Diary Of A House: Part 2

Chapter 2: The move

So now Montyp2000 has a house.

It was a sad day when I had to go into the apartment managers office and tell them that I was leaving. I grew to love those nice ladies that I handed money to each and every month. But alas, I was moving on to bigger and better things… so I thought.

The move itself was fairly painless. Having moved 3 times already before, I was getting fairly good at it. Most of my belongings were still in boxes from the last move so that was nice. My friend Justin had been so kind as to lend me a hand in my moving because he is such a generous person. Ha ha ha ha ha… I know I know… he isn’t. He only did it because he knew I would be helping him move out of his house soon enough and all his kindness would be paid back to him with interest. We had just about everything moved into the house in a day and I even had my room set up. I and my faithful friend Justin moved all the big items while Anastasia and her mom moved all the little 5lb boxes. Stupid girls. They want equal rights and equal pay and to be in the military, but when it comes to lifting heavy things, that’s a mans job. That’s right ladies, we’ll get the couch while you take the cushions. That’s fair. The couch was defiantly the worst part. It was far too big to get through the back door so we went through the front. It took us 30 min and a lot of swearing to get the couch past the porch and into the living room. For some reason, only 2 of the 4 legs on the bottom of the couch would come off. Well after all the sweat and agony of getting the massive and comfy couch into the living room we decided to plop it down right in the middle of the room and take a rest. Now this was obviously not where we were going to leave it but no sooner did we sit down to relax but Anastasia came into the room and says, “Don’t you think the couch would look better over there?” Justin and I looked at each other to make sure we heard that right. Did that bitch just tell us to move the couch? She must not realize that couches and beds and dressers and TV’s and TV stands weigh a lot more than the boxes of clothes and flatware that she and her mother were hauling. After the move was finally finished it was time for relaxing. Sigh…. Sometimes I am so naïve.

Chapter 3: If it sounds too good to be true…

There are some things to know about my house before we go any further.

The house I bought was in a nice area. It was built in 1908 and has 2 stories on it with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms… sort of. The house was previously owned by an old couple who lived there for most of their lives. They got too old to go up and down the stairs so they shut off the upstairs some 20 years ago and had been living in the den ever since. Well the only bathroom in the house at the time was upstairs so they took off a section of the living room and turned it into a shower room. That’s right… just a shower room. It has the old people handle in it and the big rubber flowers and everything. In the kitchen, they did away with the pantry and turned that into the bathroom. Well in the 20 years of isolation, the upstairs went to shit and required some major work before Anastasia and I could live up there. We decided to live downstairs until the renovations were done. Anastasia being the selfish person that she was decided to set up her camp in the dining room right next to the air conditioner. I set up my room in the den which offered more privacy, but was hotter than hell. I didn’t mind though because we knew it would just be temporary. Ha ha ha… what a fool I was.

My dad was going to help us with fixing up the house but unfortunately for us he was currently working on my uncles house in Chicago. It would be a few months before he would finish up over there and start on my house. In the mean time, Anastasia and I wanted to get started on little projects that we could do ourselves. Anastasia, her mother, and her friends all pitched in and tore down the ugly wallpaper in the kitchen and painted. It was great. I left in the morning to go to work and when I got home it was like a brand new kitchen had sprung up from the ashes of the old one.

I decided to be a bit more daring and attempt to remove the carpet from the stairs and upstairs rooms. The carpet that was there must have been installed in the late 60’s. It was a pea soup green and had a pattern woven into it. Hippies from the 60’s liked that kind of crap back then. Anastasia said that she kind of liked because it was retro. I am not retro. I hate hippies and I hate old carpet. Out it must go. Well upon removing the carpet from the stairs I noticed something fantastic underneath. I had a house with hardwood floors! Woo Hoo!!! I was hoping there would be little surprises like this in the house waiting for me. What I didn’t realize was how many surprises there would be and that the hard wood floors would be the only good surprise out of all of them.

After the great job they did in the kitchen, Anastasia and her mom decided to move upstairs to the bathroom. It was really the only room up there that didn’t have anything major wrong with it. So they started painting and repairing the small holes in the plaster but soon found out that there were too many cracks in the plaster to cover up with filler. They decided to cover it up with paint instead. Well as you may have guessed, it didn’t look quite right. They then decided to paint the cracks with a grey paint in some attempt to accentuate it and make it look stylish. I can see why they thought it might look good. It worked for ripped jeans back in the 80’s; it’ll work here with plaster and paint. They were wrong. So so wrong. It looked awful. The paint accentuated the cracks and in fact made it look so bad that it looked like the rest of the upstairs. I let it go though because we were living together and you don’t want to piss off the person you depend on for half of the bills.

After the painting was done, Pam cleaned the tub and toilet. I, my mother, Anastasia and my nephew Evan were downstairs talking when I heard rain. I glanced out the window to see a cloudless sky and realized it was not coming from outside but inside. I looked into the dining room to the sight of water coming out of the ceiling and pouring into the living room! I ran upstairs and saw Pam fiddling with an overflowing toilet trying to get it to stop. I turned it off for her and she told me how she had finished scrubbing the toilet and flushed it when it started to overflow. Well my dad came to the rescue and after some inspection we found out that the drainage pipe for the bathroom upstairs was an old cast iron pipe and over the years of not having been used or flushed, the inside of the pipe started to rust and flake. The flakes would fall to the bottom of the pipe and collect. Well accelerate to 20+ years later and there was a big pile of rust blocking the water from draining and turning my living room into a scene from Singing in the Rain.

During my fathers repair of the plumbing he discovered another little hiccup with the house. I had no insulation anywhere. “Well ain’t that a bitch” I thought. Not only does my air conditioner suck because it was 20 years old, but my house won’t hold in any of the cold air that the ancient air conditioner will spit out anyway. Add that to the list of things to fix. Right in between the sinking back porch and the electrical in the upstairs that looks like it was installed by Edison himself. Ahhh the joys of owning your own home. Well after all that, things calmed down and we settled into our new house. I had a hi-def TV and a DVR for my satellite dish and Anastasia’s friends came over quite a bit to drink and hang out. Life was good again.

Then it started raining. A lot. I went down into the basement to check and see if there was any water in there. When it rained there would be a small trickle coming somewhere from the concrete steps but it wasn’t anything major. This time there was a lot more rain so I wanted to make sure things were still ok. With the increase in rain, I finally saw where the water was coming in from. There was a slight crack on the side of the stairs and the water was coming in slowly but surely. Then I noticed it. There was a piece of duct tape of the crack and it had been painted to over it up. Those old cheap bastards! The more I lived in this house, the more I noticed how half assed they did everything. “Should we go out and buy a coat hook for this coat? No way! We’ll just put in a nail in the wall.” That was the mentality they had for everything they did in this house. “Let’s not do it right, lets just do it so it looks halfway decent and doesn’t cost too much.” Well me being the fool I was, I pulled on the tape that was on the stairs to see how big the crack was. Big mistake. I opened the flood gates quite literally. Water started coming out of the crack like a garden hose. I tried feebly to put the tape back but it was too late. I was screwed and my clothes were soaked. The water went down the steps and started to pool at the bottom. It eventually made its way to the sub pump but the pool started to grow and move towards the middle of the basement. I, in a moment of brilliance, taped a garden hose to the crack where the water was coming out and hoped that it would drain the water right into the sub pump. It worked! I couldn’t believe that such a long shot of an idea of mine worked! Well after the water started to go down, I heard a whistling noise near the washing machine. I went over to the wall and saw a small hole in the cement that looked like a pipe had once been there. I put my finger near the hole and felt air coming out of it. The noise was getting higher in pitch and before I knew it, water started shooting out of the hole like a fountain. Once again I had more water to clean up. “I HATE THIS HOUSE”, I screamed. Once again I had to run outside to the garage to get the other garden hose. Well I finally stopped the water park I had in my basement and cleaned everything up. All the while Anastasia stayed upstairs and watched TV. Thanks a lot you spoiled brat.