Thats my plan Sandy...he gets away with way more stuff than my wife lets me get away with.
Al...that photo's my wifes old house in the mid summer many years ago...we eventually got some grass to grow back there and I installed some irrigation to keep it that way, but it was hardpan clay and not much more in the summers there prior to that. Good for dogs and easy for poop scooping, but not terribly attractive.
Here's a shot of the yard after we did the grass/irrigation and partway through replacing the wire mesh fence with redwood. Man...was THAT a job digging 25 post holes in the clay in 100 degree heat.
Three beached whales in our back yard, all eating biscuits...
We had the whole house inspection this morning. Nothing horrifying. A few pieces of dry rot trim, a little previously moistened attic insulation from a leaky vent that seems to have been repaired, couple of pipes that need insulation, drain pipe from the sink in the crawlspace has a little crack in it, butthead that put in the gas cooktop used regular teflon paste instead of the gas rated stuff so its leaking a tiny bit of gas...little BS items.
Two long standing and odd problems. The breaker box is miswired and isnt properly isolating the neutral from the ground. Been like that since the house was built in 1990. And one of the return air ducts in the crawlspace isnt screwed or taped into the junction box, and it was just sort of half on, so for the last 16 years the furnace has been sucking in moist cold winter air and hot dry summer air from down under the house. Probably will knock a few bucks off the heating and air conditioning costs by screwing that on and wrapping it with some duct tape.
Apparently neither the original buyer or the 2nd owner that I'm buying it from had a quality home inspection. Or had one at all.
Big mistake.
So I'll be asking the relo company, who now owns the property and is the seller, to credit me a couple of thousand so I can fix the stuff myself rather than have them bring in a couple of clowns to do a bad job of fixing the problems and probably make them worse. Should be a slam dunk.
And the whipped cream topping? My realtor hadnt even noticed but the buyers agent fee is 4% instead of the usual 3, so she's giving me the extra 1% back. That'll buy us the new kitchen appliances I was dreamily eying over at the sears clearance center this afternoon.
The local Costco also sells...toilets! Never seen porcelain commodes at a warehouse club before. For some reason I find that hilarious. No, they arent wrapped in packages of three.
