You know it comes with the territory, now vent about them here. I thought this thread already existed so if it does I apologize.

This is relatively minor, but I want to bitch about it anyway.

I was doing a load of laundry today and noticed that the floor was wet underneath. The drain hose is not leaking. I hope something internal is not broken but if so it should be under warranty because I just bought it last September. My short-term fix is a drain pan (should have had it in the first place) which I cracked trying to put that heavy bitch on by myself. It's a small crack so I think some silicone will fix it but shit, that was a quick $30.

7/29/2008 12:32:03 PM

thankfully i havent had any crazy random problems yet



other then the garbage disposal i installed incorrectly, causing the fucking dishwasher to overflow.

7/29/2008 1:20:18 PM

Ooooh good thread.

Ants! I can't get rid of them. We don't have anything sticky/sweet around....
We've put out bait and sprayed around the house.

7/29/2008 1:26:29 PM

Have you used Terro traps? assume you have the small sugar ants. Terro is the only thing I have used to kill them. Put that shit out, let them come in with a caravan and eat it, and they'll be dead in a week.

7/29/2008 1:41:10 PM

hehe someone knows about the terro. that stuff is awesome its like crack for ants (and just as deadly).

7/29/2008 1:46:40 PM

All the other shit I have tried is Terro. I couldnt find it at Harris Teeter when I once looked. tried some crap from Raid. Nadda. found terro at Ace, and bought it in bulk.

7/29/2008 1:49:40 PM

Came home from work one afternoon and saw water leaking from the ceiling light in the kitchen. Turns out my hot water heather decided to explode and leak water from the attic through two floors down to the kitchen. Was not a fun clean up.

My all time favorite was when a possum decided to burrow up underneath my bay window from inside the crawl space. It nested behind the vent so I couldn't see it and then it decided to die. Smelled like all hell for 2 days. Had to have all of the duct work replaced as well since it was clawing and chewing on it. Almost puked because when we pried the bottom of the bay window out it rolled out all covered in maggots. Was the size of a small dog I shit you not.

[Edited on July 29, 2008 at 2:04 PM. Reason : sa]

7/29/2008 2:03:55 PM

i'm surprised they put the water heater in the attic. i'm sure there's a good reason. mine is in the crawlspace, thankfully. that's really gross about the opossum.

heh, i actually bought some terro ant bait while i was at Ace to get the drain pan, so i'm glad to hear that they work well.

[Edited on July 29, 2008 at 2:10 PM. Reason : o]

7/29/2008 2:10:40 PM

all the heavy rain the last few weeks uncovered the fact that we didnt have properly installed flashing around the chimney. Buckets of rain came raining down the sides of the chimney. Luckily we were home at the time and so we were able to get towels and plastic containers out before it damaged anything.

Cost $200 bucks to get a roofing guy to fix it up for us.

7/29/2008 2:13:28 PM

my dogs scratch up our hardwoods.

my wife won't let me get rid of the dogs.

7/29/2008 2:43:07 PM

^they make a hard resin finish that looks good and dog's can't destroy. My brother in law has it and I am probably going to get it soon for my hardwoods as well.

7/29/2008 2:44:33 PM

closing on a house in 2 days! I hope I won't be posting in here

7/29/2008 3:55:29 PM

starting to build my own house right now. and I'm work for a home builder so I hear about this stuff from time to time.

I love the look on someone's face when they ask me how am I going to fix something and I have to let them know that that certain problem is part of home ownership maintenance and they need to go buy a caulk gun or whatever to fix it.

7/29/2008 4:30:57 PM

Quote :

"other then the garbage disposal i installed incorrectly, causing the fucking dishwasher to overflow."

didn't pop out that drain plug eh?

Quote :

"Cost $200 bucks to get a roofing guy to fix it up for us."

damn dude, i dunno how high or what angle your roof and your chimney meet, but i had that happen.

got a ladder, some sealant and redid the area around the flashing. not hard at all. took 30 mins.

[Edited on July 29, 2008 at 4:49 PM. Reason : eh]

7/29/2008 4:48:15 PM

It's no secret that zorthage and I recently had the kitchen remodeled.


Last year, I kept telling him the floor was spongy. He didn't believe me, didn't see what I was talking about ...til much later. Even after he'd go look at the floor from the crawlspace, he said it was fine.

Many months later, my uncle came by and I had him look at it. We had some cast iron pipes in the kitchen, and one had developed a pinhole leak...which enlarged rapidly, soaking the floor.

My uncle fixed it, and said either the floor would dry out, or it would dry rot. It chose to dry rot, and that's why we have a brand new $20K kitchen.

We are also going to have to remodel the bathroom soon, because there's water damage from there. The contractors were working in the kitchen when our housesitter took a shower, and water started gushing from where the wall meets the tub. They fixed that for now, but it's already cracking again, and the water damage is already underway.

Said contractor also said that the wiring in the kitchen and other parts of the house were housefires waiting to happen, as wires weren't spliced correctly, and most everything was just a rat's nest of electrical tape. So we still have circuits that are turned off until we can fix those.


All this still doesn't hold a candle to my parents' house, though, so to me, this is all small peaches

7/29/2008 4:48:47 PM

ANTS! HATE ANTS!

I was getting ready to cook dinner and noticed an entire fucking party on my cook top. I turned every burner on high and let those fuckers fry. Then I cleaned and put out ant bait. I'll have to give the Terro Traps a try, if they come back.

7/29/2008 5:12:01 PM

escrow, mu'fuckas!

7/29/2008 6:00:02 PM

we recently got a new sliding glass back door. our old one was old (i think it was the original back door), perpetually dirty, the lock sucked, the handle was broken, and the weather seal was terrible.

our new one looks GREAT, but unfortunately my SO measured it wrong
luckily it was just a 1/2'' too small, and his dad, who installed it for us, knew what he was doing and was able to fix the problem.

next change/project is new windows. we're going with thermo-star like we did for the new door. the back upstairs window definitely has to be replaced b/c of the break-in we had in april. we're using money from our recent yard sale and from restitution from the guilty offenders (yeah, they were caught--w00t!) to replace all the windows.

(fyi--they climbed on our shed roof and entered through the upstairs window)

we have ideas of what we may do next, but windows are first. just one project at a time as the $$$$ is saved.

but right now, i really hate our HOA

7/29/2008 8:15:19 PM

in 4 yrs off the top of my head at my house:

new roof, carpet, 3 bathrooms remodeled, new windows, kitchen remodel, water heater, at least 30 trees removed, added a new closet in laundry room. replaced sliding glass door with french doors. tore down all wallpaper and painted.

its hard to save money when your house is 30 yrs old and wifey wont leave well enough alone

7/29/2008 8:43:23 PM

Quote :

"replaced sliding glass door with french doors."

i def. prefer doors to anything that slides.

7/29/2008 8:59:22 PM

knock on wood. It's been pretty quiet at my new house so far. Just a few minor repairs and actually it was stuff I wanted to improve, nothing that was a major problem. My first house was a total wreck and every project turned into a nightmare. The previous owners had "repaired" a bunch of shit but it was just enough to make it look like it was fixed. Once I started digging into it shit got complicated.

7/29/2008 9:11:52 PM

a tree fell on my house, broke in half and landed on my car
no fun at all

7/29/2008 9:26:56 PM

we would've liked to replace the sliding glass door with french doors, but with the layout and size of our living room it wasn't the best option

7/29/2008 10:00:51 PM

our master shower started leaking underneath the drain and into the corners of the walls. since we're on a slab, we have to get the entire shower replaced

7/29/2008 11:15:07 PM

i wish i had a house to bitch about

i love doing home improvement shit

i added an outlet in the bathroom in my apartment because i didnt like the location of the others

if i owned this place, it would have been gutted already

7/29/2008 11:43:18 PM

^ I agree, I like to do home improvement stuff.

Only thing is, now that I have the new job I could see how sick I would get of my fucking house falling apart every few months. Showing up from home tired as hell and going "oh look, a huge mess" once you walk in the door kinda puts a damper on wanting to go and put down some tile in the entryway.

My dad's rental house has made me rather wary of buying a house and living in it immediately. I'll have to make sure to buy a house with enough bedrooms and bathrooms so that I can swap rooms as I fix up/replace stuff that's gotten AIDS over the years. My experience with his rental house just tells me that once you find one thing that's broken, rotting, or whatever, there's at least one more thing you're going to notice while you're repairing what's messed up that you're going to have to fix eventually.

I still want to be a part of this club though. Living on my own land in a suburb where I could open my windows at night and turn my music up and not worry about bitchy ass neighbors is something I would really like to do sooner rather than later.

7/30/2008 12:58:19 AM

For those sugar ants, the only thing you need is terro. Those idiots will form a solid black ring around it and lap it up. In one or two days, they will be completely gone.


Now, all they need to do is make versions of terro that will work of criminals and children.

7/30/2008 1:21:56 AM

Quote :

"Now, all they need to do is make versions of terro that will work of criminals"

it's called a gun.

7/30/2008 8:35:12 AM

oh yeah

how could i forget?

Quote :

"FUCKING MUTANT SPIDERS"

7/30/2008 9:42:15 AM

^

Worthless without pics.

7/30/2008 12:44:18 PM

also i am glad i don't have a fireplace anymore. i hate them with a passion.

7/30/2008 2:28:41 PM

Never Fear Folks!!!!11


http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/30/news/economy/housing_bill_Bush/index.htm?cnn=yes


I need to have some siding repaired / power washed / painted, would anyone like to recommend some good people to give me an estimate?

7/30/2008 4:45:24 PM

^

I might know a guy. Missed you at bball yesterday.

7/30/2008 6:42:44 PM

I haven't seen any ants, but spiders are always turning up.

8/1/2008 8:26:37 PM

My kitchen flooded the day that I moved in from an improperly installed hose bib on the outside wall.
Then happened again two weeks later when the person who was supposed to fix it didn't, but said that they had.
It wasn't so terrible, except they set off the alarm trying to get in to put fans in to try up the base boards and cabinets, and had the police come.

8/2/2008 2:16:32 AM

Quote :

"Many months later, my uncle came by and I had him look at it. We had some cast iron pipes in the kitchen, and one had developed a pinhole leak...which enlarged rapidly, soaking the floor. My uncle fixed it, and said either the floor would dry out, or it would dry rot. It chose to dry rot, and that's why we have a brand new $20K kitchen. We are also going to have to remodel the bathroom soon, because there's water damage from there. The contractors were working in the kitchen when our housesitter took a shower, and water started gushing from where the wall meets the tub. They fixed that for now, but it's already cracking again, and the water damage is already underway."

ah, welcome to the joys of galvanized water lines! get as much of that crap out of there as you can, especially on any horizontal runs where particles settle and stick. besides the huge liability they pose at that age, they also are terrible for restricting flow. i've pulled some pieces out that might have had the diameter of a pencil inside the wall of rust and other deposits built up.

you might also strongly consider a leak detection/automatic shut off valve if you don't plan to replace it all or some is inaccessible. especially if you're away from the house a lot. a nicer unit isn't "cheap", but in comparison to the nightmare of a totally flooded house that you've just remodeled it's a bargain. we typically recommend and install flologic's products, but there are others out there.

http://www.flologic.com/Automatic-Water-Shutoff-System.html

8/2/2008 4:45:15 PM

All the next fun projects that we've been saving for will have to be put aside...

gas water heater went out yesterday. it has a leak that keeps putting out the pilot light, and it's all rusted inside.

8/3/2008 8:43:28 AM

Quote :

"my dogs scratch up our hardwoods. my wife won't let me get rid of the dogs."

Send me a check for 200 bucks and your dog problem will be solved.

8/3/2008 12:45:41 PM

Quote :

"escrow, mu'fuckas!"

No escrow for me.

8/3/2008 1:48:55 PM

Quote :

"Worthless without pics."

like i'd stand in front of one that long.

I haven't entered my garage in three days after an encounter with a gigantic wolf spider this weekend.

in related news, anyone ever tried this? http://www.pestproducts.com/demonwp.htm

My Ortho Home Defense Max is weaksauce. It can't handle the motherfucking zombie spiders that I have around here. Or does anyone know where i can get some DDT?

8/5/2008 7:22:15 AM

my AC is possibly on the fritz

i hope i fixed the issue by flipping the switch in the garage, i had a power outage the other day. i checked the lines outside for ice but its hard to know for sure when its pouring rain!

it was 86 degrees yesterday and now its getting back down to 75 so i am hoping the switch flip was the problem and that its not leaking anti freeze

8/5/2008 11:51:58 AM

^ gibberish?

switch flip is a skateboarding term.

your a/c uses anti-freeze? what the hell are you talking about.

8/5/2008 12:47:01 PM

female

8/5/2008 1:08:47 PM

haha i think i meant freon

dammit, i tried to do this myself

i should have done what i always do and get some guy to come over and fix it for me, it always works better

i'll have him look at it when he installs my dimmers and fan outside

8/5/2008 1:13:44 PM

if your compressor stops working, don't try to get it going again until you have someone come out and check the refrigerant levels. you will kill your compressor that way. it shouldn't freeze up unless something is wrong. typically people will run the heater for a bit to defrost the coils, but in your case, if it's not a power surge that tripped a breaker, then you don't want to touch it.

a service call is cheaper than a compressor, plus they can clean out your lines and other crap for free.

8/5/2008 1:20:53 PM

you obviously need to check your AC's megabytes.

8/5/2008 1:23:14 PM

i think a power surge tripped the breaker

if i have any more problems i'll call for help

the place is brand new so i am really hoping there are no problems, we're talking 6 months old!

8/5/2008 1:29:25 PM

Quote :

"plus they can clean out your lines and other crap for free"

Who works for free and where can I hire them?

8/5/2008 2:26:34 PM

alright

i found the 4th black widow in a week today.

i broke down and started service with a pest control company.

fuck these motherfucking spiders.

8/5/2008 8:26:24 PM

^ i cant blame you!

eeekk!!

do you have a lot of stuff stored in your garage or what?

8/5/2008 8:27:27 PM