Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The work begins

Today Alex and I spent the day at the house. Promptly 1 minute after I arrived at the house (and 15 minutes early!) the crew came to remove the 2 large trees in the back yard that were too close to the house, endangering the foundation and for all I know being the route the termites took to get in. Alex was fascinated watching them, actually I was too but I was also quite busy. The house had been what my mom would call filthy, what other people would call a bit dirty, so I cleaned bathrooms and swept. I had gotten those Windex wipes so Alex could help with windows and mirrors, and she really enjoyed it for about 15 minutes. When I realized that we had no drinking vessels, we ran to the nearest grocery store for provisions. During the day I also fielded 3 electricians for their estimates. This was actually my most critical task, however I got to the tree stuff first because they didn't need a person to let them into the house to see what the work would look like.

I had also completely forgotten to call the utilities to set up accounts in our names. And apparently the sellers got right on having the gas shut off when I didn't take care of that detail on Day 1, so they have to come turn the gas back on and of course they can't get to it for a few days. At least now I know the heating system isn't broken, it just isn't getting any fuel.  It was chilly inside the house, even Alex happily changed from shorts into the pants and socks I brought for her. Tomorrow is supposed to get close to 90F so it will be interesting to see how well the house stays cool without a little help.

Now I'm trying to contact the selected electrician and get him in ASAP to fix the bad and allegedly dangerous wiring. Tomorrow we get to go to Lowes and buy a hot water heater. If my bank account didn't take a hit every time I accomplished a task, I would probably find this way more fun than I am :-)

Here's an important question to anyone who might be reading: the bathtub has those anti-slip decals, I even remember them being marketed in the 1980s, they look like flowers. I need to remove them. Comet didn't even touch them, any suggestions??

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

I would try Goo Be Gone. It works on almost anything with adhesive.

Lynne said...

Thanks! I'll get some tomorrow, it will be my big project :-) I'll report back...