Ok first you go on about how clean the house is then you go on about how the house is built.  First of all duh I was mainly talking about things you could bleach i.e. sinks and bathtubs.  Yes sometimes you have to scrub things to get it clean.  That’s part of have a house.  And always use any chimical wisely.  Forethought and planning… which leads into building a house.  If you do not research the house and/or the ones building the house, you get what you get.  If you are having a house built, be there on site as the job is being done.  Your paying for it so know what your paying for.  Oh and by the way, never, ever have carpet if you have allergies.

Guess I have been going in tangents, like the Sartans in Death Gate….seems like you fix one thing that causes another to malfunction…............  Thankfully I don’t own a house though I live in one. 

It has occurred to me though over time, that SO many things built or invented seem to have been built with other intents in mind….and this is how you think when you get REALLY angry.  And, I’m also reminded that MANY folks have warned other folks to NOT give me a screwdriver or any other kind of device with which I will ultimately try to fix something else.

But has it never happened to anyone else that as soon as you fix the toilet, something else spews forth and a ceiling begins to leak? 
Or something under the sink breaks and water’s spouting everywhere, you’re in pjs, running downstairs to the laundry room to find the valve that shuts off the flood but you can barely see because you don’t have your glasses on because they’ve been bathed in incredibly icy water but you are aware that when you look at the ceiling you see a DOZEN valves and a jigsaw of pipes leading everywhere and you pull out a step ladder while listening to waterfalls crashing down three flights of stairs and gurgling in the ceiling above you and so you start turning anything that will move listening to see if the crashing water is slowing even a tiny bit and the ladder you put up is now starting to slip and you know there is very hard, wet concrete under you and if you fall you’ll surely get knocked out and drown and there’s not another soul about except the stupid cat who’s up on the loft bed anyway with only a few brain cells that won’t motivate him until his hungry and he could care less anyway…......................afterall, he pretty much sprays anywhere anyhow!

Or when it rains the back of a wall or roof threatens to cave in? 
Or you buy a new step stool or ladder so you can finally reach a cupboard that is way to high otherwise and then the ladder or stool collapses or the shelf upon which the stuff was sitting falls down? 
Or you buy a food processor that seizes up and starts to smoke as soon as you turn it on? 
Or you have a cupboard full of glass jars of food that you can’t open unless you break them? 
Or you have a container of medication you can’t open because it has a child-proof cap (even when you told the pharmacist you had no children) and you’re in searing, maddening pain and can’t get to the relief inside it?

Or that you’re house is now filled with smoke from ALL of the above, but you can’t get the windows open because they are swelled shut, or painted shut, or too heavy, or the springs inside are broken. 

But then, there’s that drive-by shooter who fixes everything

To be honest, no, I’ve never had any of those problems.

Nor have I. Maybe you’ve got everyone else’s bad luck when it comes to housing and household objects.

Be glad that you can afford a house despite its misfortunes?

Us “youngsters” have no hope of ever owning a home with todays market prices.  We are effectively shut out unless we want to drive over an hour to work each day, which is insane in its own right due to gas prices.

Try living in a box on the second floor of a building, noisy neighbors above and below while having to work night shift so you can afford to pay the rent which is currently 50% of your salary…  not to mention the fact that the appliances are Leave it to Beaver era and hardly work, and every attempt to get the main office to fix them results in a “they worked for the tenant before you”

That was a long run on there…

And mind you, I have a college degree and work in a Medical Laboratory, I cant imagine how people working retail for min-wage are getting along!

Its all a little nuts!

Emidawg - 08 June 2006 04:11 AM

Be glad that you can afford a house despite its misfortunes?

Us “youngsters” have no hope of ever owning a home with todays market prices.  We are effectively shut out unless we want to drive over an hour to work each day, which is insane in its own right due to gas prices.

Try living in a box on the second floor of a building, noisy neighbors above and below while having to work night shift so you can afford to pay the rent which is currently 50% of your salary…  not to mention the fact that the appliances are Leave it to Beaver era and hardly work, and every attempt to get the main office to fix them results in a “they worked for the tenant before you”

That was a long run on there…

And mind you, I have a college degree and work in a Medical Laboratory, I cant imagine how people working retail for min-wage are getting along!

Its all a little nuts!

I agree with you Emidawg.  I’ve never owned a home either and wouldn’t consider even buying now.  The last place I worked was FOR my landlord and my pay was for rent and then an allowance was added so I could get food.  THEN the floors above me flooded and believe it or not, all the apartments around me as well as above got saturated EXCEPT mine!  The hall way walls looked like waterfalls, but no water came down on me! 

But I didn’t have to commute that time, just walked across the lawn.  Prior to that I had commutes of up to 1-1/2 hours to get to work one way. 

I too have a college degree….....and haven’t been employed now for 2 years.  It’s when your budget is limited that what you actually own and your options limited that you’re particularly vulnerable though.

Gee, I am so lucky, my house holds together pretty well.

Those stupid pop-up drains, though!  If you loosen the rod under the sink and take it out a bit, then twist them just right and gently tug upwards, they cork-screw back out of the drain, allowing all the germs in there a breath of fresh air, so they can begin their assault on the rest of the home.  No, I mean, so you can zap them with something harsh, and flush it out.  I recommend drano, just don’t bend over the sink so you can watch the gore, the stuff might shoot back up into your eyes.

That holiday in the floor at the threshold (in construction, any gap between materials is a ‘holiday’, why, I do not know) anyway, that would be an anomaly, some part was missing or something.  Since the subfloor underneath it all is continuous and installed before the wall and door framing, and is totally independent of the door, it may have appeared that the opening went down to the floor below, but it could not possibly have.  Or, for some reason, the flooring was removed to repair a plumbing or wiring problem and not put back yet.  Or perhaps Jimmy Hoffa is in there.

Here in California at least, due to the tendency of home-buyers to band together and sue the pants off the builder, stuff like this is rare, although there is a tract not too far from my home where the list of complaints is endless, the flaws are both genuine and significant, it even made the newspapers in a feature article.  The builder, of course, filed bankruptcy.  Really bold flaws, like toilets not hooked up to the sewer line, stuff like that, so unbelievable, if you saw it in a movie it would be ridiculous.

The worst design flaw to me is ABS (plastic) plumbing drain pipes, you can only take them apart with a hack-saw and then replace the whole thingy.  Once my dear daughter dropped her heirloom opal necklace down the sink drain, it took me a hundred years to get it out.

Of course, here in California, our only design headache is earthquakes, no severe weather, no freeze-thaw cycles, very little heavy rainfall, no snow loads, just lots of sunlight to keep out.

Everybody should move here!  Bring water, please!

Dan the Public Booster

Of course, here in California, our only design headache is earthquakes, no severe weather, no freeze-thaw cycles, very little heavy rainfall, no snow loads, just lots of sunlight to keep out.

Sounds a lot like Perth, except for the earthquakes.

I looked in that box full of water behind the toilet once.  Gross.

Yeh, those earthquakes are a downside….but so are tornados, hurricanes, bone-chilling cold (when everything cracks), FLOODs….  I watched a documentary this past weekend about paint (believe it or not) that is designed to use on bridges, electronics, cars and so on, the unusual surfaces.  When they were discussing cars they noted that the paint and undercoatings were designed to last 10 years (not really beyond).  That spins the idea that most folks either repaint or get a new vehicle.

In the end, everything’s disposable and the life expectancy for most man-made products appears to get shorter and shorter (however, mortgages must be on different time standards).  I lived in a house one time that was built back in 1947.  The studs through the entire house were only two inches apart and placed on a slant.  Today studs appear to be more like two feet apart (maybe more) and vertical.  There is definitely a difference in the way things are built.

hulitoons - 07 June 2006 04:10 PM

Maegan - 07 June 2006 01:58 PM

I….....................They’ve not had them long - a few years…but in Florida, we get nasty weather enough to give our windows a beating pretty quickly.  When I get my own home - we’re installing Simonton as soon as we can.

A lot of people have tile, wood, vinyl, etc… for floors. 

If we all lived in mud huts, Im sure we’d be worried about different things.

Maegan, I looked Simonton windows up but can’t tell much about them online.  I would have to be concerned about the materials surrounding where the windows themselves were to be mounted and who is supplying that material and work.  If the surrounding material is not adequate, there may be eventual damage to how the very best window functions.

Well, you’re right about them having to be put into sturdy surroundings.  But I guess I’m so enthralled with Simonton b/c they have an actual lifetime guarantee that they honor.  Even in the contractor is no longer in business, or not in the area…you can just contact Simonton & they’ll send out their own repair guy.

Anywho…I don’t even own a house now…just renting.