House(es) of Horror
I see it has been a month since my last entry. I wish I had a good excuse why, but really, truly, honestly, I do not. Some of you lead far busier lives than mine and still manage to update. I haven't been exactly idle. It seems to me that I've visited every blue-blessed condo, prefab house and condex in the lower third of the state hoping to find something we can a) afford the day-to-day expenses on, that is b) within the limits of what we have to spend, and c) liveable.
I knew people fibbed (okay lied) about the features of rentals, and I've spent time in the past looking at enough of those to know a renter will assure you that a space not quite big enough to be a decent closet is a small but workable second bedroom or office. (Yes, if you're an anorexic hobbit who doesn't mind being crowded.) Been told "my husband rewired and put in dropped ceilings throughout the building," only to poke up a panel of said ceiling and find a horror show of exposed electrical wiring just below the ceiling panels. I've been assured an 8 x 8 foot "room" with a doorway on both ends is a bedroom. I've climbed up to converted attics which were blithely described as spacious asecond floor apartments where a 5-foot woman like myself can only stand upright in approximately seven feet of one of the "cozy" rooms in any direction. I've been told places have "lots of light" that have a mingy, dirty window at either end of the space. I've been sniffily refused palaces like that because my indoor cats would bring in fleas and piss on the new carpet (industrial grade that will bark the skin off your soles if you go barefoot). In old houses, one will find that the bathroom was subdivided from another room and a tremendous window not only sits squarely in front of the john, but looks out on another such window less than 8 feet away that is a child's bedroom.
So why should I be surprised when the housing market offers more than its fair share of such things? Well, I'm not, really, but I am really discouraged. Our price range, based on what we will get for this place, only allows us a certain kind of property; something borderline tiny which is (manufactured house) so old it has become cheap and god knows what needs to be done to it, or a bank repossession.
I've seen a manufactured house where a new bathroom has been put in (DYI job) where the toilet at least (phew!) drains into a septic tank, but the owner figured "what the heck" and let the tub/shower drain simply run out under the floor, because the "water's not that dirty, right?" Nothing to say about where all this water goes in the winter when it freezes. I suspect it might form a pond around the building which will make for extremely treacherous footing in winter and be a splendid breeding groung for mosquitoes in the spring/summer until it drains and/or dries up.
I've seen a "promising" bank-owned condo where the defaulter stripped all the hardware from the place, right down to the towel racks. I've seen another "promising" condo where the defaulter's last act was to vomit into the washing machine on the way out the door. The kitchen floor was so sticky in that one that my soles made that "yech-yech" cartoon sound as I walked across it. Who knows what was in the bedroom carpets?
I've seen a condex with a perceptable grade in the floors of at least six inches headed towards the back of the building, leading one to suspect that the cellar wall is crumbling at that spot or the ground is subsiding there. Do I want to know why? No, I do not.
I've even seen a riverfront property which is going "for a steal" that has watermarks from the last two floods still visible on the walls.
Am I being too picky? Nope. I've coped with things like this in my 25 years as a renter. I've washed kitchen floors that turned out be white instead of yellow-brown. I've patched up. I've spackled and sanded, and shoved Bondo into holes. I've rented carpet cleaning machines and done every floor two or three times until it was clean, dammit, clean. I've scrubbed years of cigarette smoke off walls. I've painted so much I'm surprised I'm not permanently intoxicated with paint fumes. I've trapped and released, executed or left to the cats enough small wildlife to fill a petting zoo. I'm done.
Done. Done. Done.
During this time I've also been trying, with no success so far, to find a job.
I've also been caring for Ma. She's still in good shape mentally, but her body has become a lot weaker in the last couple of months, and lately she's been having recurring bouts of gastro and colitis problems. I know she is upset and frightened. I think she also forgets sometimes that she isn't 20 years younger. She says she doesn't want to bother me, but cleaning up a shattered jar full of pickles is certainly more bother than being asked to come into the kitchen to take the lid off. She fell again last Saturday night/Sunday morning because she wouldn't put both brakes on her wheelchair while trying to transfer from bed to chair to go to the bathroom. The wheelchair moved just enough. She went down and struck her head on the closet door on the opposite wall. She also somehow split the skin on her left forearm. After I checked her out, I called 911 because I can't lift her alone. All of our neighbors are elderly, too, so I didn't want to rouse some geriatric male who's had two heart attacks to try and pick her up. The paramedics checked her out and lifted her back up onto the bed, checked her some more and felt she didn't need to go to the hospital. She's still awfully sore and has some spectacular bruises, and yesterday I caught her trying to get from her granny launcher to the wheelchair with only one set of brakes locked (again!).
So, I've been in kind of a bad place, not too much mental energy. Not really sleeping that much because I want to be awake in case she needs help. She won't always call me, so I have to be aware. It's really not unlike having a baby where you don't sleep deeply because on some level you're listening for the sounds of distress. Unfortunately, my baby has a tendency to sneak around on rubber wheels, get the Ritz crackers and go back to bed. At least like my father's side of the family I can sleep for you any time, any place, anywhere. Just ask me. So I take a nap when and if Ma has one.
When I'm in a place like this I have a tendency to fixate on one or two activites and give all my "unscheduled" time to them. One of my new favorites is trolling the web, looking for likely properties and bombarding Jim (my cousin's husband and our realtor) with request to check them out and call me if they look good. My other little mental get-away has been trolling LJ icon mining. I don't know how many I've snagged, probably one for every day of the week with extras. Not all ravens and crows. You lucky people, you shall see them all.
Tomorrow Sister and Her Husband are visiting.
Well, let's see if I've done this LJ cut right.
I knew people fibbed (okay lied) about the features of rentals, and I've spent time in the past looking at enough of those to know a renter will assure you that a space not quite big enough to be a decent closet is a small but workable second bedroom or office. (Yes, if you're an anorexic hobbit who doesn't mind being crowded.) Been told "my husband rewired and put in dropped ceilings throughout the building," only to poke up a panel of said ceiling and find a horror show of exposed electrical wiring just below the ceiling panels. I've been assured an 8 x 8 foot "room" with a doorway on both ends is a bedroom. I've climbed up to converted attics which were blithely described as spacious asecond floor apartments where a 5-foot woman like myself can only stand upright in approximately seven feet of one of the "cozy" rooms in any direction. I've been told places have "lots of light" that have a mingy, dirty window at either end of the space. I've been sniffily refused palaces like that because my indoor cats would bring in fleas and piss on the new carpet (industrial grade that will bark the skin off your soles if you go barefoot). In old houses, one will find that the bathroom was subdivided from another room and a tremendous window not only sits squarely in front of the john, but looks out on another such window less than 8 feet away that is a child's bedroom.
So why should I be surprised when the housing market offers more than its fair share of such things? Well, I'm not, really, but I am really discouraged. Our price range, based on what we will get for this place, only allows us a certain kind of property; something borderline tiny which is (manufactured house) so old it has become cheap and god knows what needs to be done to it, or a bank repossession.
I've seen a manufactured house where a new bathroom has been put in (DYI job) where the toilet at least (phew!) drains into a septic tank, but the owner figured "what the heck" and let the tub/shower drain simply run out under the floor, because the "water's not that dirty, right?" Nothing to say about where all this water goes in the winter when it freezes. I suspect it might form a pond around the building which will make for extremely treacherous footing in winter and be a splendid breeding groung for mosquitoes in the spring/summer until it drains and/or dries up.
I've seen a "promising" bank-owned condo where the defaulter stripped all the hardware from the place, right down to the towel racks. I've seen another "promising" condo where the defaulter's last act was to vomit into the washing machine on the way out the door. The kitchen floor was so sticky in that one that my soles made that "yech-yech" cartoon sound as I walked across it. Who knows what was in the bedroom carpets?
I've seen a condex with a perceptable grade in the floors of at least six inches headed towards the back of the building, leading one to suspect that the cellar wall is crumbling at that spot or the ground is subsiding there. Do I want to know why? No, I do not.
I've even seen a riverfront property which is going "for a steal" that has watermarks from the last two floods still visible on the walls.
Am I being too picky? Nope. I've coped with things like this in my 25 years as a renter. I've washed kitchen floors that turned out be white instead of yellow-brown. I've patched up. I've spackled and sanded, and shoved Bondo into holes. I've rented carpet cleaning machines and done every floor two or three times until it was clean, dammit, clean. I've scrubbed years of cigarette smoke off walls. I've painted so much I'm surprised I'm not permanently intoxicated with paint fumes. I've trapped and released, executed or left to the cats enough small wildlife to fill a petting zoo. I'm done.
Done. Done. Done.
During this time I've also been trying, with no success so far, to find a job.
I've also been caring for Ma. She's still in good shape mentally, but her body has become a lot weaker in the last couple of months, and lately she's been having recurring bouts of gastro and colitis problems. I know she is upset and frightened. I think she also forgets sometimes that she isn't 20 years younger. She says she doesn't want to bother me, but cleaning up a shattered jar full of pickles is certainly more bother than being asked to come into the kitchen to take the lid off. She fell again last Saturday night/Sunday morning because she wouldn't put both brakes on her wheelchair while trying to transfer from bed to chair to go to the bathroom. The wheelchair moved just enough. She went down and struck her head on the closet door on the opposite wall. She also somehow split the skin on her left forearm. After I checked her out, I called 911 because I can't lift her alone. All of our neighbors are elderly, too, so I didn't want to rouse some geriatric male who's had two heart attacks to try and pick her up. The paramedics checked her out and lifted her back up onto the bed, checked her some more and felt she didn't need to go to the hospital. She's still awfully sore and has some spectacular bruises, and yesterday I caught her trying to get from her granny launcher to the wheelchair with only one set of brakes locked (again!).
So, I've been in kind of a bad place, not too much mental energy. Not really sleeping that much because I want to be awake in case she needs help. She won't always call me, so I have to be aware. It's really not unlike having a baby where you don't sleep deeply because on some level you're listening for the sounds of distress. Unfortunately, my baby has a tendency to sneak around on rubber wheels, get the Ritz crackers and go back to bed. At least like my father's side of the family I can sleep for you any time, any place, anywhere. Just ask me. So I take a nap when and if Ma has one.
When I'm in a place like this I have a tendency to fixate on one or two activites and give all my "unscheduled" time to them. One of my new favorites is trolling the web, looking for likely properties and bombarding Jim (my cousin's husband and our realtor) with request to check them out and call me if they look good. My other little mental get-away has been trolling LJ icon mining. I don't know how many I've snagged, probably one for every day of the week with extras. Not all ravens and crows. You lucky people, you shall see them all.
Tomorrow Sister and Her Husband are visiting.
Well, let's see if I've done this LJ cut right.