The Downside of Home Ownership

The last several weeks of home ownership have been challenging. Earlier in the month, intense storms came through the area. Radically changing weather is relatively common in Northeast Ohio. But when Rachel and I saw our trash cans blow down the street, we knew something was different.

As we caught up to our wayward cans, we turned around in time to see a transformer blow. Tree damage knocked down the utility pole, breaking it into multiple pieces. In addition to pulling down wires from other poles and houses, our electrical service mast was ripped from the house. The wires wrapped around Rachel’s car, blocking it in the driveway and, by extension, my car in the garage.

Of course, fiber and cable lines were on the same pole and were ripped down. I have battery backup for my computer and networking equipment, but they were not designed for multi-day outages. At least we had a decent cell signal and enough batteries and such to let my employers know that working from my particular home would be a challenge for a while.

It took multiple repair crews multiple 16-hour shifts to remove debris from the old utility pole and install a new one. One of the crews was nice enough to hold up wires long enough for me to extract Rachel’s car.

From a damage perspective, we had to have a contractor replace the electrical service mast. Everything in our freezer had melted, and our fridge got too warm, so we lost most of our food. We also lost an exterior shelter. The wind flattened it in about a minute. Because it was well-staked to the ground, the winds eventually twisted it. But I’m glad it didn’t fly away.

I spent far too long talking with my internet service provider, trying to get service restored. They finally understood that the fiber line was no longer attached to the destroyed utility pole and no amount of me running commands on my computer would help. They agreed to send out a technician within a week.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait that long. I saw a technician trying to troubleshoot my neighbor’s failed connection. I pointed to the broken utility pole and the shiny new one. I also asked if they could look at my internet since they would have to replace everyone’s wire anyway.

Once we had power and internet again, things started to return to normal. At least, that’s what I told myself. We still had some cleanup to do. While the neighbor behind us still had multiple trees down in their yard, we had multiple branches and a now-souvenir piece of a utility pole in our backyard.

I spent most of an afternoon moving the debris to our tree lawn. As I write this, the city just finished mulching the branches and hauling away the debris.

Speaking of lawns, shortly before the storms, our lawn company had stopped by to aerate and overseed the yard. Apparently, the ground was too soft, and the machine took out multiple chunks of our yard. They finally came by to add some new soil and grass seed. It should be back to normal in a few weeks.

Rachel was in the downstairs bathroom last week and asked why the ceiling was dripping water. The toilet in the upstairs bathroom was leaking from the handle. Apparently, after the last flush, the water stopped much higher than usual.

I flushed the toilet, and the water stopped where it was supposed to. I checked again before sleeping, and the water level hadn’t changed. I figured it was a fluke until the following morning when water dripped on my head.

I flushed the toilet and rigged it so it wouldn’t fill. While the bathroom does have a shutoff valve, it wasn’t budging for me. Given that it was original to the house and my prior adventure with our main shutoff valve broke, I left it to the professionals. By the end of the day, we had a new shutoff valve and toilet. While we didn’t have to deal with leaks, we now have some water damage to fix.

Rachel and I were sitting in the living room when she started getting wafts of gas. I don’t have a great sense of smell (due to a childhood incident with a dog mauling), but I was getting whiffs of it, too. Rachel went around the house and outside trying to find the source but wasn’t successful.

I did the responsible thing and called the gas company. They had us evacuate the house. We let our one neighbor know; the other two houses aren’t currently being occupied. I suspected that they may have hit a gas line when they were pulling up the driveway of one of the houses earlier in the day. I could see where they drove over our yard, where our line was likely buried.

The technician arrived and initially thought it was our house. But she wasn’t getting strong enough signals to verify. She asked if there had been any other activity that day. Yes, our other neighbor, whose tree was recently taken down due to the storm, had the stump ground down.

It turns out the tree was on or over the gas line. As soon as the technician kicked the pile of sawdust, her gas alarms went off. Unfortunately, the gas lines in the neighborhood are original, and the shutoff valves weren’t working well.

Eventually, fire trucks, police cars, and utility vehicles blocked our street. By the end of the night, they must have shut it off, as most of the cars left. But they were back early in the morning to start repairs.

I navigated my way through the chaos to a scheduled lab appointment. I came back home to a restoration company sitting in my driveway. A quick game of musical cars later, and they were off to the races.

They ended up taking sample tiles from both bathrooms. The concern is that they are asbestos. Given they are probably original, it wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m not looking forward to an abatement crew to kick us out of the house for a while.

They didn’t find moisture in the walls, but they did find it in the floor/ceiling and insulation. They set up dehumidifiers and air cleaners in both bathrooms. I can’t use the upstairs bathroom anymore since it is like a noisy hotbox, and the sink is used to drain the dehumidifiers.

The downstairs bathroom is slightly more usable. It is more like a wind tunnel (which almost acts like a full-body dryer). But, we have to gingerly step around equipment to use this. We cannot even block the door to dampen the sound.

I’m hoping for a few quiet days when I won’t have to hear chainsaws, blowers, dump trucks, vehicle backup alarms, or any other recent cacophony. In the meantime, I’ll continue looking for better headphones or earplugs.