Tag: homeownership

When the day is over, you just have to do the shit yourself

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because my mental being can’t handle loose ends, I decided to take it upon myself to put back up my own fucking fence, so that it’s one less thing that I’ll have to dump money into when it comes time to (hopefully) finding someone competent to fix shit around my house.  As mentioned before, in the process, I fucked up my finger pretty bad, but fortunately it wasn’t in a state where I couldn’t just bandage it up, wear gloves and not be able to continue working.

To summarize, among the shit that the clown of a “handyman” I “hired” to fix my window did, was not just remove several fence panels,  but also damage the posts in in the process of fishing the $450 scissor lift rental I made on his request, off of my backyard, which also tore the shit out of my turf (photos below).  He claimed that he would take responsibility for the damages, but shocking nobody, he’s been as evasive and vague as an extreme cheapskate when the bill shows up, about when he’s actually coming to do anything, and frankly I don’t actually believe he’s going to do anything, and I’m going to light him up on the internet and hope it hurts his future business, because an asshole like this doesn’t need to be out there pretending to be a respectable handyman.

During the days of ghosting, I would step outside and just look at the unfinished job of the fence, and get madder and madder, and I realized that this was not good for my mental state.  Just because I didn’t want to do it didn’t mean that I wasn’t capable of doing it, and considering the sloppy nature of this guy in the first place, it would probably be in the best interest if I did it myself, to ensure that it would be done well.

So janky finger injury aside, I assessed where things stood, and came to the conclusion that this was one of those situations where I would just have to do this shit myself.

Continue reading “When the day is over, you just have to do the shit yourself” →

I wonder if I need therapy

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Easy set up aside, I’m not trying to be funny at the moment.  Over the last few days, and dealing with the clown of a handyman who has for the lack of better term, fucked me, I haven’t been dealing with the frustration over it very well, and it’s bleeding out in various capacities.  As detailed, I got my glasses broken from negligence, and there have been other instances where I’ve made some careless errors that were fortunately nothing too bad other than aggravation.

But yesterday, since I’ve decided to take it upon myself to fix the fuck ups of my shit handyman, I had an incident where I nicked my ring fingertip with my belt sander; no, it’s nothing severe, but some blood was drawn, and it was in a terribly inconvenient place that made typing competently near impossible until I procured some appropriate fingertip Band Aids, which is how I’m back at the keys writing this right now.  You never realize how much a single finger comes into play with an assortment of daily activities until it’s put on injured reserve.

In all honesty, the meme above, about the try not to cry, but then cry a lot?  That’s kind of how I’ve felt on and off throughout this past week, and I’m feeling very mentally vulnerable right now.  I’m not sure if this is just extremely poor stress management, perhaps this is quarantining cabin fever manifesting in emotional instability?  Maybe it’s the anxiety of knowing I feel like the first three weeks of my paternity leave has vanished in the blink of an eye and now I’m on the downward slope of going back to work sooner rather than later.  My dog is also acting a little strange, which isn’t helping, because I already feel like a shitty enough neglectful owner because baby comes ahead of everything, but at least he’s getting his meals and routine bathroom breaks and not locked in his crate eight hours a day like when I was in the office.

Or maybe it’s all of the above, and it’s an amalgamation of factors leading me to feeling like maybe I need some professional help to help me make sense of why I’m in such a mentally turrible state lately.

And no matter how much I talk to myself about how I really shouldn’t be in this much of a funk, here I am.  I have my health, I have a stable job, in spite of some recent angst about it, I have a beautiful and loving wife who supports everything about me, and I’ve got the most gorgeous and precious kid that I have the utmost luxury to be taking care of every single day right now.  Frankly, even I don’t think I should be feeling so volatile given these facts, but I just can’t shake it right now.

I’m hoping that once I get my property back in order, I’ll feel better about things, as the visual results of having been fucked will be behind me.  But if that doesn’t work, I think I may explore what my options are, and/or see if my insurance can be of any help at all in this.  Who really knows what’s going to happen in the future, but I’ve never been one against the idea of therapy, but I’ve always felt like I just didn’t need it, but if things can’t seem to get better through all of the channels that I’ve been using throughout my life so far, perhaps some professional help might not be a bad idea.

I owe it to my wife, child and rest of my family and friends to be the best I can be, and not be so wrecked by stupid shit.  Maybe a good cry is what I really do need, like in Fight Club.  Would probably be a lot cheaper than therapy!

Am I naïve for having so much faith in people?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sorry, I just can’t get over this yet.  I wasn’t really planning on writing about this again, but on the day my handyman was supposed to come back and finish fixing my fence, he no-showed on me, citing that he was going over on another job he had, which is understandable, but the objection I have is the fact that he had stated that he was going to make it by a particular time.

I’m okay with the need to reschedule and adjust, but don’t leave me hanging and make me have to be the one to get some fucking answers when it was probably very clear that the job was going to be going long, and I wouldn’t have had to feel like a hostage in my own house waiting all day, because I wanted to talk to this guy before he got to work to point out some things.

Alternatively, the title of this post would’ve been “To blow up, or not to blow up,” because I’d been thinking about this a lot over the last day, about whether or not I should light this guy a new asshole on the internet for the absolute putrid way he’s running a business.  There’s a part of me that just wants this to all end, and leave things civil, and let an up-and-comer not get obliterated on the internet, but there’s another part of me that’s sick and tired of constantly waiting for this guy to show up, the fact that when he did show up, he fucked me harder than Andy Dufresne probably did in Shawshank Redemption, and that I’m practically waiting on him to cut-and-run on me, leaving me at more than just a $450 loss.

Originally, I figured I wouldn’t bother, because as shitty of a business this guy is running, I have reservations of blowing up a guy with a million kids and clearly in need of a job, because a bad reputation isn’t just going to cost this guy a few projects, but could very well be the difference with him being able to provide for his family.

But seeing as how he’s clearly got other projects, ones that he prioritizes over mine, which he royally fucked up, I’m a little less piteous of his situation, and I’m feeling pretty steamed over the fact that he left me out to dry.

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To add insult to injury

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The fucking handyman broke my glasses.  Not directly, but as a result of dealing with him, my glasses ended up breaking, and I definitely blame him.  These things cost me $300 back in 2015, and will probably cost me a good bit to replace, even with my insurance credit.

After he royally fucked my yard, and gave his word that he would take care of the repairs, he ended up hanging out at my house until nearly 9 pm, hosing down the scissor lift that was caked in mud, and very likely going to cost me an extra $200 in cleaning charges, plus if there’s anything wrong with it because it was drug around off-road, that’s on me too.  Periodically, I went outside to check on him, and towards the end of his night, we were discussing the next steps in this negative project, and how to get us back to even ground.

But because I’m a responsible fucking person, I’m wearing a mask; but because I’m wearing a mask, and it’s humid-as-balls Georgia, my glasses are fogging up, so I take them off and set them on top of mythical wife’s car.

Long story short, I forgot to take them back inside, and the next morning, I’m doing my thing around the house, and then I get the idea to take my daughter out on a stroller walk, since the weather isn’t too turrible yet.  I’m looking for my glasses, and I can’t find them anywhere, but eventually I just say fuck it, because I don’t need my glasses to go on a walk.  I load my baby into the stroller, and we head outside, and I’m just off the driveway, when I see something on the ground.

Hm, that looks like a lens from my glasses.  I pick it up, and I hold it up to one of my eyes, and it’s at that very second it all comes crashing back to me, where I had left my glasses last.  I quickly start looking around, and then I see one of the arms, and then the mangled frames, and then I see the other lens, somehow bent.

A true FML moment, right then and there, because everything was then as clear as if I were wearing my glasses.

Obviously, it is nobody’s fault but my own, but after the service raping of my yard and fence, I was pretty out of mind for the rest of the day, and clearly it impacted my ability to remember simple shit, like retrieving my glasses, so when the day is truly over, it really is the fault of the fucking handyman.

$450 down the drain, and now a likely $300 more to get a new pair of glasses, because this is one of those rare instances where my Asian-ness kicks in, and I liked having a pair of expensive designer frames.  Fuck this guy

This is a story about pure, unadulterated failure

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I alluded to in my last daddy brog, I was to have some work done to my house, specifically, fixing up the wood around two very high up windows, so that they would no longer allow moisture into my home.  The day in which that work was to happen has come and gone, and hoo boy, do I have a story to tell, about just how much failure can possibly be packed into a single day of one individual person, being me.

For starters, when it was evident that moisture was getting into my home, I was pretty quickly able to deduce that it was coming from an upstairs window, based on where the water was seeping into parts of my home.  Honestly, this was something that was flagged during my home inspection back before I even came into the home, but it wasn’t listed as something that was critical, but something to look out for in the future.  And the future had arrived, and the seal clearly had worn down to where water was getting into my house when the rain came sideways.

So, thinking it was something fairly minor and maybe a few silicone caulk re-sealing wouldn’t fix, I opted to get a handyman, whom might have a 26-32’ ladder, since my 22’ extension ladder wasn’t tall enough for me to go up there and inspect it myself.  It took a day or two for the guy to show up, as he had cited a child emergency on the first day, and being the new dad I am myself, I was extremely understanding and empathetic to the needs of children first.

When he did show up, we joked about how we both hoped this would be a quick job where he could hop up onto the ladder, slather down some caulk, and be on his merry way, bam, easy $100, but it turns out that it wouldn’t be that simple because nothing in the world is ever that simple.  It turned out that the frame around the window was mostly rotten, and even the ladder coming into contact with a piece of it caused it to immediately disintegrate like Castlevania blocks.

Now this, is the point where I feel like I could have changed history.  Like if I were Cable from X-Force, I could body slide to this point in time and smack myself upside the head and tell me to NOT ask the guy,

Can you fix it?

Because of fucking course he said he could, what handyman is ever going to say no and deny themselves the possibility of getting a job?  And then he quoted be some number that I didn’t find egregious, and frankly I just wanted this shit fixed up as soon as humanly possible, and didn’t want to go through too much bullshit trying to track down a window person to come and re-examine and re-quote song and dance.

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New Father Brogging, #018

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been a little bit in the pits lately, and it’s one of those situations where I think about the things that are making me feel down, and they bring me down more, and starts this cycle of negative thinking that only gets gradually worse and worse if I don’t talk about it and admit that I’m feeling a little depressed.

Firstly, by no means necessary is any of my recent funk on account of my precious baby child doing anything wrong; if anything at all, she’s the one steady and greatest and brightest thing in my life, as should not really be of a surprise, and frankly, my only woes in regards to my child is that I feel guilty that I’m not enjoying my paternity time as much as I probably should.

Sure, I’d love to be able to take her out of the house and go and see things, but in in the coronavirus-addled world we live in, such isn’t necessarily a good idea, not to mention the feed and nap routine we’re trying to constantly reinforce doesn’t exactly make it convenient to leave the house and expect to enjoy ourselves and be back at the bassinet approximately two hours later.  But there are admittedly times in which I feel like I’m failing as a father, by not always having an idea or things to do with my child, and I’m always worried that I’m boring her or not stimulating her enough to where that budding developing brain is actually growing.

I don’t handle with particular stresses very well, and in the case of my house, which has had some recent issues due to the bipolar Georgia weather, I’m frustrated and aggravated at how long and how much it’s going to cost to get things fixed, and if I stop and think about all the moving parts in play, it tends to get me all anxious with annoyance, which doesn’t help.

To boil it down, my skylight issue was an easy solve, since that was basically a $430 caulk job that has prevented further moisture from getting in, but the window issue I’m having, is going to be substantially more, and I’m in this situation where I’m wondering if I had hired an actual window company from the onset instead of assuming it was just a simple caulk job here too, and hiring a handyman, would’ve saved me a tremendous amount of time, money and aggravation, instead of the route that I’m on right now.  But because I’ve already committed, I’m doing myself a favor and not finding out, because if it turns out to be a substantial savings on all accounts, I’m just going to end up way more perturbed than I already am.

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Why are homes made out of wood?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Seriously, honest question.  Why are homes made out of wood?  A flimsy, degradable material that is so susceptible to the elements, that has pretty definitive expiration conditions.  Especially when there’s a world of materials out there that aren’t nearly as vulnerable?

Naturally, with a query like that, it stands to believe that I’ve gone through some sort of negative experience, to which is affirmative.  We’ve had some gnarly rain, and at one point, hail, and then suddenly, there are two places in my house that started leaking.  A skylight in the sunroom breached at first, leading me to put down some buckets to catch water, and what started as one corner that was leaking eventually turned into three corners, leading to my disgust and aggravation. 

Naturally, at the time in which all this occurred, there’s little sense in trying to call anyone since it’s not really an emergency, so I went on with my day, just very annoyed.

And then I heard the dripping; at first, I thought I left my kitchen faucet slightly on, but it turned out that the light fixture above my sink was dripping water.  Worse off, there was a bunch of dripping along the window frame in front of the sink, and thinking quickly, I put a bunch of little Tupperware containers to catch the water, since they fit on the sill, but it was unmistakable, that there was a second breach in my house.

Long story short, I tracked it down to some angled windows in my master bathroom on the second floor, where moisture was seeping in through either aged seals or rotting wood, and trickling down behind the walls and into my kitchen.  Also seeping through some cracks in the tile in the master bathroom itself too.  But it was clear to where it was coming from.

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