Love being a homeowner, hate being a homeowner

I have this love-hate relationship going on with my house right now. I love that I’m not paying rent to cover someone else’s mortgage, and the fact that I don’t have to ask permission before I paint a room any color that I wish, and the fact that I can gut a room at my whim to make it more what I want. I hate the fact that when I wake up on a Sunday morning, on a holiday weekend, I find a hole a little larger than a silver dollar in my sewage pipe that is leaking into my kitchen, and that I have to call the plumber and I will very likely have to pay an astronomical bill.
I got up today at about 5:30, went downstairs, neatened up a little, made some coffee, got the paper, etc. At about 7:30 I was in the kitchen putzing around when I saw a little spot or two of water that looked fairly fresh. I touched it and it was. I looked about to identify the source and found that the under side of a pipe that joins the sink waste water to the upstairs sewer drainage had a very large hole in it and that when the toilet is flushed, several drops leak out of that and onto the floor. This has obviously been an issue before as the upstairs sewage pipe has been changed out from cast iron to PVC as has the basement portion. It’s the piece that runs from the ceiling to the floor in the kitchen, that has been behind walls and cupboards for years, that has not been changed over yet. It honestly looks like this particular piece of pipe is very old and worn, and now that it’s no longer covered the pressure of the water just sucked in a rusty spot or something. Ugh.
So, I pulled out the phone book, looked up a 24×7 plumber that accepts Amex and gave them a call. I’m waiting now for someone to call back and say “Yes we can be there in an hour. Please bend over, grab your ankles, make sure that your wallet is out, and your issue will be resolved.
Now you can understand the love and the hate that I have.
Poor Chris. I went upstairs where he was still sleeping blissfully, woke him up, and started crying. I said “I really don’t want to start your day off badly, but….” He was totally cool about it and said “This stuff just happens. There’s nothing that we can do to stop it so just don’t worry about it.” This is why we’re good for each other. He can totally defuse me when I need it most
J

1 Comment

  1. That sucks. Hopefully, they won’t screw you over too bad. It’s just replacing a pipe and only about 10′ of it. No work is required to gain access. I’ll cross my fingers for you.
    BTW we feel the same about owning a home. It’s great that you can do pretty much anything you want and pretty much any time you feel like. The downsides are paying for it and actually doing the work. Both of which can be overwhelming at times.
    Keep up with the good work. Just try not to do too much at a time.

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