I have no use for you, I said
And smashed it on the cement
Pieces shattering
Scattering
Unrecognizable as anything that could have
Taken so much space within me
Pieces floating
Blowing in the breeze
Like cottonwood
~ Hezaasan, (c) 2018
Dug up this old piece in honor of my house being up to its usual stupid-face antics this morning.
Water always wins, and my oh-so-needy abode likes to remind me of that fact on an annual basis. I’ve been through a burst pipe, leaks near the sump pump, sump pump failure, refrigerator filtered water tubing breakage, washing machine basin overflow. It’s never the same issue twice. Living here is a constant game of whack-a-mole.
This morning, it appears I was due for its regularly scheduled prank at my expense: water all over the kitchen table, and moisture bubbles in the ceiling above (which is just below the kids’ bathtub).
To be fair, I knew this was coming eventually — there’s been a suspicious crack in the ceiling ever since I moved in. A crack that’s been “on the list” for nearly 7 years now. The “I’ll get around to it” page in that notebook I so carefully kept when I was naive and excited about having a place to invest my money in, with a gorgeous yard and huge basement for the kids, and the ability to play my music and turn up the TV as loud as I want, without any neighbors on the opposite side of the wall to consider. And sure, the inspection found some water issues coming from the master bath, but we made that a condition for the purchase and they paid for the repair. Everything was going to be fantastic. I’d done my homework and all would be well.
Le sigh.
I wrote this poem after something like my fifth round of water issues, many years after losing my innocence about what homeownership really means. For some reason, it came to mind this morning, as well as a strong desire to work on my plans for my future life as a gypsy. Purely coincidental, I’m sure.
Muttering Retreats 
If I didn’t have kids and a wife, I’d screw the homeowner crap and become a nomad. I have a book of things that need to be fixed — so many that it’s overwhelming and I wait for stuff to break instead of preemptive repairs.
So naughty…
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Thanks for this – I know I should have tackled this already and it helps to know that’s “normal fare” for a few more homeowners out there.
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Hopefully you don’t have the situation with liquid nails, flathead and phillips screws on the same thing, obfuscated known problems the previous owner left me, plumping done patently wrong, and electrical wires out of phase… To name just a few things.
And this is better than the first home because it isn’t 102 years old. Only 60… Sigh.
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Ha, I do, in fact. The previous owner (or the one before the previous, hard to say) was apparently convinced they could DIY everything — when in fact, they were capable of DIY-ing nothing. But they lived that dream anyway.
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We’re in the same boat. ::Passes share of rations to fellow castaway::
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I love doing renos, and am never happier than when I find a house in really bad shape that I can gut and transform into something liveable again. But I’ll never touch anything that’s got water issues. I grew up in a house with my bedroom in a basement that flooded regularly, and a father who thought he knew what he was doing when it came to plumbing. (Spoiler alert: he didn’t.) Sorry to hear of your troubles. I hope it’s an easy fix.
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Definitely one of those hindsight grumbles for me – I’ll never touch anything with a whiff of water issues ever again! Fortunately I have had good luck with contractors, but it is the endless chasing of varying problems that drives me batty.
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