The joys of home ownership
I got home from work today feeling exhausted. Katie wasn’t feeling well, and we thought we’d have a fire. So after eating some delicious supper, supplied by my parents, I headed out for some firewood.
At our house, we keep the firewood under the mudporch. It’s a nice little outdoor room with a ceiling, 2 1/2 walls, and a brick floor. And it’s really nice, too, that I can get to the firewood via the basement - if it’s raining, I don’t have to get wet, and I don’t have to be outside in the cold for long.
So I wandered down through the basement, opened the back door, and reached up to pull the chain to turn on the light … and the light was gone. Someone actually stole the light bulb from the fixture. Bizarre.
Feeling a bit stressed about the theft, I decided it was time for my monthly inspection of the basement (I try to look it over pretty carefully at least once a month). And what did I find in the? Not only is our refrigerator taking the fast road to the great beyond, in a completely unrelated stroke of good luck, it’s also pouring water down the wall behind it and into the basement. Apparently, there’s a hole in the water line for the ice maker.
Argh.
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11 Responses to “The joys of home ownership”
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Ack! You know, yesterday I caught up on about your last week or so of posts and meant to come back later and comment that just reading about all that made me exhausted… and now this with the dripping fridge. I hate y’all are suddenly having all this stuff happen at once. I hope all the remodeling and repairing - both the intentional and unplanned - go as well as can be expected, Jon.
Why on earth would anyone steal a dang lightbulb? Maybe it was just boys wanting to see a light bulb explode when it hits the ground. BTW,be careful where you store firewood- the last thing you need is a termite infestation!
I was just recently told that leaving a load of wood under some steps that are connected to my house is a great way to get termites.
Wow. Sorry for all your troubles.
And yes, that’s just bizarre about the bulb.
Termites and carpenter ants (which don’t eat wood, per se, but are seriously destructive) both love damp, decaying wood. The carpenter ants find it easy to excavate and the termites probably think it’s some sort of lignin fois gras. It’s always best to store firewood so it’s not under or touching the house. When I did that sort of thing I bought inexpensive tarps (with eyelets) and weighed them down by tying the eyelets to gallon water/milk jugs filled with water.
I take it doesn’t get too cold, too often in that room. But, if it does the line feeding the ice maker might have frozen and split and then started to leak when the weather got above freezing. If that room is not sealed up well you probably have mice or other critters living near the refrigeration compressor/motor to take advantage of any waste heat they give off when the unit’s running.
None of this is meant to alarm, just to inform.
I was pretty careful when I selected the place for the firewood. It’s in a dry, bricked off area, etc.
As for the water line, it was actually upstairs and leaking downstairs. No clue how the line broke, but it was unrelated to mice or freezes, etc.
Your wood is going to attract mice and snakes. You might want to move it further from the house. (My folks had to learn this hard way.)
why would they steal your light fixture ahah?
I would ask the family what happened to the bulb. It may have been burned out and somebody unscrewed it to replace and forgot. Maybe even you?
I hate to burst the convenience bubble for you,but it sounds to me like you might be storing that woodpile too close to the house.
The woodpile is fine.