@haydesigner This is why our country puts up with illegal migrant workers. We hate to mow our own yards. You can find all the help you need for cheap at the Home Depot parking lot at 7 AM. You'll have the best looking lawn in town.
@haydesigner Despite my rant below, I don't so much mind shoveling the snow, which, even in a cold climate, isn't required often. Mowing is in fact perpetual and, in 100-degree heat, it's pretty close to hell on earth. Thank God for the folks that do this work cheaply--and, most recently, for my stepson.
@haydesigner What is this thing called mowing grass? Where I live, there's horses with no names, it feels good to get out of the rain, but for mowing, they don't give you no pain.
@macdaddy The house where I am living has 2 goats. Yes goats. And one of the three dogs keeps them herded. No need to mow. PS not my goats or dogs. I have cats.
Ugh. My house was built in 1928. The mortar used to hold the rocks of the foundation together is literally crumbling to dust. Scraping it out and recementing between the rocks is about there worst job I have come across.
@joelmw That's just what I ran into at a relative's house one time when she'd told me to just come in and supervise her child till she got home. Now I know what to call it.
@AnorionUgh I've got to do this sometime "soon" (i.e., within the next couple of years). Step 1: Jackhammer. I'm putting it off as long as I possibly can.
Freakin' weeds! I've used Roundup, Spectracide, GroundClear, pre-emergent, post-emergent, Hula hoe, Garden Weasel, hell, at one point I even resorted to using a roofer's torch trying to kill off the weeds growing in my graveled front yard (it's a southwest thing). NOTHING WORKS! I swear they mix Roundup with equal parts herbicide and fertilizer.
With the exception of fixing sticky doors (which I haven't had to do, what are you people doing to your doors to make them sticky? O.o ) I find them all a huge hassle.
@Fen_Star I believe the biggest factor in a door that sticks is a change in ambient humidity, resulting in expansion of the wood. If you have sticky wood for other reasons, I don't want to know about it.
@RedHot Mourn not for me, for I am old and dried up. Just use my case as a cautionary tale and avoid a similar fate. Knowing that I helped some soul out there avoid such will bring a small shadow of a smile to my aging lips.
@defibrillator My wife (and possibly MANY other's wives) would say "making love to my husband". Shit happens after menopause. This is why God made porn, exotic dancers and (good) prositiutes. Satan figured he'd throw STD's in the mix to fuck with all the fun.
Finding someone reliable that I can hire to do all the shit I have no intention of ever doing myself.
I have discovered through hard experience that it is far cheaper to pay someone to do a job than it is to pay some one to fix the mess I have made trying to do the job.
A-a-r-r-gh! Nice to hear from people who have some idea of what's involved in being responsible for a house/home. So where do the idiots on HGTV, DIY, etc., who are both house-stupid AND have huge down payments in their 20's come from. "It's so-o-o outdated," (describing 1997 construction). "We skipped the inspection because it was move-in ready," (to Mike Holmes from the couple whose place is riddled with mold and falling down around them). Love the people who fix this stuff, HATE the buyers/owners.
@MSticklefeather I fell in love with a house, and then, the inspection. Revealed at least $10,000 worth of repairs needed just to make it safe (included finishing the garage, because they put it under a new living space and didn't seal it, allowing fumes to fill the room, a new roof, and $20K in the future for a new septic system).
Didn't buy. Looked on, Saw lots of really scary places.
@haydesigner The septic system connects to the city line, but it has to go through a grinder pump, which sits at the bottom of a storage tank and had an external control panel. The pump was present, but the control panel was missing. No panel, no grinding. No sewer leaving the house. You can imagine the joy of learning about all this during a hurricane when a toilet backed up, and the septic guys said it was because the power was out, and to check for the flashing light. Ummmmmmm... No flashing light to be found...no panel...Guy thought I was a idiot until he showed up. Best we can figure, the panel was stolen while the property was in foreclosure.
Killing the breeding mice under the kitchen sink - actually, wait, smashing them on the glue traps is kind of gratifying...ok, so, getting all of the weeds out from between the driveway and sidewalk cracks. Ranks right up there with having to de-mushroom the yard because the stupid neighbors can't keep their dog and dog crap in their own yard.
@Irkisawesome So, I guess you live in an old house, with breeding mice under the kitchen sink? I agree on the weeds in the cracks. Around here we don't have a problem with wandering dogs, but lots of CATS--u-u-g-g-h-h. Screaming on the porch in the night. Defacating in my carefully-tended gardens (and everywhere else). Hubby used to shoot them with b-b-gun but it's hopeless with cat-hoarders in the neighborhood.
@nadroj Sorry about that. Never lived in house with crawlspace, but if I were ever forced to build one, I'd make it deep enough to walk hunched over and store Rubbermaid tubs (Xmas, etc.) in it.
When I was a poor, married-with-child college student forced of sheer fiscal necessity to do all of the shit around the house, I dreamed of the day when I had a regular white collar job and I could pay other people to do it for me. I'm living the white collar life now and I have to say . . . I have abso-fucking-lutely no nostalgia for that aspect of the good ol' days. I love that I can just pay someone to do it more-or-less correctly and all I have to do is check in on them.
I have discovered through hard experience that it is far cheaper to pay someone to do a job than it is to pay some one to fix the mess I have made trying to do the job.
It is in fact, cheaper (especially given my regular salary and how long these DIY projects take me), and--I'm gonna say it--better for the economy as a whole and certainly better for the general emotional stability of me and everyone around me for me to just pay someone. I'm a frustrated perfectionist, the physical world and I don't interface that well and there's little romance in "working with my fucking hands." Indeed, I can only think of two instances where "working with my hands" is a positive thing:
touching my wife
typing
In the latter case I'd actually prefer the perfection (which is to say, a reality that doesn't yet exist) of speech-to-text technology or--better yet--a direct neural link (I think the words and they show up on the screen), but typing is marginally satisfying. I don't even like writing with a pen. If I were wealthy and/or important enough, I'd happily hire someone to perpetually transcribe my utterances and thoughts.
Sometimes it's not horrible to fix something or to build something. Usually it mostly is.
That felt good. Thanks, @mediocrebot, for letting me get that off my chest.
@joelmw You said, ". . .and all I have to do is check in on them." Too few people take the time to do that. It's shocking what some homeowners pay "contractors" (anyone with a pickup truck/van and a clipboard) to spend time doing in the customer's house.
@Kidsandliz@Pavlov My wife is better than all of the rest, IMO. And self-service in light of the alternative, well, that's just sad. Not meaning to judge anyone else's situation, just my own.
Anyone had trouble with cable company contractors doing damage to the house? My elderly mother fell for bundled phone service from her cable provider--ridiculous option for her given the way she lives, our frequent power outages, and her horrible luck with service people who come to her house. The guy messed around in the basement for a while and then started pulling out the direct phone company wiring to the phones in every room that Mom needs. She can't do cell phone.
@jsmccloy Good thing you aren't single and live alone… if you don't do it then it doesn't get done. On the other hand if you bought enough pairs of underwear you might be able only have to do laundry a couple of times a year too… just sayin'
Anything to do with the roof/gutter. Although I don't do roof/gutter stuff often, so the biggest pain would be mowing during the really hot/wet part of the summer. I have to confess, I like trimming the shrubs; I give them an inverted pyramid look.
Anything my wife asks me to do. If she's asking, I've usually known about it for weeks and just haven't got around to it.
@Pavlov Amen brother!
@ebatch If we tell 'em we'll do it than we'll do it! No need to nag us every 6 months about it.
@Mehrocco_Mole Or every weekend, as the (my) case may be. ;-)
@Pavlov I was going to say "they're all annoying as hell; I can't pick just one," but clearly I'm not alone.
Mowing grass. It. Never. Ends.
@haydesigner This is why our country puts up with illegal migrant workers. We hate to mow our own yards. You can find all the help you need for cheap at the Home Depot parking lot at 7 AM. You'll have the best looking lawn in town.
@haydesigner i miss having a yard i had to mow
@haydesigner I love mowing the grass.
@haydesigner I've often said the perfect lawn is paved and painted green.
@haydesigner Despite my rant below, I don't so much mind shoveling the snow, which, even in a cold climate, isn't required often. Mowing is in fact perpetual and, in 100-degree heat, it's pretty close to hell on earth. Thank God for the folks that do this work cheaply--and, most recently, for my stepson.
@haydesigner What is this thing called mowing grass? Where I live, there's horses with no names, it feels good to get out of the rain, but for mowing, they don't give you no pain.
@macdaddy The house where I am living has 2 goats. Yes goats. And one of the three dogs keeps them herded. No need to mow. PS not my goats or dogs. I have cats.
Ugh. My house was built in 1928. The mortar used to hold the rocks of the foundation together is literally crumbling to dust. Scraping it out and recementing between the rocks is about there worst job I have come across.
Burying the bodies of those nitpickers from the HOA.
@ChunkyBitz HOA's are proof God is a wrathful, vengeful bastard of the Old Testament.
@Pavlov I wish I could just sacrifice a goat or something, it would be cheaper.
Trying to get those dentures to fit correctly...
(they're my wife's)...
@unkabob If you would bend over just a little bit farther, I think they would fit perfectly.
Get it right the first time, because the attachment may be permanent.
@2many2no ... Yep, much better.. Had to get past that side knob.
Wallpapering closets. I mean, why?
I was just informed (lovely wife) that this is a euphemism. uh, ok.
@cleverogre I am curious, but at the same time, I do not want to know.
@Fen_Star http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wall%20papering%20the%20closet
@joelmw That's just what I ran into at a relative's house one time when she'd told me to just come in and supervise her child till she got home. Now I know what to call it.
Wallpapering anything. Almost as bad as root canal.
@heartny Removing the wallpaper idiots put up. WHY WOULD YOU PUT UP WALLPAPER?
@Fen_Star Removing 3 layers of wallpaper, because why would anybody wallpaper over wallpaper.
@heartny So that they didn't have to remove two layers of wallpaper, of course!
Plumbing. Especially in an ancient house on a slab with cast iron pipes...
@Anorion Ugh I've got to do this sometime "soon" (i.e., within the next couple of years). Step 1: Jackhammer. I'm putting it off as long as I possibly can.
@smyle Slab foundation? Never again... Pier and beam fo' lyfe.
@Anorion I can't really complain because the house was really a bargain. It ~30% slab, 60% basement, 10% crawl-space.
Anything & everything my wife wants done EVERY DAMN WEEKEND!!
(It's ok to post this, right hon?)
Freakin' weeds! I've used Roundup, Spectracide, GroundClear, pre-emergent, post-emergent, Hula hoe, Garden Weasel, hell, at one point I even resorted to using a roofer's torch trying to kill off the weeds growing in my graveled front yard (it's a southwest thing). NOTHING WORKS! I swear they mix Roundup with equal parts herbicide and fertilizer.
@ruouttaurmind Try using Monsanto brand gravel. VIP is trust for the 21st century.
@ruouttaurmind Try looking on online forums for how to get rid of bindweed. The answer is universal: lower your expectations.
@ruouttaurmind I hear hydraulic fluid works... EPA might not like it though.
@ruouttaurmind I got nothing but weeds; grass doesn't grow for some reason.
@PocketBrain Maybe try some more Roundup. That stuff surely seems to make the weeds grow better. Maybe it'll spur the grass to life?
Unclogging the damn toilet after Irk takes a nuclear dump.
@irishbyblood But these are the things we do for the ones we love. Amirite?
@joelmw Absolutely lol :-)
With the exception of fixing sticky doors (which I haven't had to do, what are you people doing to your doors to make them sticky? O.o ) I find them all a huge hassle.
@Fen_Star I believe the biggest factor in a door that sticks is a change in ambient humidity, resulting in expansion of the wood.
If you have sticky wood for other reasons, I don't want to know about it.
@Mavyn Or foundation problems.
@Kidsandliz or that. Doors that stick seasonally probably are not foundation related.
Making love to my wife.
@defibrillator that is a sad life you lead
@RedHot Mourn not for me, for I am old and dried up. Just use my case as a cautionary tale and avoid a similar fate. Knowing that I helped some soul out there avoid such will bring a small shadow of a smile to my aging lips.
@defibrillator My wife (and possibly MANY other's wives) would say "making love to my husband". Shit happens after menopause. This is why God made porn, exotic dancers and (good) prositiutes. Satan figured he'd throw STD's in the mix to fuck with all the fun.
You just can't win 'em all.
Finding someone reliable that I can hire to do all the shit I have no intention of ever doing myself.
I have discovered through hard experience that it is far cheaper to pay someone to do a job than it is to pay some one to fix the mess I have made trying to do the job.
Anything that involves me having to get out of my recliner.
Fixing 60-year-old plumbing is the worst. No matter what you do, it just won't quite work right.
Anything roof related. Like getting that pizza down from there.
@Starblind http://www.abqjournal.com/554035/news/breaking-bad-creator-wants-pizza-tossing-fans-to-stop.html
A-a-r-r-gh! Nice to hear from people who have some idea of what's involved in being responsible for a house/home. So where do the idiots on HGTV, DIY, etc., who are both house-stupid AND have huge down payments in their 20's come from. "It's so-o-o outdated," (describing 1997 construction). "We skipped the inspection because it was move-in ready," (to Mike Holmes from the couple whose place is riddled with mold and falling down around them). Love the people who fix this stuff, HATE the buyers/owners.
@MSticklefeather I fell in love with a house, and then, the inspection. Revealed at least $10,000 worth of repairs needed just to make it safe (included finishing the garage, because they put it under a new living space and didn't seal it, allowing fumes to fill the room, a new roof, and $20K in the future for a new septic system).
Didn't buy. Looked on, Saw lots of really scary places.
@Mavyn You were lucky to have a good inspector, and to pass on that house! There are lots of incompetent inspectors out there.
@MSticklefeather He did a good job. Was a really nice guy. Missed one thing on the house I ended up buying, but it's a weird thing so he gets a pass.
@Mavyn... Gotta know, what was the weird thing?
@haydesigner The septic system connects to the city line, but it has to go through a grinder pump, which sits at the bottom of a storage tank and had an external control panel. The pump was present, but the control panel was missing. No panel, no grinding. No sewer leaving the house. You can imagine the joy of learning about all this during a hurricane when a toilet backed up, and the septic guys said it was because the power was out, and to check for the flashing light. Ummmmmmm... No flashing light to be found...no panel...Guy thought I was a idiot until he showed up. Best we can figure, the panel was stolen while the property was in foreclosure.
Killing the breeding mice under the kitchen sink - actually, wait, smashing them on the glue traps is kind of gratifying...ok, so, getting all of the weeds out from between the driveway and sidewalk cracks. Ranks right up there with having to de-mushroom the yard because the stupid neighbors can't keep their dog and dog crap in their own yard.
@Irkisawesome So, I guess you live in an old house, with breeding mice under the kitchen sink? I agree on the weeds in the cracks. Around here we don't have a problem with wandering dogs, but lots of CATS--u-u-g-g-h-h. Screaming on the porch in the night. Defacating in my carefully-tended gardens (and everywhere else). Hubby used to shoot them with b-b-gun but it's hopeless with cat-hoarders in the neighborhood.
Changing air filters in a crawlspace.
@nadroj Sorry about that. Never lived in house with crawlspace, but if I were ever forced to build one, I'd make it deep enough to walk hunched over and store Rubbermaid tubs (Xmas, etc.) in it.
When I was a poor, married-with-child college student forced of sheer fiscal necessity to do all of the shit around the house, I dreamed of the day when I had a regular white collar job and I could pay other people to do it for me. I'm living the white collar life now and I have to say . . . I have abso-fucking-lutely no nostalgia for that aspect of the good ol' days. I love that I can just pay someone to do it more-or-less correctly and all I have to do is check in on them.
What @2many2no said:
It is in fact, cheaper (especially given my regular salary and how long these DIY projects take me), and--I'm gonna say it--better for the economy as a whole and certainly better for the general emotional stability of me and everyone around me for me to just pay someone. I'm a frustrated perfectionist, the physical world and I don't interface that well and there's little romance in "working with my fucking hands." Indeed, I can only think of two instances where "working with my hands" is a positive thing:
In the latter case I'd actually prefer the perfection (which is to say, a reality that doesn't yet exist) of speech-to-text technology or--better yet--a direct neural link (I think the words and they show up on the screen), but typing is marginally satisfying. I don't even like writing with a pen. If I were wealthy and/or important enough, I'd happily hire someone to perpetually transcribe my utterances and thoughts.
Sometimes it's not horrible to fix something or to build something. Usually it mostly is.
That felt good. Thanks, @mediocrebot, for letting me get that off my chest.
@joelmw You said, ". . .and all I have to do is check in on them." Too few people take the time to do that. It's shocking what some homeowners pay "contractors" (anyone with a pickup truck/van and a clipboard) to spend time doing in the customer's house.
@joelmw Jesus Christ all your posts are getting TL;DR lately. And you forgot masturbation (good use of hands). C'mon, everyone does it. Own up.
@Pavlov Maybe his wife is better than your wife??? LOL
@Kidsandliz . . . I have no doubt.
@Kidsandliz @Pavlov My wife is better than all of the rest, IMO. And self-service in light of the alternative, well, that's just sad. Not meaning to judge anyone else's situation, just my own.
@Pavlov And TL;DR is kinda my thing. I think that was part of why they made me a goat.
@joelmw TMI. I never should have responded to this thread LOL
Anyone had trouble with cable company contractors doing damage to the house? My elderly mother fell for bundled phone service from her cable provider--ridiculous option for her given the way she lives, our frequent power outages, and her horrible luck with service people who come to her house. The guy messed around in the basement for a while and then started pulling out the direct phone company wiring to the phones in every room that Mom needs. She can't do cell phone.
All of the above, plus maintaining hardwood floors.
Did someone say cleaning out the gutters?
Clearing the disgusting glop out of my wife's shower when the drain slows. Sends shivers down my spine.
@jsmccloy Ask her to do it?
@Pavlov Oh god no. Then she might ask me to start doing laundry. Or vacuum. At least with the drain it's only a couple times a year.
@jsmccloy Good thing you aren't single and live alone… if you don't do it then it doesn't get done. On the other hand if you bought enough pairs of underwear you might be able only have to do laundry a couple of times a year too… just sayin'
Anything and everything. Inside, outside, where ever it is it's a pain in the ass. Especially in a home that predates modern building codes.
Anything to do with the roof/gutter. Although I don't do roof/gutter stuff often, so the biggest pain would be mowing during the really hot/wet part of the summer. I have to confess, I like trimming the shrubs; I give them an inverted pyramid look.
Anything to do with grout, which is pretty similar to caulking and sealing I guess. Cleaning grout, replacing grout, ugh!
Clicking my Meh button.