tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post1553410946656716095..comments2024-02-24T18:21:32.681-07:00Comments on It Just Gets Stranger: Prison StepsELIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11231200183264672395noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-17498349192134091262019-04-08T12:30:46.664-06:002019-04-08T12:30:46.664-06:00Last December my husband went downstairs to find t...Last December my husband went downstairs to find the carpet wet and the hardwood floor making a squishy noise every time he took a step, and discovered our water heater was leaking. So, we started drying what we could with towels and, my husband - in his panic of mold growing - quickly began ripping up floorboards, carpet and padding to avoid said mold. Luckily the leak only spread to about a 6 foot diameter, so he didn't have to rip up much hardwood floor. I invited my dad over a week or so later to help us lay down the boards once it was dry, and he proceeded to tell us: <br />1. We did not need to rip up these floorboards because it is extremely rare for cold dry concrete to grow mold especially with the moisture barrier padding and 2. We cannot just snap back the pieces we took up because of how it is laid the entire floor will now have to be removed and lastly 3. We cannot use the same boards because once they are torn up they will no longer fit back together and lay flat….<br /> So we had to buy all new flooring for our basement. Oh and a new water heater.<br />eskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05184558248075876003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-29933139513062622582019-03-22T16:47:43.600-06:002019-03-22T16:47:43.600-06:00Yes, shutting off the water main didn’t do much b...Yes, shutting off the water main didn’t do much but my FIL did unplug the washing machine. Here is a little video I also sent my husband.<br />https://www.instagram.com/p/BkwIWxFARE2/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1kqd4acmyyrkwAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-57430182016798173172019-03-22T08:39:39.889-06:002019-03-22T08:39:39.889-06:00I second the motion to see the picture.I second the motion to see the picture.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-55668461366729275562019-03-21T13:09:02.645-06:002019-03-21T13:09:02.645-06:00having worked in architecture and land development...having worked in architecture and land development, this is a very very common practice, even when you pick the 'highest' echelon of the ivory tower builders if you get what I'm saying. Amandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17118862266986392177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-15544610200673319852019-03-21T12:54:15.941-06:002019-03-21T12:54:15.941-06:00Sadly shutting off the water will do nothing when ...Sadly shutting off the water will do nothing when a washer that is already full of water is in it's draining cycle. Maybe unplugging it would have stopped it. I've done this too, where I could hear splashing/running water, only after having to search too long, discovering that the drain pipe isn't securely sitting in the drain hole. Amandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17118862266986392177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-59797625949414310352019-03-21T12:49:22.380-06:002019-03-21T12:49:22.380-06:00Maybe because Eli has never learned to smize as we...Maybe because Eli has never learned to smize as well as Matt... but I have no confirmation this is accurate. Someone needs to do some research for us. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-37968196981780211222019-03-21T08:11:46.273-06:002019-03-21T08:11:46.273-06:00I didn't say I'd be the ONLY one making th...I didn't say I'd be the ONLY one making things awkward. The Suzzzzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09678750823895007527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-85078107228511566302019-03-21T06:46:08.203-06:002019-03-21T06:46:08.203-06:00You know - I was wondering why Eli didn't just...You know - I was wondering why Eli didn't just canoodle Matt into doing the steps . . .Nicole Kragthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14931514387895205881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-88842790358037134342019-03-20T20:40:48.207-06:002019-03-20T20:40:48.207-06:00(I may have left this comment 3x now...Google is b...(I may have left this comment 3x now...Google is being difficult!)<br /><br />My front steps are also horrendous right now, I’ll have to send you a picture. I have photographed them because I need to tell my landlord about them. My landlord is Albanian (I think. I know his wife is from Kosovo and I believe they speak Albanian to each other but I know nothing about Europe). He considers himself something of a contractor, and if he can’t do it himself, he has 37 “cousins” who are in all manners of trade and he sends one of them to fix whatever is wrong with the house. This means that when we notify him of problems, it either takes months for him to get to it, or he majorly inconveniences himself and multiple family members to get it taken care of the very next day (he came and replaced the boiler on his birthday!!) Neither solution is great and he doesn’t trust anyone else to work on the house, so we can’t just hire someone and have him reimburse us. <br /><br />ANYWAY. I believe he and a cousin re-did the steps a few years back, but they haven’t held up to the bitter New England winters well at all. They’re supposed to be decorative, with like a slab of stone for each stepping surface, but one slab is currently threatening to completely slide off each time it’s stepped upon. So yeah I feel very safe walking in and out of my house multiple times a day while carrying children. Yay stairs!!!<br /><br />Also my not-contractor landlord tiled the entire bathroom a few years ago when he lived in the house. Literally the floor, shower/bath walls, and halfway up all the other walls are done in the EXACT SAME TILE. Anyway I don’t think he mixed he grout correctly because it crumbles off and he color of the grout wipes off on my cleaning rags....but I don’t know how to approach him about that problem. <br /><br />The best part of this house is the plumbing. The original owner put in a “dry well” 50-60 years ago but it definitely doesn’t work anymore because all of our “grey water” (everything but the toilet and the dishwasher, which go to a septic) just shoots out into a ditch in the yard. It’s real nice. We call it the stinky water ditch and sometimes it backs up into the washing machine. Rachelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112682821658704750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-12709373061368858202019-03-20T20:11:03.856-06:002019-03-20T20:11:03.856-06:00I would like to see the picture for closure please...I would like to see the picture for closure please. Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02714135102262167776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-64867333680491585642019-03-20T18:15:58.169-06:002019-03-20T18:15:58.169-06:00You underestimate us, The Suzzzzzzzzzz.You underestimate us, The Suzzzzzzzzzz.It Just Gets Strangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05343152279468062540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-70507429956855236542019-03-20T15:13:03.240-06:002019-03-20T15:13:03.240-06:00CJ, when Eli talks about wanting to have a baby I ...CJ, when Eli talks about wanting to have a baby I don't think I'm the baby or the baby mamma he has in mind, so living with them would be awkward. The Suzzzzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09678750823895007527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-70115684891848189922019-03-20T14:13:12.122-06:002019-03-20T14:13:12.122-06:00Flooding seems to be a common thing on here. One t...Flooding seems to be a common thing on here. One time the washing machine overflowed. It wasn’t fun to clean up, but I did fix the machine on my own. Last fall my bedroom flooded and I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in my living room for like 6 weeks while they dealt with each step they needed to take. But I didn’t have to do so much that time. Being a renter has some perks, I suppose. Brookehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06484722071021294422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-67686234438192103402019-03-20T13:41:15.537-06:002019-03-20T13:41:15.537-06:00You should probably just move in with Eli and Skyl...You should probably just move in with Eli and Skylar... problem solved (once he gets those dangerous steps fixed of course.CJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-73888895235763262232019-03-20T13:21:42.491-06:002019-03-20T13:21:42.491-06:00Kylie, I had to laugh. I thought something was ma...Kylie, I had to laugh. I thought something was majorly wrong with our house-- our front door wouldn't open and close correctly. Now, it's a large door with a large, leaded glass window. I went to my husband all like, "The house is falling apart!" <br />Well, when he looked at the door, it was coming out of the frame because they had used 1/2" screws. In the middle of reattaching the door with longer, larger screws, he, in a very aggravated tone, said, "This is what is wrong with the world!"... meaning that people do poor jobs, or half-do jobs, or workmanship is poor... whatever...<br />So, I replied, "Doors with 1/2" screws?" LOL... <br />That is now our basic go-to when anything goes wrong... everything wrong in the world and society is the fault of doors with 1/2" screws. :) <br /><br />Congrats on your home in NOLA, btw... we're only a short drive away, and we love to come spend long weekends. KRohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14473499065831765246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-10456181715517682162019-03-20T13:13:33.244-06:002019-03-20T13:13:33.244-06:00I about died when I read that you can't open t...I about died when I read that you can't open the utensil drawer all the way unless the oven is open! Jandy Humblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15768153639338252780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-55117474783618448692019-03-20T13:09:53.292-06:002019-03-20T13:09:53.292-06:00We decided to work on our master bedroom, includin...We decided to work on our master bedroom, including changing a doorway & wall, removing wallpaper, carpet removal & having the original hardwood restored, etc. We moved our bed to the basement to sleep there during this process. Well, we got part way in to the project, then got kind of lazy and didn't work on it for a while. As in, more than a year. Finally I told my husband I was tired of sleeping in the basement and that we should get working on the master bedroom again. Somehow we decided to move out of the basement and into the guest room. But the guest room already had a bed, so we put our mattresses on top of the guest bed and slept on a stack of four mattresses. I had to use a step stool to go to bed. This lasted another YEAR. I had about had it by then. We ended up both taking time off work and spending several days plugging away day and night to just get that project done. House projects are a pain in the you know where!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-23620011172421252742019-03-20T12:46:39.154-06:002019-03-20T12:46:39.154-06:00Since commenting seems to be working for me today,...Since commenting seems to be working for me today, I'm just going to jump in and say hi everybody, even though I don't really have any nightmare stories like these... although I will just say this in all caps and shudder while doing so: CARPET BEETLES. I will spare you the living nightmare that was finding them but it involved my - no. No, seriously, I'm cutting this off. Doing all of you this favor. I don't want to relive it and you shouldn't have to either. <br /><br />Matt's stairs in his house look great, so I bet he could work his magic on your front steps. He has PLENTY of time for extra projects like that. <br /><br />We do have to have our entire backyard re-graded this summer, it's taken us ten years of flooding and water issues to get up the guts for this major job and I am so terrified of hiring the wrong contractor because look at all these stories of what happens when you hire the wrong contractor!!!Amy Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16240262331193821446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-21378806606056529212019-03-20T12:40:17.020-06:002019-03-20T12:40:17.020-06:00I can't get past your reference to the geo met...I can't get past your reference to the geo metro. That was my first car my parents bought for me. It had no air conditioning, no power windows, and NO POWER STEERING. I have never even heard of that in any other vehicle ever, and it was ALWAYS hilarious when I would let my friends drive it because you really had to put the bulk of your muscle into every turn and people would (because of course I wouldn't warn them) always assume the steering wheel was broken. Then once those friends were in on it, we would let new friends drive it, and watch them go through the same panic. Fun every time, teenage drivers are the worst. But that car was my favorite little thing. crossing my fingers that I can post this... the internets have really been after me lately, my phone has started blocking me from every other website I try to visit telling me they are "restricted" when the google search I had done was like "how to boil pasta" or "how far away does grandma live" and I'm about to quit the whole technology thing and commune with nature in Alaska.Amy Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16240262331193821446noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-34620137648797663022019-03-20T12:20:58.769-06:002019-03-20T12:20:58.769-06:00I think it was Gold Medallion. They had gone out ...I think it was Gold Medallion. They had gone out of business before I bought, so I had very little recourse.Carolynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15426530741084153222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-47827359153500307542019-03-20T11:55:46.719-06:002019-03-20T11:55:46.719-06:00This sounds a lot like a case I handled once for a...This sounds a lot like a case I handled once for a bunch of homeowners (one of the most stressful experiences of my life). Who was the builder?It Just Gets Strangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05343152279468062540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-50306625628291216082019-03-20T11:07:31.384-06:002019-03-20T11:07:31.384-06:00I bought a 6 year old house about 9 years ago. It...I bought a 6 year old house about 9 years ago. It's in a well-known, utopia-type neighborhood in Utah. I thought this meant high quality and perfect, but I was wrong (don't get me wrong, the neighborhood is great, but the houses aren't the quality I thought they'd be). 4 months after I bought the house, we had a big snowstorm followed by a big freeze, and then a thaw. When everything thawed, the whole neighborhood flooded. I think 5 or 6 people on my block had flooded basements, including me. I spent Christmas Eve and part of Christmas vacuuming water out of my basement every 20 minutes. I had to tear all the carpet out and set up fans to dry things out for the next week. My dad and I jack hammered a hole through the foundation in what had been my bedroom and installed a below-ground sump pump. For months I was scared to put carpet in again in case it flooded again, but I eventually did. The next summer, one of the solenoids on my sprinkler system broke while I was out of town and water seeped into my basement over a few days. Luckily I had good neighbors who called me and then broke into my house to turn off the water and stop the flood. Again, I pulled the carpet up a little bit (thankfully not all of it this time).<br />I also had a shower that never drained right. It was a long skinny shower with a tile floor, and the drain was in the middle. Somehow, when the original person built it, they set the lowest part of the floor to be about a foot in front of the drain, so all the water would pool there and never dried, unless I mopped it out after every shower. After a couple years I decided to be fancy and I hired someone to reset the floor and install a glass door while he was at it. He told me it'd be easy and said specifically to go to Home Depot to buy a door because he was familiar with their doors and could install it. So I did. When he came to do the work, he took out one tile and replaced it. Did nothing to change the slope of the floor. But of course I couldn't test it until the grout had dried a day after he left, so I didn't know he did nothing. Also, he spent about half a day trying to install the glass door, and finally said he couldn't figure it out and left me with a completely unusable shower. It took me a year to find someone who was willing to try. They took out the whole floor, re-sloped it, and installed the door. About a year later, I noticed water damage around the outside of the shower. By then, the company that had redone everything was out of business and the warranty was worthless. So I found yet another person to come in. They found that the last company had cut the walls off the shower pan, so water was flowing freely out the sides. Seriously. And they had to take off the glass door to make the repairs. So many thousands of dollars and a few years after I started, I was basically back to point A. So I sold the house and moved. Also, in the 8 years or so I lived there, EVERY time I had to have someone repair anything, they told me the way it had been built was the cheapest way possible, and a few times the materials used had been out of code compliance at the time it was built. I loved that house, but it had so many issues. And now I'm so paranoid about water getting anywhere near my house.Carolynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15426530741084153222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-65023965146035277552019-03-20T11:07:00.116-06:002019-03-20T11:07:00.116-06:00Oh, the last house I lived in was bulldozed after ...Oh, the last house I lived in was bulldozed after I moved out. Best thing that could happen to it. sweetpeahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06729286759084892000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-27028789823575340072019-03-20T11:06:58.975-06:002019-03-20T11:06:58.975-06:00I wonder how much a ski lift would cost me!I wonder how much a ski lift would cost me!It Just Gets Strangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05343152279468062540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8964698794691718038.post-87572241217375689082019-03-20T11:05:28.482-06:002019-03-20T11:05:28.482-06:00I broke my leg 8 weeks ago and looking at all thos...I broke my leg 8 weeks ago and looking at all those steps makes me cringe. If you decide to redo the steps, have a thought for those that are less mobile. If they can't get in your house, they can't tell you how great your hair looks. ;)sweetpeahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06729286759084892000noreply@blogger.com