The great plans for a massive spring clean have gone awry, the bulk of the issue rests solely on this house, with a large part being…well, us. We’ve just lost any will to do anything here, even the basic stuff seems out of reach sometimes.

We’re trying. We really are; the hope that we’ll find somewhere better, somewhere – safe – to live, is waning. Literally, I’ve seen Carrie go from happy, bright and snappy to angry, depressed and hopeless just by walking in the door. Rhia? She gave up long ago.

Friday – I did.

The hot water tank decided to die. Once again, something major in this house owned by the landlord, I warned him that it was dying and needed to be replaced. I’ve not had a response. So I’m going to do what he told me to do in regards to fixing walls, etc.

We’ve bought a new one and I’ll send him the receipt in lieu of rent for April. The overage and installation cost is coming out of May rent. I bought the cheapest one that’s big enough for a family of three with no washing machine or dishwasher.

There’s a lot in this house that we could fix ourselves, but we don’t have time. Carrie is only available during the winter, and in a house this small with few windows (and they’re generally frozen shut in winter) I’d rather not kick up a massive amount of dust and have lingering paint fumes. So what are we going to do? We’re going to get a contractor to come in and write a list of what needs to be done, and how much it’ll cost per job.

Roof? Yes – X amount
Bathroom? Yes – details & X amount
Sunroom? Yes – details & X amount
Rhia’s closet? Yes – details & X amount
Carrie’s floor/ceiling? Yes – details & X amount
Basement? Yes – details & X amount

The cosmetic crap we can do in our spare time, that’s stripping the peeling moldy wallpaper and re-painting. The big tickets are going to be the roof and the ceilings in the sunroom and Rhia’s closet. Well, and the basement… Whoever thinks having a wood foundation is a good thing around here can take a leap off the center of the Golden Gate Bridge. This one is less than 20 years old, and is already collapsing.

It’s funny that the oldest and the newest parts of the house are the safest and in the best condition. My bedroom was the last piece constructed and added on. So far, no major problems. The living room is the old house; everything else is a lean-to addition except my room. That was actually constructed properly, and is over the mostly cinder block foundation. That one corner though, why the one owner replaced it with wood instead of using a half-ton load of cinder block and mortar…

Who knows. Whatever can be done with a case of beer and your buddies in between football games, I guess.

And no, I’m not being sarcastic.

We’ve lived here 8 years. Other than his purchase of the place, the land taxes, and replacing the fridge (twice) – he hasn’t had to put much more than $400 into it.

I’d be more than willing to stay here much longer, if everything were fixed and done right. I just don’t think he’s willing to put money into it, even though he has more than doubled his investment. Probably tripled it by now, actually.

Yeah, so because I was tooling around yesterday getting the tank and the bits, then the dolly to haul it into the house, and blah blah blah… that’s why I’m late with this post.

So, I guess maybe this weekend, there’ll be cleaning as well as 10k words written!

Til next week…
<3 JL