Sooo, the honeymoon is over here with this new house. I am not sure there was ever really a honeymoon in the first place. Moving into the 80s split level is like marrying a person you find really plain and who has kind of a boring sense of humor and spends a lot of time agreeing with you.
HOWEVER you can take his metaphor to its tragic conclusion and split your boring spouse like a tauntaun and decorate their innards with GLITTER!!
Let’s make a LIST LIKE NERDS, after which will will argue about how we organize our books, ok??
Pros:
Everything is BIGGER. House, yard, storage space, even the dishwasher is bigger. I cannot think of one thing in this house that is smaller. Nietzsche looks smaller in it, but that is an illusion, I suppose.
No neighbors! Our duplex neighbors weren’t bad, in fact, they were very nice, but we always worried about noise. Let me tell you my girls spent 17 minutes singing selected duets from the beautiful modern operetta “NO U” and I did not shoosh them once.
Cons:
There’s a couple of things going on here. We will not mention the complete lack of hot water, which is temporary, of course.
The fridge is kind of a menace. It’s one of those modern side-by-sides with the glass shelves. You would think glass shelves might be a good thing, but using it is kind of like the experience of driving a PT Cruiser.
You don’t have the top down/angle view of the food like you do in the traditional fridge. This has lead me to conclude that I am just not finding things because it is hiding behind the melon or something. I spent ten minutes looking for the leftover chicken the other day.
P. came home as I was rootling.
“Whatcha doin?” he said.
“Looking for the chicken I cannot find fucking anything in the fridge EVER.”
“Ah…I ate it,” he said.
“AHA!” I said. “I CANNOT SEE IT BECAUSE YOU ARE OPAQUE.”
Otherwise the kitchen has a lot of storage and though the stove is electric like the last one, but it works a LOT better than the one at the old place, which was one of those flat top Star Trek bullshit ones where only half the burner got warm sometimes.
Also, something bad happened in this house with animals. Now that the initial carpet-cleaning goodness is wearing off, the small of animal urine is being revealed. I am taking steps with Febreze and whatnot. Now I know what probably everyone else in the universe knows. When an ad says “No Large Animals” this may be a sign that the owner has had a bad experience with large animals.
As a renter, and as the owner of a place where some past dog let it go on the wooden floor whenever and wherever it felt like, and it was often apparently allowed to completely dry in situ, creating giant blackened lakes that are probably great if you think your dog is like the second coming of Helen Frankenthaler or something. And to this point, Nietzsche has not ever once ever gone potty in the corner ANYWHERE. She is being a complete champ here in this medium-stinky house as well, and goes outside or uses the litterbox every single time, so at least there is a finite end to the smells.
One of my favorite things about my room, besides the fact that it adjoins the loo, keeps Imelda and the Bandito together, overlooks the pear tree in the front yard, and has a giant porny closet door mirror, is my SURPRISE VIRGIN!!! hiding behind my two doors in my room.
“AHA!” I said. “I CANNOT SEE IT BECAUSE YOU ARE OPAQUE.”
LOL. Welcome to our house. Except here it’s usually me hydraulically fracking the contents atop the glass shelves and throwing a fit because I can’t find the chicken, only to learn that it had been tossed that morning, heedless of my predictable and efficient queue-based scavenging algorithm. I think I need to break out the Mr. Yuk stickers to mark those items to which I have laid claim for all perpetuity.
Smell of animal can be banished forever with something like En-Zap or one of those Petsmart things. Works really well on kennel smelly homes. Do not ask how I know……..let’s just say some renters believe that it is perfectly fine to use the rent house as a house breaking aide.
Thanks, Robin. I will look into that toot sweet.
Oh and to be a nosy nellie, if your water heater is electric, the little whoozits heating element thingy apparently has a pretty short life, we had to replace ours when we moved in, I guess they like corrode or some shit? Cheaper than buying a new water heater. That is to say, I’d hire a plumber to do a little look-seeing. (Ours also trips the circuit alla time, oh CRIPES do I miss my gas furnace where I could turn the damn knob over to the LAVA setting, and not worry about it.) (le sigh, I am missing gas appliances)
WOOO Hot water heater!! http://twitpic.com/2hwbmu
Styro, I would give my arm for a gas stove. Well, it was up to my landlord and he paid WHOA MUCH compared to what we priced out at the Home Despot. This is why I pay rent, I suppose. And the faucet is already running hot.
I found the rotting corpse of half a rockmelon in my fridge today. Opaque indeed. But poor housekeeping of this sort makes the chickens happy at least.
As the chief urine remover in a household of 2 dogs and 2 boys I recommend diluted white vinegar. Then any old cleaning product afterwards to remove smell of vinegar. Agree with Robin the enzyme type cleaners you can get at vets and petshops are good. But unlike vinegar they are not $1 for 2 litres. And I am a stingy urine remover.
And yay to hot water.
Whoa, that chandelier is… Special. Like the Virgin, though.
Ah yes, the power of vinegar. Well, I do have time since as I said, more pee is not building up, thank GOD.
Yes, vinegar. Buy a case at Cash & Carry (South of Office Max | East of Trader Joes) in Ballard for much less than a gallon of the pet stuff. I didn’t dilute so much as wholesale douse–why not?! Wish it worked as well on 13-year old boy.
YES YES YES vinegar. It’s amazing for getting rid of animal smells. It also works well in laundry as a fabric softener/odor remover.
Also, I am covet an electric stove. If you wanna trade my gas stove for your electric stove it’s all yours! :)
Anti-Icky Poo is your friend. And yes, it’s s stupid name and yes I came here from a Disney website. Don’t make fun of me. I just found out I flunked the bar. Seriously, you can get it from a vet and it will take just about anything out. I have a crazy old lady cat who keeps peeing everywhere and this spray is magical.
PS: We tried vinegar and it only worked a bit.
Hi Chris! Thank you.