the new house
The new house is going well. Sure, we're stumbling across random things here & there which are annoying, but overall, I'm satisfied.
The first couple weeks in the house were interesting. \$250 plumber repairs, \$170 phone company bills, having new windows put in to replace the 37 year old aluminum ones, and the grand prize winner, the \$1500 electrician bill.
We drove down to the house before 8AM. Emptied out the car, and then I headed off to buy a ladder. I looked at OSH first, and then Home Depot, where I ended up getting one. The number of Mexican day laborers hanging around outside in the parking lot was a bit disconcerting. On the 6 mile drive back to the house, I got a call from the AT&T tech, confirming that he was going to be at our house in about 15 minutes to install the 2nd phone jack. We actually had phone & DSL service turned on just yesterday at the house (and turned off at the appt).
Anyway, I had some minor paint touchup work to do in the bathroom, and then the tech from AT&T arrived. I showed him where I wanted the new phone jack installed, and he got to work. As he was finishing off, the carpet install men arrived. They replaced this horrible, 30+ year old, holey carpet in my office with a brand new, boring beige carpet in under an hour.
Once they were done, I took out the ugly glass shower doors, in preparation to replace them with a curtain. After that I moved the lock from the front to the back of the left gate.
Finally the electrician arrived to figure out what was wrong with the clothes dryer power socket. He quickly deterined that the breaker had failed. It would be \$350 to replace the breaker, or \$1575 to replace the entire breaker box. Since the box looked to be about as old as the house, we ended up deciding to get the entire thing replaced. Midway through the work, there was a ton of noise & shaking coming from the garage where they were doing the work, and suddenly I noticed this small (1 inch) white line appear on the wall in the TV room (which is on the opposite side of the wall where the breaker was getting replaced). Yes, the idiot cut a hole straight through the wall. And didn't realize it, or worse, didn't admit it. I went outside to see what they were doing, and they didn't seem to have a clue, and i commented that they had cut right through the wall. It was pretty much all down hill from there. The guy commented that he could patch the hole, and apologized but beyond that didn't seem to be all that concerned that he had just put a hole through the wall, not to mention that we had just finished painting it. After a couple more hours, the work was finished (so i guess the original reason for having them out was addressed). He showed me what they had done, and it looked ok. Then there was this uneasy silence, and he pulls out the bill, for \$1575. I asked whether they planned to compensate us for the damage that they caused, and he offered \$25 off. I literally laughed in his face. It was insulting. So he goes off to call his boss to see what else can be done, and comes back to offer \$50 off. I'm still not satisfied, and I told him as much, but it was clearly a lost cause. I paid the \$1525, and they left.
The following day, I filed a complaint with the BBB. A few days later the electrician calls, and offers to deduct \$100 from the bill, which I accepted.
Since then, we've fought battles with a minor ant infestation. After dumping a ridiculous amount of bug poison around the perimeter of the house, it seems to have improved significantly.
Then in late August & early September we got hit with a massive heat wave that sent the temperature *inside* the house up to 93F. We finally got a window air conditioner which made sleeping comfortable.
Beyond that, its just been mostly chores around the house. Mowing the lawn, cutting the hedges, and a few minor repairs here & there.