HOMEOWNERS'S NIGHTMARE

“And the rain descended, and the floods came, ... and beat upon that house...”  (from Matthew 7:17)

Unlike me, my father was quite a handyman:  a good auto mechanic, a good amateur electrician and plumber, a good carpenter, and a very good (but slow) mason.  Dad had a radical idea about homeownership that most realtors and financial planners would not agree with.  He believed that you should not own a house UNLESS you are a very good handyman OR you are very wealthy.  I live in a parsonage (church owned minister’s residence) and sometimes lament that I’m not a homeowner.  This week I’m glad I’m not!

My sister lives here in the Boston area slightly over twenty miles southwest of where I reside.  She lives in the house we each grew up in.  I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog that my parents were pack rats.  They never through anything out.  They’ve been dead six years this summer and we’re still going through their stuff- throwing some out, giving some away, and selling some.  We’re about 75% done at this point.  

Last Saturday I arrived at my sister’s a little after Noon.  She was flustered when she opened the back door.


”We’ve got a MAJOR problem!”  she announced.  (The “we” is she and her friend Robbie.)

I learned that a large amount of water had leaked into the light fixture in one of the rooms and that it had completely shattered.  There was visible water damage to the ceiling and a wall.  The room was on the first floor level.  It was a little scary.  This is a house that NEVER takes in water into the basement and was never known to leak anything but a tiny amount of water from the roof in the almost fifty years it has existed.  Where was the huge amount of water coming from in?  Robbie, who is MUCH handier than I, went upstairs to the room directly above the major leak.  Initially, he did not see any water or leakage there, at all.  He then proceeded to open the access door to one of the “eves” at the front of this “oversized Cape Cod style” house.  Water was POURING into the eve.  It was then draining down through the floor and into the room below.  Upon further investigation, the water was coming through a nail hole on the roof which had never been sealed properly when the roof was put on a few years ago.  

On Monday, my sister called her insurance company.  They sent out a professional “water damage” crew.  The crew opened up the ceiling and wall.  The area was SATURATED with water.  Insulation was SATURATED and ruined.  A large portion of the ceiling and wall had to come down, resulting in more damage and problems.  (Did you ever see the film, “THE MONEY PIT”?  That will give you some idea of what she is dealing with.)  The water was an ideal breeding ground for mold and mildew.  Had this problem been “let go” for another 6-12 months, as bad as things are, they would have been absolutely catastrophic!

At this point, major repair work and renovations must begin.  Fortunately, all will be covered by insurance.  Dianne had this major problem and had no idea about it until Saturday.  What I didn’t tell you earlier is that Dianne and Robbie only discovered this when they went to change a light bulb in the ceiling light fixture!  Reader, here’s a cheery thought:  You may have a major hidden problem with your house that’s going to “trip off” some day and right now you’re blissfully ignorant of it!  Again, my father believed that unless you’re a good handyman or quite wealthy, you have no business owning a house.  Right now, I think he had quite a valid point!