This is a selfie I took last year, but I never got around to sharing it with anyone. It was maybe an hour after I had signed a boatload of paperwork, and officially signed the purchase to my second house.
I still remember the feelings of driving away from the realtor’s office with my new keys and garage door openers in hand, not knowing what I should be doing next. Seeing as how my new home wasn’t that far from the realtor’s office, I decided to just go straight there, since I had some boxes in my car that were already ready to be unloaded into the new home. I guess it was fortunate that the realtors were as close to the property as mine was, because I can’t imagine that this is the case for everyone who ever purchases a home.
I remember walking around my new house with a feeling of amazement and bewilderment; this house was mine now. It was slightly different than my former home, since I didn’t purchase it alone, so the feelings of newness and ‘what did we get ourselves into were shared between two people. I also remembered that it was pretty warm in the house, presumably because the HVAC was dormant due to the home being empty and unoccupied and none of being on for a while.
Despite closing, mythical gf and I didn’t really quite move in for a little bit, as we had to settle up our apartment as well as the fact that we decided to a lot of painting and whatever superficial things needed to happen before the introduction of all of our belongings.
We noticed early on that even despite turning the air conditioning on, it simply wasn’t really getting cool on the lower level. We knew that the A/C was suspect, as it was flagged in the home inspection, especially since it was an original unit to a home that was 30 years old. But considering the laundry list of things that were required to be covered prior to purchasing the home, I had prioritized the roofing over the HVAC, taking consideration of the consulting of my realtor to curb back on the demands lest the seller cease negotiation.
So, we got someone to come out, and it turns out that there was a refrigerant leak, which was why the performance was so mediocre. A $300 recharge later, and the unit was producing cool air again. However not all of the vents were pumping out adequate cool air, because the ducts were in poor shape, and this was another thing that we were aware of, but held off on, considering the $20,000 the previous owners shelled out, just to sell to me.
Then came the ants. At first, it was a result of leaving too many things in the sink, which is somewhat understandable. So it only helps reinforce good habits of promptly putting things away into the dishwasher or manually washing and drying things quickly. But then there was an incident where I left a jug of sweet tea on the counter, because I knew I would be coming back for a refill fairly quickly, but when I came back fairly quickly, it was still far too late for ants to have discovered the jug, and the things was covered with ants already.
I fucking loathe ants. Pretty quickly, a pest service was contacted, and an agreement signed, to help alleviate this, as well as get my home kosher with termite coverage. Except the company is run by idiots who can’t run billing correctly, and after several threats to be sent to collections, it was discovered that one employee had admitted to accidentally have putting my payment information to someone else’s account.
Unfortunately, I’m locked into this company for a full year, so I can’t leave them without incurring penalty, but I can foresee myself going elsewhere as soon as I next remember how much they suck.
When this past winter came, and it was uncharacteristically cold and snowy for Georgia standards, I found out the hard way that I had pipes that were susceptible to freezing. I was fortunate that none of them burst, but on more than one occasion did they freeze and render certain sinks and the shower in the master bathroom unusable until the temperature rose back up and allowed the freezes to melt off.
I learned real quickly the most efficient manner in which to drip faucets so that the water movement would prevent the pipes from freezing, and I became a hawk at monitoring temperatures, to make sure that any time that the thermostat was, or was going to hit below 32F degrees, to keep things dripping as not to risk any further freezes and potential bursts.
Over the spring, I had to ask myself if I was willing to pay my landscaper more money per visit in order to cut the field adjacent to my property that was technically my responsibility, or if I should buckle down and start doing my own lawn care moving forward. The previous summer, while I was still unaware of the property lines, the field had grown long, and a meddling neighbor had reported me to the county who threatened me with liens and fines unless I got it cut.
This neighbor* probably thought they were anonymous and would get away with it, but if there’s one thing I know about homeownership is that county complaints are public record, and I was pretty easily able to identify and find out that a person four houses down was the one that reported me. Suffice to say, they weren’t pleased when I came to their door and had some words with them, and I’m thrilled to have already made hostilities with someone in my own neighborhood.
*[2020 note: this neighbor actually died from asthma /bummer.gif]
Oh, and I decided to just buy a mower and some gear, and have resorted to taking care of my own yard, two hours at a time, nearly once a week, during the most rampant grass growth. Not the most fun chore in the world to do, but over the span of a month, I’ve already paid off all my equipment in comparison to what I would’ve been paying my landscaper had I stuck with them.
When we had gotten the A/C recharged last summer, we were told that when it comes to refrigerant leaks, we won’t know if the recharge is going to work for 12 days or 12 months, but we’ll definitely know when it it’s no longer working again. It wasn’t 12 days, but it didn’t last 12 months either. It was maybe about ten months before when on one unfortunate evening, did it simply not get any cooler in the house when we had turned the air on. I had hoped it was on account of a coil freeze or something less severe, but in the back my mind I knew that the A/C was probably kaput again.
I had debated on simply getting someone out to recharge the system again, but somewhere along the line it occurred to me that this wouldn’t fix things for the long run, and to start thinking big picture. Obviously, I had great reluctance with this option, considering the typical cost of an A/C replacement could range anywhere from $5-10 thousand dollars, depending on the quality of the unit being installed.
I called numerous companies in order to try and get the most information to make an educated decision, and it was very clear that two companies wanted my business while two of them couldn’t have given any fewer shits about whether I went with them or not. Long story short, it took a while to pick a company, and even longer for them to have availability to come start my HVAC replacement, but it turns out that the suspect previous ductwork would also be gutted, ripped out and replaced as well. May as well go all the way with a fresh clean HVAC installation. Unfortunately, the ductwork also added nearly $2,500 to the project, and when the smoke settled, I was nearly $8,500 in the hole for the project.
But, I can say with confidence that I’d never been more pleased to have spent $8,500 in my entire life. Over the past year, we’ve had below-average, mediocre A/C performance, so we’ve never really enjoyed the luxury of an adequately cooled home. But now, all the vents are properly connected, the A/C unit is brand new, and real, cool air is being pumped into my home on a consistent and reliable manner.
Needless to say, I enjoyed the coolness of my home over the last weekend, doing very little while mythical gf is still out of the country.
All of this shit sounds like tremendous pains in the ass, and truth is, they are. Homeownership is often not fun, and it’s being a homeowner that makes it easy to see the green grass on the other side of the fence of people living in apartments and rental properties, where someone else is responsible for all of the tedious things that I have to deal with myself.
But, I can always take solace in the fact that this home is mine, and the money I’m paying every single month is going to further reinforcing that property ownership, to where someday it will officially be mine. I can do whatever I want to it, and piece by piece, customize it into the ideal home I want it to be.
One year in the books, and hopefully many, many more await moving forward, with pleasant memories made along the way.
