Mistakes

I bought Safari Tan paint for this house. I found out that the paint was not all the same lot number. The difference in color was, lets just say, very noticeable. I used all the first gallon and opened a new gallon while painting on the east side. That was a mistake. When it was dry you could tell exactly where I ran out of the first gallon. I repainted to the corner of the house. Checked the lot numbers and made sure I did not switch numbers on a side of the house again. 

Well I was this close to finished when I ran out of the lot number I had on 3 sides of the house. Once again I had made a mistake and not calculated how much it would take to cover that side of the house. Now in my defense if I was spraying, as I usually do, I would have had plenty. Takes more paint brushing it on. I did have one gallon left that did not have a number printed on the bucket. I thought, "it is what it is" and opened the gallon without the lot number. It matched!

I painted the white trim around the windows and doors. See my aluminum ladder laying there? It has seen better days. It is a bit wobbly if fully extended. Every time I have it as high as it goes and I am standing on it I am looking for something to hang onto. It is at that point I am thinking this is a mistake.

When I was painting the west side of the house I was wondering how I was going to paint the last of the trim along the roof. My ladder would kinda reach, but it was definitely extended as far as it would go and left me feeling uneasy as it would start to bend. I decided I am not scared of heights. I am scared of hitting the ground when the ladder fails. I was started on the low end when  heard someone say, "sir, sir". I looked and a neighbor on the back yard was trying to get my attention. "Do you live there?"  

"No, but I own the house."

"I have a better ladder than you are using. Use my ladder."

I took him up on that offer. It was indeed a much better ladder than I had. I painted the trim at the peak and was done in 15 minutes.

The former owner put dirt against the basement wall. I am assuming it was done to keep water from running into the basement. The dirt was half way up one of the basement windows. I am sure they thought they had solved the problem of water coming in the basement and all was good. Burying a metal window frame is not a good long term solution. It is indeed another mistake made. I dug the dirt away from the window and cut a path for the water to flow away from the house. I will have to go back when it rains to make sure it is draining.

I threw the dirt I removed from the window around the corner against the basement wall. The ground was lower against the house and water was going to pond up against the basement. That is a recipe for a wet basement and eventually a failed basement wall and foundation. If the foundation fails the house will start to sag and the sheet rock will crack. The doors will not close and the windows will not open. All because the water does not drain away from the house. 

We all make a lot of mistakes in life. Sometimes our mistakes are when we are doing our best to fix what we see as a problem and then we just create another problem. 

Usually our mistakes do not have long term consequences. There are times when they do. Right now there are a lot of people stressed because they are in their homes and have no ability to get away. The normal is gone and "mistakes" are being made. I was told this week that the need for foster parents is huge right now because of family stress. That is happening as the reports of child abuse have fallen sharply because of few interactions with mandatory reporters.

Our society is hurting right now. Mistakes are being made. If you are stressed, call someone. If your children are driving you up a wall, call a close friend or relative. Don't ruin a relationship by attacking the ones you love, because you feel you have no space.

The foundations of your life are still there. Make sure you do the small repairs and adjustments to keep them strong into the future.

If there is pressure on the foundation of your life fix it before it fails. Better to do a little work now than to have the house of your life cave in around you.

Important work

It was a slow week. It actually was a productive week it just wasn't a lot of manual labor. My mother had a cousin who, when he was younger said "I am going to find a way to make money without physical work." I did not hear where he ended up financially but he started off quite well. I may not have done a lot of "work" this week but I did get a house bought. (OK, not actually bought yet but our offer has been accepted and it is a pending sale.)

Sharon was texted by a relative of the owner that this house was up for sale about the same time I saw it come up on-line. We looked at it on Monday.

When we go through the house to look at it, I do the inspection right then . That gives us an edge because the offers we give are "no inspection, no appraisal". The deal will not fall through because of issues an inspector might find or it appraises less than offered price. Usually it works out well, except the unfortunate time I did not check and found out the entire interior of a furnace had been removed. Oh, well we were able to fit a new furnace in the budget on that house. When there is no electricity in a house when you inspect it you assume the worst. I do hope I didn't miss anything on this one because we only have a 2% allowance for overruns (Electricity was turned on and the furnace was working properly).

We were a couple of hours too late on another house that sold this week. Listed for sale and sold within an hour. That was fast. I thought we would have till noon the next day. I miscalculated, 4 people looked at it before we did. 

This is the only picture I have of the dumpster we have for a few of our tenants. This was the morning of July 5 after it had a firecracker land in it last year. Lovely bonfire that was. Anyway today it is full to overflowing and is not scheduled for emptying till Tuesday. Stimulus money was deposited in bank accounts this week (well, not my account of course, the IRS site reads, you will be informed when to expect your payment.) Anyway, I was comfortably sitting and reading Wednesday at about 8 pm when my phone rang. I really do not like calls at night because it is usually a furnace not working or a water leak spraying every where. Although my favorite is "The drain in the basement has been backed up since this morning can you get someone to fix it?" "Um, no! Not till in the morning and only then if I am the first one to call Cody." Why would anyone wait till evening to call and then just expect a repair man to hustle on over when they knew of the issue all day long? 

I met a former tenant in the hardware store this week. They bought a house 18 months ago. I encourage our tenants to buy a house when they are financially ready. I asked her if she was enjoying home ownership. (Mortgage payment would be less than rent) I loved her reply "ownership is not all that great". Yea, she was in the hardware store buying repairs that they would now have to install because there is no landlord to call. And the cost of those repairs is over and above the mortgage and escrow payment.

To get back to Wednesday night, it was a tenant calling. they were at Walmart and had bought a TV. It would not fit in their car and they were asking if I could deliver it home for them with my pickup. I am a nice guy, so I said yes. A couple of Walmart employees loaded it in the back of my pickup. I have a 6 1/2 foot bed on my pickup. The TV in the packaging filled the entire bed from cab to end gate. Stimulus money well spent!!! Got her gone!!!. 

Yes the stimulus money made it into a lot of bank accounts this week and went right back out. The dumpster is full of cardboard packaging from purchases. At least the economy is being stimulated! It's working, yea!

I did get a couple of hours in painting on Saturday. I need to paint the peak on the other side and then I am down to just the white trim on this house.

At some point the house was added on to. They removed the vertical car siding where the addition was added. I think they should have removed all of it so the clap board siding would have gone all the way across on the top peak. That extra $50 must have been above budget. Of course I am pointing fingers at others when I could have filled it in with clap board before I painted.

My biggest job this week (beside the one I have a salary for, Calm down Joel I did write checks and enter invoices and do payroll this week,) was babysitting a 3 year old girl while Sharon took a class on-line. We watched some Curious George videos, read a few Bible stories, and played "where's Micah" while looking at old pictures. After a while she could recognize Micah as a teenager but the pictures where he was a child had her pointing at me if I was in the picture. 

I started by saying it was a slow week, but it wasn't. We bought a house which is an investment that will pay dividends for years to come. I spent some time with a 3 year old. I know others have been telling her that God loves her, but the first time I said "God loves you" to her this week she said "No!" By Friday she didn't say no anymore. 

If I and several other people in her life right now are telling her about Jesus and that God loves her, that is the most important thing I could have done this week.

I know some are very worried about the economy right now. I know some think there should be no social distancing and we should just let covid run it's course. Others look at the science and epidemiology and advocate for even more closures and social distancing. This is not a place where I am going to argue the point. We do know it is going to take lives no matter what we do. I was privileged to tell a little girl this week, "God loves you"? How about you?  That is the important work to do right now. Tell someone who needs to hear it, God loves you.

New Normal

I had a busy week this past week. I have several items on my agenda already for this week as well. 

Caitlyn called me that a window broke in her kitchen. We knew when we purchased the house a couple of months back that the windows would have to be replaced.

There was no way I was going to try to buy a pane of glass from stores that are locked to walk in traffic and then put it in an old window that was on our replacement list in the next couple of years. Since there were 2 windows side by side I replaced them both. Now there are 2 of the 8 windows finished. I did ask Caitlyn not to let the other windows drop so she would get new ones. She was horrified at the thought of that. I was kidding.

We have such good tenants. Not a one of them would even think of purposefully damaging a house and none of them would try to take advantage of the ban on evictions and not pay the rent. 

Tuesday I decided I should start working on the house we have that needs paint this year. We have never painted a house unless we put new siding on first (I take that back, we have painted 2 houses with the asbestos siding on them. That stuff will last forever and it didn't have to be scraped.) This house has 3/4 inch thick wood siding in excellent shape. When we have painted garages the paint starts to come off within 2 years as the underlying paint continues to delaminate (got that term from a profession commercial painter). 

This would normally be a 5 hour job with our sprayer, but having had such lousy results spraying garages, I decided to brush the paint on. After scraping the house I have spent 2 1/2 days painting. I just keep telling myself every board painted is done and I will get finished eventually.

 I thought I could get a little more painted Saturday morning before it started to rain in the afternoon. I painted under entry way (still white in this picture) because it was sheltered under a roof. I had just finished painting that section and was wondering if I could paint just a little on the peak when it started to sprinkle. Go home Royce! I do not enjoy painting with a brush and have no desire to do it twice. Before I had the ladders loaded up it was raining so I made the right choice ( I have to write that to celebrate the time I was right,)

I had just gotten home when I was texted that a handle had broken off a shower. I thought, maybe the screw came out of the handle and it just came off. I have never seen a handle just break off a shower. I gathered up my wrenches and went over to just put the handle back on and tighten up the screw. Yea, I should have know better than that. Deon is a very capable man. If it was just the screw came loose he would have fixed it. The shower actually was manufactured with a plastic piece that pulled out and then turned either way for hot or cold. All of them I have purchased have a metal rod in there. Yea that piece of plastic was broken in half. The thought of installing a new shower assembly behind a tub surround makes shivers run down my spine. I did one a couple of months back so I knew it could be done, but this was a Saturday and the supply stores open are limited. I purchased all the 1/2 inch female SharkBite connections the open store had and I had enough in storage to finish the job. Got out the saws-all and set to work. It was a tight fit but I got it back together. Turned the water back on and one side of the new shower assembly leaked (OK, it sprayed water). Oh, great. I got back out the saws-all and cut the one side back off. Then I had to try to salvage the sharkbite connection because there was no more to be had. You can push the fitting in and pull the pipe out of a sharkbite if you have the tool for it. I have the tool, but I had cut the pipe too short to get a hold of  the end. I laid it on the pavement and carefully HIT IT WITH A HAMMER. I am still stunned that it actually cracked the pipe so I could pull it out of the sharkbite fitting with out damaging the fitting. I have a feeling that is a once in a lifetime happening.

Got it put back together and turned the water back on. Still a drip coming off the hot water pipe in the basement. The shutoff on the hot line was a plastic one. I thought,OK, that shutoff started leaking from being turned off and on a couple of times. That is not unusual. Put my finger around the pipe to make sure the water was not coming from higher up in the wall  and running down the pipe. Put the light of my flashlight on it to make sure the water was not running down from above the turnoff. You can see where this is going can't you? 

I cut out the turn off, went and bought a ball shut off (always put ball shut offs in you water lines. Always, did you get that, always ball shut offs.) Put in the new shut off and turned the water back on. Of course the drip was worse than when I started. I went back up and took the panel off behind the shower wall. Yes the leak was actually right by the shower valve. The sharkbite on the opposite side of the one I had already fixed was leaking. Sharkbites have to have the pipe pressed firmly into them. Working in a confined space does not give much leverage. I put a screw driver between the stud and the elbow of the pipe and gave it a pull. The pipe sank another 1/4 inch into the fitting and leak stopped. I can console myself that there is now a proper ball shut off in the line (still what a waste of time energy and money).

My week was about as normal as it could be with Covid 19 wreaking havoc on all normal commerce. I have learned to do all bank transactions at the drive up. I have learned there is only one entrance to Walmart. I have learned businesses are either open shorter hours or by calling in only. Saturday I had to get everything I needed for the shower because the store was closing early. 

This morning I sat in an almost empty church building for the Easter service. I am the Elder who is chairman of the Worship Committee so Sharon and I attend the live stream services to lend any aid we can in setting up the services. It was really kind of sad this morning to be the only 2 people sitting in the pews. God calls us to live in community and in relationship with others. It hit home to me this morning, I think because it was Easter. Where were the friends and family who usually rejoice with me on Easter morning?

So even though my week was somewhat normal in an abnormal time, it was not the same. Life has changed.

Just about 2000 years ago life seemed normal for almost everyone in a small providence of the Roman empire. There was one thing that was not normal as they went through the preparations for their Holy Week before Passover. The leaders wanted a man dead. Friday they got the Romans to agree and they killed that man. But Sunday morning the world would never be the same normal again. That man came back to life and the world was changed forever. 

So this morning we may not have met and greeted each other in churches across the world but to all of you I say, "Christ has risen from the dead and life will never be the same again." Now the gates of eternal life are open and Jesus not only paid for my sin he has risen from the dead and death has been conquered. Hallelujah!

Essential worker?

Last weekend I think people were getting fed up with no place to go. I wonder what this weekend will be like. Monday morning the tenant of the below house came out to meet me. "I know you are going to be angry" she said. That is never a good start to a conversation. First thought that goes through my mind is, I am getting no rent out of this house for April. No, that was not what she had to tell me. She said "Someone threw a brick through a window." OK not the worst news in the world, if it is a double hung window, both panes do come out and you just take it to Oskaloosa Glass and they order the new pane and it comes in about a week later. Yes, it was a double hung window. the bottom sash tilted out and the top sash which was broken came out. I took the window over to Oskaloosa Glass. I figured I could just leave it there while the new one was ordered and I would pick up a piece of insulation to keep out the rain and the cold. Doors were locked at Oskaloosa Glass. One of the guys was in the back and I did get in finally and handed him the window. He looked at it and said "I don't think this pane can be replaced." What, are you kidding me? They built the pane into the frame of the window. 

I drove down to Menards and bought a whole new replacement pocket window. My choice was one that was 3/8 inch too wide or one that was 3 and 1/2 inches too narrow. I went with the narrow one because I could fill in around the new window but cutting 3/8 inch off the stud or moving it over and redoing the sheet-rock and the siding was way more than I could even contemplate. 

Also had a mailbox get run over and smashed Sunday night on the opposite side of town as the smashed window. It did break my heart to see whoever ran over it, left a piece of their car behind. Yea, that nigh unto made me cry. I hope it cracked his front grill as well. I had a pole in storage and all I had to buy was the box. But I had to re-dig the hole.

See that range? tenant told me it was not working. The igniters would not work and the oven wouldn't lite either. I asked where it plugged in, so I could check the outlet for current. Yea, the plug for the gas stove was just hanging behind the stove. Don't know who decided a gas stove didn't need to be plugged in (it was plugged in and working when he moved in 2 month back). That was the easiest stove repair I have ever done.

This morning I received a call that a bath tub wasn't draining. This may look like a real mess of drain pipes, but it was done right. A lot of turn outs at the ends of the lines. I could turn out the ends and find the clog. Only took about 10 minutes. These are usually deals where first you try an industrial drain opener and then you get out the saws-all and start cutting the lines in pieces. Last year I had a kitchen line that was full of aquarium gravel. By the way, I found out drain cleaner doesn't work on gravel! That line had to be cut while it was full of drain water, in a finished basement. Oh, that was lovely. Tenant was hopping mad that all the dirty water she had backed up by filling both sides of the kitchen sink full came out in the basement and it did not all go into the bucket I had setting ready to catch it. I really had no sympathy when I found the line was full of gravel. The tenant assured me she had not put the gravel down the drain. She said she had lived there for 7 years (she was in the house when we bought it) and the drain had never been slow before so it was obvious she hadn't put the gravel down the drain. Yea, I didn't buy that reasoning, especially not when 3 months later the line was full of aquarium gravel again. Someone must be breaking into the house when she is gone just to plug up her kitchen drain. The first time I told her if she didn't put the gravel in the drain she had better find out who did and stop them from doing it again. Second time you just shrug and think, well I can't fix this one, stupid is as stupid does.

Received notification from the assessor's office today that they have put a new value on this house. It was in bad shape when we bought it, (Ok, we bought it for the value of the lot). The Assessor sent someone out to look at the house after the purchase to see why it had sold so low. He said he would be back in a year to revalue it. Well, the year is up and he came back.  the house's value on the tax roll was quadrupled. That means the taxes next year will quadruple. 

We did do a lot of work to the house but come on, value times 4?

Nice bathroom now though.

And a nice kitchen but it is the 2nd highest valued house we have and it is one of the older homes. I don't think I am going to file a protest as they might ask what I am basing my protest on, and it might be the wrong answer to say, "well we have a lot of houses worth more than this one and they are valued lower". They might ask for a list and raise the value on a lot more of them. No, the prudent course might be just to let it be.

Even though we do not have a project house right now, and I am social distancing, I did have some small projects to do this week. It was good to get out and do some work.

If we get a shelter in place order, I wonder if I would be classified as an essential worker. A house with a window broken out needs to be fixed to be able to heat the house. Smashed mailbox needs to be replaced so people can get mail. Stoves and other appliances need to be fixed. Drains need to keep running waste water out. To do these jobs I need supplies. If  stores only sell essential items, does caulk and paint count to seal up a house when a new window is installed? Is drain opener an essential item? Who makes the decisions here? 

It seems so simple on the surface. Sharon has been making face masks for the school and hospital. She is running out of supplies. Is that essential supplies? Cloth, ribbon and thread? If it isn't, tough luck to you health care workers. It is called unintended consequences or the butterfly effect. One decision impacts so many. I know a lot of people are loudly yelling we need a shelter in place here in Iowa. Yes, we do if we as a people are going to ignore the reality of this virus, but if we all act responsibly, we can keep the supply chain open and running and weather this storm without a lock down.

There will always be storms in life. It is how we deal with those storms that tell us what kind of a people we are. We are in the midst of a crisis and I am disappointed in those who refuse to pull together to a common goal. If all those who feel the need to say Its the Republicans or the Democrats fault would instead ask how can we solve this together we would be a lot better off. It used to be called compromise and was seen as a strength, now it is seen as a weakness. President Reagan and Tip O'Neill sat down and made deals in the early 80's. Today they would be called traitors. Come on people, encourage your politicians to sit down with those across the aisle and say, this is what I think we need , what do you think we need and how can we work it out so there is something for both of us.

Jesus said "a new command I give you, love one another." that has been missing from politics for 20 years now. Lets bring it back and have something good come out of this crisis.