Monday Musings...
When you are a homeowner, it goes without saying that "you've arrived".
By that I mean one of life's goals has been achieved. Yes, it's right up there with parenthood, your graduation, and your first car (hopefully NOT in that order).
And if you're lucky (and that is purely a RELATIVE term) enough to own a home that has a few decades under it's belt, there comes a time when you hear those FIVE WORDS you come to dread:
"WE NEED A NEW ROOF".
Welcome to US.
Yes, it's (well past) time to replace the garage roof, and the missus and I have put it off for too long. Maybe it was the fact that the shingles were curling up like a person's toes during...well, never mind that, Maybe it was the "indoor water feature" we developed over the last few years...nothing meditative or Feng Shui about THOSE leaks, that's for sure.
And having spent enough time on roofs doing sundry things (and actually falling through one ceiling which was an experience I DO NOT recommend to everyone), I figure this soon-to-be 56 year old can do better than to place my life and limb at risk.
My wife agrees....good for her.
So we call for some free estimates, and the numbers (unlike Wall Street lately) were, how shall we say....marvelously and ridiculously HIGH. Still, with roofing, you DO get what you pay for, and if the job costs less than two grand, it stands to reason that Mr. "Fly-By Night" will be laughing all the way to the bank as he cashes your check, and the shingles blow off next spring.
Well, we went with Erie Construction, as they had that metal roofing system you see on TV. Let me preface this by stating that the steel roofing (warrantied for 50 years, and guaranteed to withstand anything short of a force 2 hurricane), is not for the "faint-of-checkbook". It WILL cost you. Our 2 car garage was close to "BOINGG" (which cost more than "WOW"), so we opted for their fiberglass shingle system which cost somewhere around "WOW" (more than OUCH, but less than BOINGGG). That's a Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye reference, btw.
When this is completed (in the next 2 weeks), we will have a roof warrantied for THIRTY-FIVE years (and that should outlive ME anyway), with a several layer substrate with one layer being a Kevlar shield. And we get a complete pull off, gutter cleaning and rehang, and total cleanup. All in all, a three-day job from soup to nuts. Not too shabby, as I've spent my time on various types of roofs in my life.
And no drips, no runs, no errors...for QUITE some time.
The house will also be needing the same within several years, and that will be even more costly, as it has 3 dormers, and an addition, along with the steeply-pitched roof on the main structure (remember, the more steep or complex the roof line, the more expensive...so buy a RANCH-STYLE home, if you can, unless you enjoy small bank accounts or thick payment books).
When you own a home with history like ours (built in 1945), it does cost something to maintain it. The furnace will need replacement, as parts are practically non-existent (the American company built themselves out of business with quality products), the central A/C isn't the most efficient (but works well), and we could use a bathroom remodel (my wife's parents apparently had this thing for a RED SINK...I kid you not). Some new windows and screen doors would be nice as well as a new steel entry door, too.
So there is plenty to keep up with.
The basement could use a makeover (unfinished but livable), and we've got enough squeaky floorboards that even a Ninja couldn't walk silently across them, but still, the house has nothing if not plenty of CHARACTER. And isn't that what draws us to many of these houses in the first place? Think of those living in REAL historical homes, and imagine the upkeep THEY have to endure.
Now I'm not living in Betsy Ross's house (and that IS one cramped house, believe me, as is the Lee-Custis mansion in Arlington, VA), nor do we live in ANY section that is considered historical, even though former mayor Paul Mike Burns (1959-1963) lived one block over in a house that has since become...you guessed it...another rental hovel.
Our area of the city is more HYSTERICAL than HISTORICAL Or would that simply be more NOTORIOUS?
In any event, we are weighing the cost of upkeep/repair versus finding another house FAR from this madding crowd in our neighborhood. But we DO have to get the house "up to specs" if we decide to sell it (when something better comes along). Yes, even a deadbeat landlord with dreams of $$$ while placing drug-laden vermin into our humble abode doesn't want to put OUT any money. All he wants to do is AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE to ensure he gets his monthly rent check (subsidized by the taxpaying populace), and screw the rest of the area in the process.
How times have changed, indeed.
Lastly, speaking of another facet of owning a home and our "changing times", who the hell made up the schedule for TRASH PICK UP in OUR neighborhood this past week?
Thursday came and went...(our usual day)...no pickup at all. Didn't even see ANY Serv-All trucks in the area. Now that was weird. And after checking the calendar, we had NO holidays (not even in Lichtenstein).
So we called it into the 311 desk downtown.. And most of Friday passed by until we FINALLY had the trash picked up later that day.
Curiously, my wife emailed this problem to the WANE news center website on Friday, in the hope they would look into it, and got a bloody phone call back almost within the hour, and it was Janice Allen saying she would come and interview the missus. Well, we both changed into nicer duds in anticipation of making the 6 o'clock news (so all of you could see us), when we got another call that said she was sent to a breaking story (the pot bust near Warsaw).
My wife took this as a "dodge" of sorts as in someone didn't want this story of missed trash pickups to get on the air.
I think there is the possibility that some form of collusion is involved, as the trash men came right AFTER the "interview" was set (and this was all in a half hour).
Now I will say that when you have trash sitting in a bin in the sun on a hot day, for more than one day, things will "ripen" really fast. Anyone recall the trash strikes in NYC that had refuse festering during the summer years ago?
You SURE as hell do NOT want that, especially in MY part of the city, where people tend to NOT do whatever the city would want (or expect) them to do...yeah, it must be a "cultural thang".
Another case of this side of town being IGNORED...AGAIN.
Welcome to "Little Zimbabwe", where people walk barefoot down the middle of the street all the time, carry illegal guns, sell drugs, and make too many babies that taxpayers have to support.
Oh, wait...this IS Fort Wayne, Indiana, right?
Talk about a serious case of Deja Vu.
It appears like that National Geographic Special wasn't a documentary of our city after all.
Imagine that.
Sure seemed like it, though.
And Do Have a Happy Bastille Day!