Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

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jjreason
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Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by jjreason »

So yeah. New roof needed on the abode. Made a deal for cash & everything starts according to plan (no, I didn't pay up front - thank God as you'll soon see). The job gets about 1/3 of the way completed & our guy starts having equipment problems. He breaks off for the day & the crew hasn't returned - this was 3 days ago now. Yesterday was a sunny day. The captain shows up alone & works for about an hour, then speaks to a guy down the street who's roof he just did last week. Leaves & doesn't return. We have no roof on 3 sides of the house, however all the black underlay is there so we're good right?

Not right. This am around 6 I'm woken up by the pat pat pat of dripping water. We have water marks on the main floor ceiling and the floor & stairs are quite wet. I put pots down to catch the 2 drip spots & towel things up. Photos taken of the marks on the ceiling where the water has soaked through. Minor inspection reveals no further wet places that I can find for now.

A few hours later, Tom gets up and heads down to his cave in the basement - suddenly there is more water to deal with that I didn't find earlier (silly me for thinking I had it all on the main floor). The basement floor is very wet, right underneath the same spot that was leaking upstairs. Enough water came through that it dripped through the roof, upper floor and main floor, then trickled onto the basement floor. An extension cord is lying in water. So I get that toweled up. By now the rain has stopped & so has the dripping. My hope is that there is no water trapped - that it all made its way through one drip point or another and is now soaked up. Fans are blowing all over in hopes of drying it all out & avoiding mold.

Best part? I've called the contractor every hour on the hour since 8am - it's now 1230 and I've had no call or text back. I don't care if he finishes the roof, but someone needs to get their ass up there & make sure that leaky point is covered over with something - I don't give a fuck what. I have no idea how to determine where the water is getting in - looking out the upper floor windows, the area is completely littered with tools & packages of materials, with loose nails and shit everywhere. Fuck me. :oops:
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by anarky »

Not that it makes it better, but you sound like you've got a legit lawsuit on your hands. :(
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jjreason
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by jjreason »

He came back & worked for a few hours, including being up on the roof during a god damned thunderstorm, trying to at least get the holes covered up. He then came in & ripped apart all the wet drywall to let it air out so we don't get mold. I'm guessing 2 months to get it all fixed, and I'm only paying him for the original price negotiated for the roof. No idea how he'll cover the rest, but I think he'll have to go through his insurance. 2 grand at least, just for materials.
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by Tom Foolery »

I don't own a home yet, but not owning a home does blow. Because there's no space to have all my accumulated stuff, and pissing $700 away on rent every month that could be going towards equity in a house is just fiscally shitty.

Sorry, your roof guy is a flake. :-(
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jjreason
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by jjreason »

I was trying to figure out some way to rent & save, and there just isn't one that's feasible. The people who own homes best, in my opinion, have at least a jack of most trades type knowledge of at least SOME of the systems (be it electric, plumbing, something), I know the square root of fuck all. It's dangerous because it's very difficult to see if someone is taking you for ride until you're in the car, around the block & doing 90mph with no seatbelt on. :(
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by Diabolical »

I've been on both sides of the equation.

With owning, it's nice to be able to do whatever the fuck you want to the property, but the it sucks that you have to pay for it all.
Renting can be good, if you have a good landlord. Mine are nice people, but it took a week to get a very leaky kitchen faucet replaced.

After the divorce, I was looking at buying another place, but I'm holding off for now. The price range I was looking at would have been cheaper than renting, but with my bachelor's degree in sight I don't know what my future holds and I don't want to be stuck with a house if I have to move. Hell, if it weren't for school, I'd be out of this city right now.
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Tom Foolery
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by Tom Foolery »

jjreason wrote:I was trying to figure out some way to rent & save, and there just isn't one that's feasible. The people who own homes best, in my opinion, have at least a jack of most trades type knowledge of at least SOME of the systems (be it electric, plumbing, something), I know the square root of fuck all. It's dangerous because it's very difficult to see if someone is taking you for ride until you're in the car, around the block & doing 90mph with no seatbelt on. :(
My parents have a bunch of books on basic home maintenance (Think the '...For Dummies' books, but from the 70s and 80s. And you'd be surprised how much of it is "is that all the fuck there is to it??" on many basic problems. I've surprised myself fixing outlets and pipes and shit by following basic directions out of a book. Like most things in life you just have to do it a few times to get comfortable with it.



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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by Diabolical »

I know people who have zero maintenance/repair experience but have done complete remodels, using (reliable) Youtube videos.
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by jjreason »

I lack the experience & the know-how, but even more sadly I lack ANY motivation whatsoever to learn about that stuff. It stresses me out when the house is torn up and I don't even want to see what's going on behind the walls. I'm the guy that would rather live with a minor problem than create a huge fucking mess to fix it - luckily/unluckily my wife is the opposite - she'll tear anything apart and then take an eternity putting it back together. :frus:
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by Slicker »

For those that are on Facebook my house troubles are readily apparent. However I attribute most of it to tenants that wanted to live in the fucking Palace of Versailles instead of a 1400 square-foot single story home. That plus a rental agency that encourages tenants to cry about everything so they can charge me for the repairs.
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jjreason
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by jjreason »

Yeah I can see that getting very tired, very quickly. No roofers again today. He called asking for $500. I said no & he's mad. Apparently 5 workers will be here tomorrow to finish the entire roof, I'll pay him the balance minus $500 I'm holding until he's done inside. Another thunderstorm came today & started blowing loose shingles off, I honestly thought it was all coming apart until I saw the backing still on them. Nearly shit.
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by vynsane »

that whole situation just sucks huge donkey balls.

having done a ton of work on our house (basically a complete gut and reno) i will say it's a hell of a lot easier than it seems like it would be. that said, my father-in-law was a huge help, being a replacement window guy by trade and jack-of-all-trades aside from that. the worst part of walls is the spackling. that shit just sucks. especially the corners. we also didn't do the plumbing or electrical work because we needed licensed contractors for that per the city. but everything else we did ourselves. completely remodeled the downstairs layout to remove a bunch of walls, slightly reworked the second floor, new bathroom upstairs, new kitchen. still have a lot to do, though - bathroom downstairs needs to be reinstalled (we moved it from one side of the house to the other) and all window and door molding. we also have a piece of granite countertop for a bar-height peninsula between the kitchen and dining room which needs to be cut to fit and hauled back inside.

probably the thing i'm most proud of is taking the entire chimney down to below the first floor and patching the roof where it was.
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jjreason
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by jjreason »

Amazing, nice work Vynnie! I'm sure every time you do a job like that the first time, it becomes easier in the future... the fear of the unknown is just immense for me still, even though I'm in my 40s. She now wants to put in an offer on a cheaper house closer to the kids' school for next year, so we'll see - I might just be forced to learn a few things in the coming months.
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by Ran »

I had to shell out $5,500 back in September for a new AC unit. The pan on the old unit leaked and dripped into the hallway. My father in law helped me with the drywall. The floor in the hallway is tile, so it wasn't damaged. Our refrigerator died a month after that.

It is about time we do some painting on the exterior. I'd also like to expand the patio in the back yard using pavers. Both of those are things I can do myself. The problem is that it is too hot here to do it now. I might be able to do the patio if I start in the morning. The painting will have to wait until the fall. Our water here is hard, so there is a good chance I'll be replacing the faucet in the kitchen sink soon, too.
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Re: Owning a home blows. Not owning a home must also blow.

Post by anarky »

I have to say, I have no idea how people owned homes before the internet. They must've paid gazillions to plumbers, electricians, and other contractors. There's still shit I'd pay someone else to do, but so much of it is spelled out online for free.
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