Before we went to Pattaya, I was searching online for apartment, condo and hotels I could rent for one month. Since it was January, it was high reason and the places I can afford were pretty much all booked. I was looking to spend around $10 000 -$15 000 baht per month for a place. Even at that price, I had a hard time finding one. My brother suggested us to drive there and have a look around asking the local. If we can’t find a place under my budget we’ll come back to his condo.

I wasn’t sure if that would work, I thought the only way and the cheapest way was to find one online. Anyway, we went one weekend and my brother asked around with the local Thai people for a place for me to stay. The Thai locals suggested us to look at the hotels around Phatthaya Sai 3 because the hotels around that area are under $10 000 baht per month. The hotels at Pattaya beachfront can cost up to $20 000 baht and more per month and most hotels at the beachfront doesn’t do monthly rent, they only accept daily rental. That was how I ended up at Prima Place at 3rd Road.

Prima Place has a small swimming pool, air condition room, cable TV, fridge, hot water, table, bed and free parking. It had three separate buildings, with 24/7 security. No internet but there is a computer store at the back where you can purchase a wireless internet connection. However, I find the wireless internet connect to be very unreliable, always disconnecting or can’t log on.

Here are some pictures of my room.

We went looking about 3 other rooms in Prima Place before decided to go with this one since the other ones smell like smoke, or too close to the street with too much noise. My only suggestion if you stay at Prima Place is to get a room farthest away from the stairs because at night you can hear people walking up and down with their sandals. It can get loud if you have someone or a group of people drunk walking up and down the stairs. So stay away from the stairs.

Another thing to consider is internet connection. I asked one of the staff at the counter about wireless internet connection and she told me they don’t offer it. When I turned on my laptop there was a single from one of the local computer with his phone number. I called the phone number and found that his computer store was at the south end of Prima Place. I paid for his wireless internet service with an internet provider called Maxnet. Read my review of Maxnet here.

If you need internet access all the time, I suggest you go elsewhere because the Maxnet connection was not reliable when I was there. About 30% of the time, the internet was NOT working for me. However, if you don’t care about internet, then this won’t effect you. Also, there is a internet café just down stairs which you can use and pay about $30 baht per hour.

After 2 weeks at Prima Place, I went to Villa Mama. Although the room at Villa Mama is much smaller but I like how reliable the internet was.

Although the room in Villa Mama was very small, but since I was only going to stay for two weeks it didn’t bother me as long as it was clean and dry. Also, Villa Mamma room had everything I needed including a bed, air conditioner, fridge, cable TV, free wifi internet, a closet, washroom with hot shower and a table.

At first I was kind of hesitate to stay there because everything seem to be so compact, if you are claustrophobic, the room might not be an ideal place for you.

When I was there this February 2010, it cost about $4000 baht for two weeks and when I left, I paid another $200 baht for the utility/water. One month only cost $5000 baht or you can stay for a day from $500 baht. While I was there, they had one room left for me, it seem to be a popular place for tourists and other Thais.

Just remember shut your window when sleep. The room I stayed had no mosquito net on the window. My window had nothing to block out the flies from going inside the room. Usually I always close my window and turn on the air condition or use the fan on the air condition since the room was so small it didn’t take much to for the air condition to cool the room. However, one night, I left the window open by accident and there were mosquitoes all over the room. These Thai mosquitoes are like tiny little assassins, you can’t hear them coming because they were so tiny and they were hard to find.

If you are on a budget like I did, I would recommend Villa Mama, and the bonus was free wireless internet, which happen to be very reliable and fast for a wireless connection.

Villa Mama is located in Pattaya, Phatthaya sai 3, Na Kluea, Bang Lamung, Chon Buri 20150, Thailand.

I’ll keep writing a new post each time I get a new visitor from National Home Services or from one of their other companies. I’ll stop writing about National Home Services and these door to door energy sale when they start following these rules:

• Requires all sales solicitations to clearly disclose the prices, terms and conditions of all products and services
• Prohibits suppliers from misrepresenting their affiliation with a gas utility, governmental body or consumer group
• Provides consumers with a right to cancel within 10 days after the gas utility notifies them of the switch and 10 days after the date of the first bill if they find that the service is not as promised
• Limits early termination fees to $50 and requires any agreement containing an early termination clause to disclose the total cancellation fee

If National Home Services want people to use Greener appliances like their hot water tank, then stop forcing it down our throat by coming in to my home. If we need something, we will call you.

When the door-to-door energy sales people DO NOT disclose all the terms and conditions in their contract. I label this sale tactic as scam, because they are only telling you all the promotional stuff you want to hear and leave out all other information in their contract. In fact, the sale people from National Home Services never even mention to me anything about their contract. It is simply misleading.

National Home Services First, Second and Third Visits

The first time they got me sign without telling me about their contract and all the string attach with their “Energy Star Rated” hot water heater. Second and third time National Home Services came and I would tell them the homeowner is it here and doesn’t live here. The sale guy from National Home Services guy ask for the home owner phone number, I was like WTF? Get lost.

Read about my first visit by National Home Services here.

National Home Services Fourth Visit

About a week after the third visit by National Home Services someone from Universal Energy came knocking. I let him in because when I was about to shut my door on him, he said, “I’m not here to sell you anything…”, so I let him knowing that Universal Energy is the same company as National Home Services.

I went down stairs with The Universal Energy person and to keep the story short. He showed me a print-out supposedly from the Government, according to him trying to make it sound like it was a mandate to replace my venting pipes on my water heater. So I thought if it was a mandate by the Government, why doesn’t my current provider come replace it? Then the Universal Energy sale person said he’ll book me an appointment to have someone over to replace the venting pipe and the water heater.

Not selling me anything? Those were his words, I can’t trust these energy sale guys. I turn off the light and lead him to the door.

National Home Services Fifth Visit

The fifth visit from National Home Services was yesterday. I was upstairs and didn’t hear the door rang. My aunt opened the door and let him in. I heard them talking in the hall wall so I went down stairs to see who it was and in the basement there he was. My beloved company of the whole world, National Home Services smiling as he opened our furnace door revealing our water heater. It was as if he hit the jackpot when I saw his smile. He tried to be friendly with my aunt, giggling his way to get our trust. It was so weird, here is a man we just meant for the first time in our life one minute ago and now he is acting like our best friend.

Here is what I recall, when he saw our water heater he started laughing and the National Home Services sale man said, “You guys have the old one.”

I said, “It is 7 years old about 50% of its life span.”

National Home Services, “I’ll have someone install you the new star rated water heater for FREE, with 2 first month FREE. New venting pipe FREE. You will save $10 per months because of the star rated water heater.”

I said, “We don’t need it, there is nothing wrong with our water heater.”

National Home Services, “You’ll need a new venting pipe (the black plastic pipe at the top of our water heater), we install it for FREE, call your current provider they will charge you $400 for a replacement.”

I said, “I don’t want a new venting pipe, why should I call? There is nothing wrong with what we already have.”

National Home Services, “If you move you will have to pay for it.”

I said, “What? Why? We don’t need it. We don’t want it. We’re happy with what we have. What about your contract, how much we have to pay if we break the contract or move and the new home owner doesn’t want to carry the contract over?”

National Home Services, “I know how much it cost, I think it’s $400. If you buy a new home why would you not want a water heater?”

I said, “Most people might not care, but I would never sign over a water heater contract if I brought a new home.”

National Home Services look at my aunt then pause for a sec and asked, “…who is this guy?”

My aunt didn’t say anything.

I was thinking to myself I’m the freaking home owner now get the F*** out of my house. Instead of saying that, I shut the furnace door and turn off the lights.

While I turn off the basement lights and walk him to my front door he was still mentioning the Free installation, Free 2 months, but I wanted to know more about the contract and all the strings attach. He would never mention anything about the contract he would just keep on talking about how great his tank. The more he talked the more my blood pressure increased.

First, how does he know we’ll save $10 per month? In addition, it is not 2 months Free and it is not Free installation. If you add the price, we will pay for the next 15 years until the National Home Services contract end if we were to pay them monthly. We will be paying a combine total of more than $4500 dollars. Check out the new water heater in the market, they do not nearly cost half of that including installation.

Even if this were a good deal, I would never ever support a company like National Home Services because it is the same company as Universal Energy. Read about Universal Energy here.

There are some companies that I don’t like, there are many brands and companies I like, and there are companies I hate. The companies I hate the most has to go to the door-to-door energy sale companies. I can’t stand them.

Here are my reasons why I would never buy from National Home Services

1. My tank is 7 years old. 50% of its life span.
2. There is nothing wrong with my tank. Nothing!
3. I don’t like long-term contracts and I don’t like people misleading me to sign something and I do not like people not telling me anything about their contract.
4. I don’t like people dressing up pretending to be my friend or pretending to work for the Government, or pretending to work for my current provider so they can come inside my home to check for my water heater.
5. I understand National Home Services tank is “Energy Star Rated”, which is great but don’t send me your energy sale people to my home trying to get my signature without mentioning your contract. There are other ways to sell products without deceptions and use fear tactics.
6. National home Services is the same company as Universal Energy and Just Energy. Read and watch this hidden camera by CBS on Universal Energy and read about Just Energy here. After you watch the video and read about them, ask yourself if you would still support these companies with their deceptive sale practice? I know I won’t.