Unwanted

At the end of last summer, we had these black droppings on a piece of our deck right up against the house. I foolishly thought is was some bird roosting on the window sill. It was back again this week. Sharon said someone had bats in their entry way and I thought , Oh no, I don't want bats in our attic.

Well, guess what. The bats did not make it all the way into the attic but were inside the vent up at the peak. They could not get into the attic because of the wire screening. 

I hate bats. Did I mention that I do not like bats. I do not care if they eat insects. They can eat all they want as long as they stay away from me and out of my house.

I hung a light in the attic and as of this morning, there are no bats in our vent. They are unwanted by me. They need to live else where and come out at night to eat the bugs. If you try to tell me bats eat mosquitoes, the research is not very good on that unless you confine the bats in an enclosure with mosquitoes, otherwise they prefer other bugs. They sure did not clean the mosquitoes out of our yard last year.

Having driven them out of our vent, I was concerned where they would roost next. I lit a fire in one of our fire places just to give them some smoke in case they went into the covered chimney for a new home. We have 4 chimneys so I am keeping an eye on all of them.

Spent some time with Cody and with Irv and his crew this week. In the picture above Irv put a new sewer line in a house we had sold with the promise of a new septic system. Turns out the old line was full of tree roots.

Irv and crew (I know Tim, you were there but I don't know the other guy's name) pulled out the old bell tile and put in new PVC line. This was the 5th line we have had plugged this month. Cody has cleaned out 4 for us and I hope we are done for a while. The tree roots are looking for water and are growing through cracks in the lines. The shortage of toilet paper has caused some things to be flushed that should not have been. This has made the problem worse as various wipes and paper towels get caught on roots and block the lines. I do not want the roots in the lines and I do not want the non-flush-able products in the sewer lines.

My week was a week of stuff being where I don't want it. This morning I received a phone call from a woman who was crying. She said, "Mr. Royce I am calling the people I had contact with. I was tested for covid and I feel awful. The test will come back in 3 days. I am headed back to the hospital now. " Great, I met her Friday morning just a couple of hours before her health went down hill. Only 14% of tests come back positive for covid so the odds are high she will be negative and I can go on with life as normal by Tuesday morning. But I will guarantee you it is not something I want in my life. Right now I am staying away from everyone as much as possible, so if she is positive and they start doing a contact trace, at least I will not have messed up a lot of other's lives by exposing them as well.

Every Sunday Sharon and I have been going to church because I am the Elder chairman of worship committee this year. There were just a few of us there. Pastor Jon, the accompanist, maybe 3 or 4 singers for the praise team, the sound tech, the video person to put the service on-line and Sharon and me as the congregation. This week is the first week our church will be having attended services again and we will not be there. Kind of strange, we went every week when no one else could and now that services are opening up again we will be at home waiting for a covid test result.

We take so much of our normal life for granted, until it is taken away from us. Many of us are now living in a new reality. No hand shakes, no hugs, staying 6 feet away from others. Shopping once a week. Businesses we can not get into unless we have an appointment or order over the phone and they set the purchase outside the door. We are living with a lot of unwanted things in our lives.

I have a dental appointment on Wednesday, at this point I am assuming she will be negative and I will not be quarantined, but I did laugh when I was told I would have to wear a mask to the appointment. I know, it is for protection of staff and other patients until you sit in the dentist chair but still the vision of doing dental work on a patient wearing a mask amuses me. 

I hope and everyone can find a little humor in the unwanted stuff in their lives. Oh, did I mention I hate bats?

Blessings?

Nancy has been asking for a deck on the back of her house for over a year now. My reply was always no. No one else in this cul-de-sac we own has a deck.

She finally got my attention by saying "the step is too high I can't get in the back door." Nancy has a bad hip and she won the argument. Although the day after I put the deck on, when she asked me when I was going to put the railing around it, she just about got it taken back off.

We have a policy of no dogs on chains. It is written into our leases. I have looked the other way on the dog tied part of the time to this tree. This week I saw the dog had gotten the chain to spin around the tree. Another couple of weeks and I think the tree will be cut down. The tree will die now anyway. It has been rung.

I started putting a new roof on a house this week. I usually put up scaffolding now. I am getting old and Micah wasn't around to help. Sharon asked how long it would take for me to get it done. I said, "well Micah and Matthew would finish in about 4 hours. I figure about 4 days should be about right for me to get it done." 

When Micah and Matthew were putting on roofs professionally a man once asked if the bill would be less if he carried the bundles of shingles to them. 4 young guys, 2 with nail guns and 2 feeding them shingles. The man told me, "every 90 seconds I had to have a bundle on the roof to keep up. Every 90 seconds!" I'm not that fast.

I hate moving the scaffolding. I am not that fond of setting it up, but I really hate moving it. Yes there are wheels, but they always seem to be setting sideways and working as brakes. Did I mention I hate moving scaffolding. 

I was hoping to get the North side finished on Thursday. Started our air compressor and climbed up on the roof. The compressor just kept running. I looked over the edge of the roof and I could see the gauge. It read 100 pounds. That is barely enough to drive the nails and it should have been at 150 pounds with 125 in the air line. I went down and shut it off and restarted it (I know that is a vain hope but it works with computers and compressor is sort of a similar word) Nope still only 100 pounds of pressure. I shut it off and blew the tanks empty (twin tank compressor) and tapped on the regulator and lines. Then I restarted it and it went all the way up to 15 pounds. Wow that really fixed the problem. So my solution was buy a new compressor. Couldn't get into the first store I tried. Had to call them and they had to call me back (they did call back 6 hours later). Went to another store and choices were a small one that would not feed a roof nailer or one so big it was meant to be stationary. As I was looking at the lousy choices a man sidled up to me and said, "go to Walmart, they carry them in the store and I have had mine from there for years and it runs all my air tools". So I did what I never thought I would do, bought a tool at Walmart. Look at what covid 19 has driven me to. Sad!

As I was dropping one of the last bundles of shingles on the roof, I did not get my hand out from under it quick enough. The bundle slid down the roof a couple of inches. I pulled my hand out and thought, wow that hurts and I don't see any damage. Then I noticed that even though it looked normal the shingles had sanded a couple of layers of skin off. Right then was when the blood just started to seep through the remaining skin.

Left a few trails of blood on the roof but I finished the north side on schedule.

Friday I finished the large section of the south side and tore down the scaffolding. All I had left for Saturday was that small 6 foot section to the right.

Then Micah told me he wanted to work on his house on Saturday.

Friday late afternoon we went to Home Depot in Des Moines to pick up flooring. We waited 45 minutes for them to bring it out and load it. Then I thought, I am not driving back through Des Moines the way google maps sent us to Home depot. I am going to drop down to the bypass. Was merrily driving along when we saw the sign. Off ramp closed at University. So we were blessed and got to drive 10 more miles through Altoona. Lucky us. 

Micah wanted a wall removed before we laid the flooring. See all the electrical wires in the wall? I had told him I was going to be on vacation when he removed that wall. Well that didn't work out for me. We had to trace all the wires, disconnect and rerun them today. 

I am getting smarter. I take a picture of 3 way switches before disconnecting them. Too many ways to not put them back together correctly and then it becomes a game of trial and error. We had all the wires reconnected and Micah turned the breaker back on. All the lights worked first time out. Now that is close to a miracle. 

Where we took out the wall and a built in book case, we need to fill in some sub flooring. I told Micah I would see what we had in storage. I found this piece of 3/4 in wood. That is not a piece of plywood. It is a board that is 22 1/4 inches wide sawn out of a log. I do not remember what house we pulled it out of, but I would like to know when the last time was you could by a board over 20 inches wide. Seems a shame to cut it down to the 16 inches we need.

It was a week of progress and pain. Deck built, roof almost on, wall removed , that's progress. Tree killed, air compressor replaced, finger sanded down, that's pain. Life is filled with good and bad. How you respond to the pain and joys of life will dictate your attitude and emotional and mental state. I know many are stressed now because life is not normal. Take a deep breath and look for the blessings in your life. Maybe, ask God to open your eyes to see the blessings he is giving you right now. Maybe, after you talk to God, start making a list of all the good things in your life. If you are at all like me, the blessings far out weigh any pain.

Hidden in plain sight

I found out I was playing a game this week when I didn't know I was.

I was sitting in my office entering rent payments into the accounting software and data sheet when the 3 year old girl who visits us 3 days a week came running into my office. "I found you" she yelled.

"I didn't know I was lost" was my reply.

She ran out of the room and I could hear her start to count.

She came running back in and yelled "I found you".

Then she did it all over again. It took 3 times before I figured out we were playing hide and seek and I wasn't very good at hiding.

Later, I told her we could play again and I would look for her. She ran through the kitchen

into the back entry way and stood by the door. It wasn't real tough to find her. She hid in the exact same spot every time. When I would "find" her she would scream with joy.

We looked at a house this week. Our opinion is, it is over priced,but just because we think that doesn't mean someone else won't find it to be a bargain. In the basement there was an interior half wall made of brick. As you can see it is failing, or perhaps better said, it has failed. I have no idea why this wall has so much pressure behind it. It is about 6 feet inside the house. There is a crawl space for the 6 feet and the dirt behind the bricks looks dry. It obviously has water pressure against it some of the time. Someone tried to cover the failing wall with wood, but the wood has given way as the wall pushes out and the bulging bricks are no longer hidden.

Then there was this special fix of the basement door. The basement stairs hand rail was a little too long. Now I would have cut the rail back a foot so the door would clear it. that just shows I have no imagination or capability of thinking outside the box. Why shorten the rail and cause a dangerous situation of not having a hand hold for that last step when you can just cut a notch in the door. Ingenious solution. Most of us would want the hand rail to be hidden when the door was closed. Shows we are closed minded I guess.

We are in the Spring season. The plants are growing and the lawns are being cut. The farmers are planting their crops and "The heavens declare the glory of God". The truth to some is hidden in plain sight. There is a God who reveals himself in all the world around us. To many He is hidden in plain sight because they do not want to see the works of God.

I know there are those who are asking where is God when people are dying of a virus and our economy is shut down. It is a question that has been asked for thousands of years. Where is God in a drought when people die of famine. Where is God when plagues ravage the land. Where is God when evil men rise to power and the land is filled with shed blood. God is still there and though evil may seem to reign for a season, God will reveal himself in due time and there will be shalom. He may seem hidden to us for a season but if we search we will see that he is in plain sight.

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.