Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The worst is behind me.



Yesterday they got the plywood off to reveal the gooey insides. Considering what was on top, the framing actually looked way better than I expected. The two corners nearest the house had some joist damage. In all I think I'm only going to have to replace 4 joists. The one corner that had a knarly stucco crack had the most damage.

Tomorrow I'm having the termite guys come out and do a surface treatment and probably an inspection. Which seems like an odd expense. But I'm the type of person who will pay for an inspection because I don't want any surprises when I sell. And no, I'm not selling right now, but I always look at how hard it will be to jetison a house. Inspections are every cent worth the money.







Mr S. wanted skylights in the garage, and I have to say - it's not a bad idea. But that was just an exploration hole.

4 comments:

  1. Capital of Texas RefugeeTuesday, October 10, 2017 1:23:00 PM

    Here's the freaky part: the sheetrock underneath was very much a load distributor ...

    Still, what I'm seeing are fairly closely spaced boxes, especially since you've said the deck is much smaller than it looks in pictures. So it'll hold and it's probably not too worn out from holding up about 90 psf of uselessly layered concrete.

    As for flipping houses, I got rid of The Beast With The Industrial Cellar right after 9/11, and it was definitely a tense time for me because I wasn't sure whether the buyer was going to back out.

    But all of the maintenance that was needed for a while was done, so all that guy had to do was to move in once I had the rest of my stuff out.

    I may yet buy something again, but it's not going to be a free-standing house.

    I've thought about buying or building a small hotel and converting a few of the rooms into a living space, just so I have the rest of the property bringing in cash. Landscaping and maintenance aren't as horrible a thought when I'm paying for part of that with income from guests.

    There's already a semi-upper-end American hotel where I want to do this that can get all of the boring old retirees and tourists -- I'd rather have something more suited toward "global nomads" with reliable multiple income streams since that's the future anyway.

    Also, the idea of living in my own hotel like Howard Hughes is a bit fun. Just keep sending up those room service steaks and we'll be all right. :-)

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  2. There is something about me that loves that idea. You'll have a lot of eccentric stories. Especially if you can rent space to those tiny house nomads. Be pet friendly and have awesome steaks and wifi.

    I thought you were the free spirit living out of a suitcase kinda guy though. Why put down roots now?

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  3. I am a nomad and free spirit to a degree, but ... and it's a big but ...

    Health conditions mean I can't stay a "permanent tourist."

    I have a refrigerator crisper bin full of medicine, remember?

    Places I used to visit were like, "Hey, no problem, stay up to six months, we want your cash, we know you'll go home", but now if the subject of health comes up, they want to see my medical insurance, my preparations for medevac back to the US (or really, anywhere but that country), and so on.

    Some of these places really, really do not like it when I go get cheap supplies that are heavily subsidized by their health systems, which is fairly insulting to the countries where I actually can get cheap supplies without any government subsidies. Now these places tend to give me less crap when I have a 90-day supply of medicine I'm traveling with and my stay is considerably less than 90 days.

    Things are getting better, but what I have is something for which there is no well-defined concept of "remission" except after a long period when the doctors simply have to admit that they have no idea how you were "cured." (These doctors sure as hell don't have anything to do with it.)

    At least it's not some sort of blood pathogen or ugly disease, it's just a health condition.

    These days I can take just one shot for it once a day and that's all I need.

    If things go as they have been, my "remission" period probably starts around April Fool's Day of next year, which is when I should no longer need shots at all, and so by 2023 the doctors should relent and say I'm "cured" more or less.

    So it'd be pretty cool to have a support crew for "the big house" for when I'm away, something that would keep bringing income in versus drawing down on my past income.

    Right now, it's useful to be where I am. I have airports and hospitals and things I can walk to, and here nobody's going to give an older guy a second thought when it comes to what he's doing. I have a small place that is built out of some sort of thick sound-proofed industrial concrete, and so I don't hear what my neighbors are doing ... most of the time.

    I do, however, hear their yappy dogs who sit right next to the non-sound-proofed doors so they can YAP YAP YAP, but I think those dogs still remember the last time.

    The cat, however, still thinks I'm an asshole, even after bribes of peppermint tea water. :-)

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  4. I do remember. Keep up the good fight.

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