Homeowner Vent!

hicoco · July 2015

The last few days have been ROUGH for us as homeowners. We just moved into our house in December so we have been dealing with a lot of firsts this year. Thursday night a huge group of ants appeared in our kitchen. I mean, they were ALL OVER the kitchen and we are VERY clean people so this came out of nowhere. On Saturday we noticed mold in our (newly remodeled) basement, and then yesterday both our basement bathroom ejector pump and our water softener broke and our basement flooded. The plumber was supposed to come out this morning but couldn't because we had no power. And it's only Tuesday!! I really just needed to vent about it. Everything is now being worked on and taken care of, but of course it's an expense we weren't expecting.

Any issues with your homes lately? Stuff that happened when you were first-time homeowners? Sigh.

emmaaa · July 2015

Ugh, that doesn't sound fun.

DH and I are kind of looking to buy soon but rent right now. There are definitely moments that I am thankful we are renting!

Maggie0829 · July 2015

Nothing as drastic as you. But we bought a newly built town home. The first week we were in the place my H got in the shower. I was sitting in our morning room directly below said shower. I started hearing dripping only to look up and notice that water was coming out of the place where a ceiling fan electrical box was located. Luckily with a newly built home you have a time where any issues would be fixed without incurring any costs. Took two tries though.

Then two winters ago I got a call from H to let me know that our entry way was flooded because the outside faucet pipe had frozen and burst. That was fun to come home to.

And I know this is minor but the nail pop marks. Holy hell! Why they even still use nails to secure drywall to the ceiling is beyond me. They make screws for a reason dammit!

Our house is only 4 years old so I know that we have a lot to look forward to

novella1186 · July 2015

ugh I'm sorry, that all sucks!!!

We rent our house but we had a string of bad luck with the appliances and found out our landlord sucks at response time and fixing things. It took him 5 days to fix our water-heater when it went out last fall, and he never bothered to come by to fix the furnace when it went out during the winter (on a day when the temp was close to zero, of course!) H watched a youtube video on how to fix that type of furnace issue and just did it himself.

Last summer our dryer died and the landlord said he wouldn't fix it because it wasn't a necessity. So again, H watched youtube videos and figured it out himself. He ended up having to order a part.

Now our sink drain has a big crack in it so we can't use one side of our sink. And has the damn landlord bothered to show up yet? Nope.

Sometimes I feel like we are homeowners, even thought we rent. House stuff sucks.

jenna8984 · July 2015

Uggh I'm so sorry you are dealing with that!!

I swear it happens to all of us. My first house (I was 25 and single) within 3 months of moving in the roof leaked and needed to be replaced ($5,000) and the furnace died in the middle of New Enlgand winter so that had to be immediately replaced ($5,000). It was a fucking disaster and I had to borrow money from my father since I had spent all my mony on the down payment. I have since sold that house and I STILL owe about $700 on the loan! Can't wait to pay that shit off since I don't even live there anymore.

lyndausvi · July 2015

Hugs.

Yeah, sometimes homeownership really sucks. We do not own right now. I was pretty lucky with my condo. I remolded 75% of it right after I bought the unit.

novella1186 · July 2015

Maggie0829 said:

Nothing as drastic as you. But we bought a newly built town home. The first week we were in the place my H got in the shower. I was sitting in our morning room directly below said shower. I started hearing dripping only to look up and notice that water was coming out of the place where a ceiling fan electrical box was located. Luckily with a newly built home you have a time where any issues would be fixed without incurring any costs. Took two tries though.

Then two winters ago I got a call from H to let me know that our entry way was flooded because the outside faucet pipe had frozen and burst. That was fun to come home to.

And I know this is minor but the nail pop marks. Holy hell! Why they even still use nails to secure drywall to the ceiling is beyond me. They make screws for a reason dammit!

Our house is only 4 years old so I know that we have a lot to look forward to

Those things drive me nuts!!!

kvruns · July 2015

wow that's a lot all at once. I had my house for almost 8 years and was fortunate to not have any big issues. My parents have had to put on a new roof (no insurance claim), new stove/oven, a/c broke, and fix something else big recently. I keep telling them their house is saying goodbye to them and they need to move

jenna8984 · July 2015

@novella1186 you need to move the fuck out and rent from someone else

novella1186 · July 2015

jenna8984 said:

@novella1186 you need to move the fuck out and rent from someone else

Yeah, we've been looking. It got complicated because we put an offer on a house and it was accepted, then we had to back out when we found out our company had been bought and we both might lose our jobs.

We waited a year to hear about whether or not we were getting fired. H is safe. I'm still waiting.

This is a very small town without a lot of rentals, and every place we found was more expensive and required a year lease. We didn't want to commit to anything-- or spend even more on rent-- when we didn't know our job situation. Bleh.

Now we want to leave this town altogether so we're just trying to wait it out.

lovemesomemonster · July 2015

Oh the joys of being a homeowner! I'm sorry, it sounds like you are being hit square int he face right away with issues!

Our first house was an older house and the master bathroom was TERRIBLE! We gutted it down and put in a beautiful bathroom with a claw foot tub. Of course going to a claw foot meant we had to move the plumbing around so FI got in the crawl space to do that. He noticed that the drain line was leaking into the crawl space so we shut off the water and called a plumber to fix the issue with the sewer line. He looked at it and said he would snake it out and video the sewer line to the street and we would probably be OK to go through the basement clean out. NOPE not OK, flooded the basement with SHIT during lunch on a week day. We then found out we had roots in the sewer line (lesson learned, pay extra to get the sewer line inspected). I had to call into work because it was about 20 degrees outside so I had to get it cleaned before it was an ice rink of shit (unfinished basement just for storage). I had a girl living with me at the time and she was AMAZING offering to help me with it so we spent 5 hrs trudging through shit sterilizing the basement.

banana468 · July 2015

I'm sorry. You have my sympathy. It happens to everyone. Here are a few of my favorites:

1) While running on generator power (because we had no other electricity for FIVE DAYS after Superstorm Sandy), one night we saw that our lights went off. DH went to investigate and found that the thermostat for the electrical heat in our one finished room in the basement was smoking. Our circuit panel wasn't labeled properly and the idiot homeowners before us wired the electrical heat to the same circuit as the well pump. If they were in the house at that time I would have beaten them with sticks. Our house almost caught fire!

2) The water holding tank in our basement broke and the bladder in it collapsed about 2 weeks before Christmas. Luckily DH and FIL were able to fix it but because otherwise our well pump had to cycle constantly every time we ran water. And a constantly cycling well pump can lead to the need for a new well pump. Fun times.

3) Our upstairs bathroom began to leak into our family room. DH originally thought it was the wax seal under the toilet so he went to Home Depot and bought a new seal. We thought all was well until it started leaking AGAIN. Turns out the old copper pipe that's 50 years old rusted straight through and DH needed to replace it. Luckily the cost was mostly home labor for the initial repair but I have an "unrequested" sky light in my family room that isnt' a sky light because it's looking into new PVC pipe.

Oh, and I dont' know why there are dead ants in my home office.

hicoco · July 2015

You're all so sweet. And it does help to know everyone goes through this stuff. I mean, I do know that but it's good to hear it from other people!

emmaaa, my FI was like "I wish we had never bought a house!" But I know he's just stressed right now. I really do love it most of the time!

Maggie0829, I was SO thankful nothing bad happened during the winter. Fingers crossed it never does! That does not sound like fun.

novella1186, I am sorry about your crappy landlord! My sister rents and has had some frustrating landlords and I always get so mad on her behalf. I'm glad you guys have been able to fix some of it yourselves even though you shouldn't have to!

cupcait927 · July 2015

Hugs and lots of sympathy. H and I have been there. We closed on our house last year in March. Had the inspection in January when we first put the offer in - no huge issues, only little things that the owner agreed to fix. Great. Finally move in on April 1st. Within in three weeks of living there, there's a mushroom growing out of our mudroom ceiling. H starts poking around and finds water damage behind the drywall that wasn't possible to detect in the winter when everything is frozen. $1100 later, we thought we had the problem fixed (water coming down through the chimney). Fast forward to this year - mold starts growing in the same spot. So the water must be coming from somewhere else and I'm dreading having the roofing guys come out again and tell us how expensive that repair will be because who knows what else has been damaged by the water coming in.

The water damage is only one problem in a loooong line of little things about our house that need fixing. I fucking hate owning a home, especially an old home (ours was built in 1930). Loathe it. I told H that once we sell our house, we're going back to renting for a LONG time and the next house we purchase will be a new build - it's not a guarantee that things will be perfect but at least I won't have to deal with the issues an old house brings.

Knottie92548810 · July 2015

It just happens that way, when it rains, it pours.

A couple years ago, we had an ice dam on our roof which caused it to leak into the house (luckily it was during a "State of Emergency" so we didnt have to pay the deductable) and during the same week, our furnace went out. The furnace wouldnt have been that big of a deal to me and my now FI, but we have 2 dogs and we didnt want them to get too cold.

and 6 months later, because something happened when the furnace went out, it melted the drain pan for the air conditioner and we had water all over the basement. (unfinished basement so it wasnt a big deal). and 2 months later we had roots in our pipes to the sewer so we had to pay someone to roto-root it.

I love our house, but being over 100 years old, its gonna have its issues.

Heffalump · July 2015

hicoco said:

The last few days have been ROUGH for us as homeowners. We just moved into our house in December so we have been dealing with a lot of firsts this year. Thursday night a huge group of ants appeared in our kitchen. I mean, they were ALL OVER the kitchen and we are VERY clean people so this came out of nowhere. On Saturday we noticed mold in our (newly remodeled) basement, and then yesterday both our basement bathroom ejector pump and our water softener broke and our basement flooded. The plumber was supposed to come out this morning but couldn't because we had no power. And it's only Tuesday!! I really just needed to vent about it. Everything is now being worked on and taken care of, but of course it's an expense we weren't expecting.

Any issues with your homes lately? Stuff that happened when you were first-time homeowners? Sigh.
ETF stupid, stupid boxes
That sucks. I'm sorry. My homeowner story:
DH and I bought a house before we were actually married. I had an opportunity to relocate, we decided to go for it, and we knew marriage was on the horizon so rather than renting, we just bought a place when we moved.
Two weeks before the wedding, there was this weird wet spot on the driveway, rain or shine. Then we noticed a swampy spot in front of the porch. LSS, our water main was leaking--on our side, of course, not the water company's. Our house was on a slab, and we had to hire some dude to come out and use this ultrasonic leak detector to even find out where the leak was coming from. Then some other guy came out and jackhammered up our laundry room floor to get to the leak and fix it. Then a third guy had to come and retile the laundry room and patch some drywall. By the time the wedding rolled around, we had like $6000 worth of unexpected repair bills.
I wish GoFundMe had existed back then.

loveislouder · July 2015

We bought our house last year in April. Within the first 2 weeks our fridge died, the shed collapsed, our water heater element died, and the snow melted and we realized the back yard was all mud, no grass. $7,000.00 later we finally had a liveable house. Plus property taxes were due in June, house insurance, both of our car inurance... we're still trying to dig ourselves out of that hole.

hicoco · July 2015

Ugh. Thanks for sharing. These stories make me realize it could be a LOT worse. FI told me the plumber made it over once the power was back and apparently an ejector pump was never installed, it was a sump pump. So our toilet in the basement has been draining into that. Yuck. Thank God we hardly use it.

peachy13 · July 2015

First went the fridge. Then the oven. Then the water heater. Then the washer/dryer. And we didn't want to replace the old, shitty appliances with new, shitty appliances... we went out and got high quality items which at the time sucked financially, but I know it's better in the long run.

Now it's the garbage disposal and sink, and it begs the question: do we replace the old, shitty countertop? Probably. It seems like it all goes at once, and if something isn't going, you're walking around your house wanting to upgrade things if and when you can.

Yes it would be lovely to call up a landlord and have the garbage disposal replaced automatically, but to be honest, it's part of the gig. I think everyone I would complain to about at first would say something along the lines of "yep you're a homeowner now!" Thinking positively, it is nice having your own home!

labro · July 2015

Oh man, that sucks. I think the big lesson that everyone needs to remember is emergency fund, emergency fund, emergency fund.

We've had a few major malfunctions in our two years of homeownership. The biggest one was probably January 2014. I was doing laundry and H heard a weird splashing noise coming from our laundry room. He goes in and the washing machine is overflowing! As we look at it, we notice the water is dark and that it's starting to smell. Our freaking septic tank had started to backflow into the washing machine and then overflow onto the floor. Thankfully H acted quickly by removing the washing machine drain hose from the pipe (and thereby breaking the siphon) and then putting a cap on the pipe. We called our home warranty company who sent out a plumber who determined there wasn't a block in the pipe, so the issue was with a septic. We called an emergency septic company to come out and drain our field as much as possible....and they charged us $3k for the emergency call - some emergency seeing as they turned up two days after the call, but whatever. Lesson learned. We learned later on to never ever call any company with the name Rooter in it as apparently they're all a bunch of scam artists, at least in our area anyway. We decided the former owners hadn't informed us correctly about when the septic system was last serviced and the tank had just overflowed (plus we had had a lot of rain lately). A year later, almost to the day, we started having almost the exact same issue. This time we did our research, got a legit company out to our house, and had them replace the entire septic field. The original field had been overgrown with tree roots, was "flowing" uphill for some crazy reason, and basically wasn't functioning.

We've had some other minor things happen here and there, it always seems to happen all at the same time too....or right after we've put a bunch of money in to a project (like exterior house painting) and then we'll get hit with an emergency fix.

WinstonsGirl · July 2015

That sucks. The ants would creep me out, even though I don't mind them outside. Good luck with getting everything taken care of

teddygirl9 · July 2015

Oh no! I hope it gets fixed quickly for you!

luckily we havent had many problems. We were the first to move in on our block (new build), but our neighbors moved in the same day. They have had so many issues. Their washing machine (2nd floor) leaked, so they had to re-do their ceiling on the main floor. Their fridge was installed incorrectly and also leaked, so they had to re-do their flooring. Luckily all covered by the warranty, but still so crappy. They had to stay with a friend while they were re-doing everything =\

hicoco · July 2015

labro, that's what is happening to us! we just spent thousands of dollars on a beautiful deck for our backyard and now all of this stuff hits us.

Bubblegum5586 · July 2015

We just hit 1 year of home ownership and reading all these made me realize how lucky we are! *knock on wood*

My vent is my wasp infestation! Last week I went down my back steps to pick something up and when I turned around I saw 7 wasps swarming by the railing under the deck. Within a second one comes flying at me and stings me in my forehead and as a turn to run away another gets me in the ankle. HOLY SMOKES I forgot how much it hurts to be stung!

So a few days later I try to get the courage to spray it (but now I am terrified to get stung again) and I can't find the nest (I was scared to get too close). So my dad comes over the next night and found it in a nook under the deck that your face is like 3 ft from it to see it. He sprays it for me and said I might need to do it the next night. I sprayed the next night (when I finally saw it for myself I see it is bigger then a softball and smaller then a melon!). The next morning I still see a few, so my dad sprays again for me.

FINALLY yesterday (over a week later) I finally go and sit out on my deck and I see 2-3 more on the deck (maybe now in the old attached flower boxes) UGHHHHHHHHH I am starting to realize it may take me awhile to tackle this. And wondering if I should just call a professional to do a sweep of my whole property!

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