November 6, 2020 Another sunny, warm day with a high of 72 degrees! Painting continues, using both lifts – pretty cool pictures seeing one rising up from the back and another one from the front. Everyone is trying to get as much done as possible while the weather holds. Here is a view of the driveway, where it seems like everyone has shown up at once, but we are not complaining!
I would have preferred being at the beach, but I was slogging away with water in a different way… hot buckets of water, my favorite Krud Kutter, rags, paper towels, rubber gloves, a ladder and a super 12′ squeegee pole from Home Depot. The inside of the main house was and is literally encrusted with years and years of grime, animal waste (from mice to raccoons), insect gunk, cobwebs and more… you know how you get flyspecks and yuck on the sills between your windows and storm windows or screens? Imagine that to another order of magnitude! And everywhere! The outside windows probably had never been cleaned, after all the house has been “under construction” since 2005. During the summer, I completed this cleaning procedure on the inside and outside of the front doors, which took practically a weekend, so I knew what was in store (and was not excited about it). BUT, clean windows would make such a difference inside the house, and improve the experience of looking out at the view…. this was a golden opportunity not to be repeated until springtime. Meanwhile, in between working at his job, Bob was cleaning interior rooms one by one, picking up and sweeping up the neglect of years. Slowly, slowly, it was making a difference.
Meanwhile, wood chipping is happening outside. Randy has finally returned to chip the giant pile of branches left over from the tree cutting and excavating back in August, which will result in a BIG pile. Looks like we’ll have to get our own tractor to spread them in our really big yard, haha (insert eye roll from Bob).
And, in addition to all this other chaos, did I tell you about the washer & dryer that came with the apartment? Well, the base cover was missing from the bottom of the washer (Bob found it in another room in a pile of stuff), and the first time we used the washer last summer we found out why it had been removed. The washer leaks, and not just a few drips at a time. (What is it with stuff leaking around here??) But, a dishpan angled under the opening, and strategically balanced on a small tower of sink sponges does the trick, and we have been able to do small loads, but NOT when Bob is on conference calls. When it gets to the spin cycle, it not only thumps but makes a horrible repetitive squealing noise that reminds us of the Shrieking Eels from the Princess Bride (one of our favorite movies!). Additionally, the dryer also has it’s problems. There is no obvious or sensible way to vent the dryer to the outside world mainly because of a steel beam, so instead the vent pipe goes down through the floor and just dumps the hot air (and lint) from the ceiling into the middle garage. When in the garage, looking up, there are random bits of lint stuck to all the pipes, joists, wiring, etc. all along the ceiling. We kind of knew this was a problem, but there were so many other problems that we were just ignoring it… Eventually, after 4 months of annoyance, I put my UNH Wildcat paw down and said we needed to get an actual adult laundry system instead of a sketchy college apartment set up! It was on order with a delivery date, so it was time to get cracking. Ripping out the wall behind the laundry center (why? that story is for another day), we discovered it is a complete miracle that we haven’t BURNED THE HOUSE DOWN. There was easily 10 YEARS of lint in the wall behind the dryer! It was a horrifying lint disaster zone with dust and stuff flying all over the air… including other stuff that had fallen off the top of the dryer never to be seen again until now… socks, a whole boxful of tampons (without the box)… true story.
I think we’ve probably had enough for one day…
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