has a disability and she recommends we change our policy to accommodate it. After the form is signed and checked, then we would want her note explaining." Why are you adding things every time we come in? "We're not. It's been this way the whole time"

Uh huh.

Well, we would like to speak to the owners, please. "You can't. You can only go through me." We would like to speak to them so we can explain Porter's health in our words (we thought maybe {K} thought we were pulling their legs) "I don't care about the health of your son. Get the form signed and checked, get the doctor's note, and you can keep them."

And now, I will take a break so I don't go on my rampage.

Moving on...

We waited until Porter's 15 month appointment to bring it up with Dr {M} again. This time, we were wondering if what Porter had was really eczema. Every other child we've seen with eczema looked similar to each other, but not to Porter. They didn't get little bumps, just redness, so we thought maybe he had some form of a contact dermatitis. She stuck to her eczema...checked only one box of the form, and signed it. I'm glad she signed it, but it wasn't good enough because she didn't check both boxes.

So, we didn't even turn it in, and we posted our W and D on Craigslist, giving up hope.

And now, Porter's got a major breakout all over his body...and I don't think I've ever disliked someone so much before in my entire life.

But, I'm trying to let it go. Especially since I can't do anything else about it.