[191/366] homeowner

[cosmolinguist]

Ah it's great owning a house: someone just knocked on our door to say "hello, we are fixing your neighbors' roof and we noticed yours is fucked too, would you like to pay us to unfuck it before it starts leaking?" I mean we knew the roof was fucked when we bought this house so I believe them. But we haven't been able to afford to unfuck it.

It's always terrible when these things get noticed though. Someone asked us about our garden once in a similar way: do you want to be less of an embarrassment? Yes but I can't afford that either.

So now people are climbing on our roof while I'm waiting for a BT engineer, in the middle of that I had to tell the lady calling to talk to us about the new boiler we need to call back later because I was trying to put a mask on Andrew at the time so he could go to the cashpoint across the street to get money for the roof guys having decided he'd rather do that than let the BT person in if they arrived, since basically one of us had to do each of those things.

Owning a house is stressful and expensive and I kinda hate it.

Comments

[annofowlshire]

I like owning a house, but yeah, it feels like endless things need doing all the time.

[annofowlshire]

Also, the last time we had someone by to fix the roof after some storm damage, our next two neighbours (we’re in a terrace) also asked if he could fix theirs while he was up there anyway. We’re in a 2 storey terrace and getting someone who doesn’t want to put in £1200 of scaffolding to fix one tile is like finding a unicorn.

[cosmolinguist]

We just can't afford to own a house. There's a bunch of work (namely the roof!) that needed doing before we bought it six years ago. But immediately after we bought it, I lost my job very unexpectedly and then we spent our saving s on flying me over to care for my mother after cancer surgery at short notice. Money has been getting worse and worse ever since. The house wasn't in great nick when we got it (probably why it was cheap enough that we could afford the deposit that Andrew's parents insisted on lending us) and it has gotten worse. It makes me so sad and scared and frustrated.

[annofowlshire]

I’m sorry it’s so stressful for you :(

[cosmolinguist]

I'm sorry for dumping all my feelings on you. I am exhausted and emotional at the moment. :/

[annofowlshire]

It’s truly okay. *hugs*

[momentsmusicaux]

That sounds terribly stressful, to be aware of these things that need fixing (and which are probably getting gradually worse over time too) and not being able to do anything about them.

And on dumping feelings -- it's what LJ/DW is *for* :) *hugs*

[dracolosses]

oof, i’m sorry to hear you’re having so many issues with your home. owning a house sounds like it’s just as bad, if not worse, than owning a car (which sucks, because i’ve really been looking forward to having a place of my own, but christ...)

here’s to hoping that the contractors don’t find other things wrong with the roof!!

[cosmolinguist]

Most people I know who have houses love it! I'm sure it's fine if you have a budget for repairs or even any DIY skills but...we don't.

[jesse_the_k]

Home-ownership is a huge responsibility, and I can totally relate to your feeling frustrated.

(Also some repairpeople use the 'we're in the neighborhood and noticed this problem' as a scam to drum up business.)

[cosmolinguist]

It's definitely not a scam in this case, or I mean maybe it is but Andrew says he has seen people working on houses around here the last few days and the problems they told me about are mostly things I recognize from the survey we had done when we bought the house.

[alithea]

*hugs*

Home ownership is indeed expensive and very stressful if you can't afford to throw money at it. I hope getting the roof sorted makes you feel a bit better to make up for all the upset of having to sort it out.

[cosmolinguist]

I have been worried about it for a long time so I have some hope that it will turn out to be worth it. Later, when I'm not so tired and demoralized.

[otter]

I understand those stresses. Having had a leaking roof, it's definitely best to fix it if you're able to before that happens.

*hugs* It wears me out, too. this home ownership stuff.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh I know, the guy yesterday was like "you've got all these broken slates and here's some concrete and lead that should be on your roof but aren't and that's all really bad" and I'm like dude I know it's bad, I don't need convincing, I just need an income. :)

[mrrieper]

Interesting to hear about this since I've never owned a house (although it is something I'd like to be able to do some day). It sounds a bit similar to owning a car (only far more expensive obviously), which is expensive enough whenever everything goes wrong with it at once.

[cosmolinguist]

I've never had a car obv, but I think it is like that: this thing is probably worth it but really stressful if you can't just throw money at the problems.

[mrrieper]

That is about the size of it. Even when you can throw money at the problem it gets stressful when it ends up taking vast amounts of money.

[hrj]

Re: gardens ... there's that particular flavor of cringe when random yard maintenance contractors start sticking their busines cards in the crack of your front door...

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah. What I was thinking of particularly here was a time when someone actually knocked on the door to say, like, "I see your garden is terrible, would you like to pay me to fix it?" And I'm like I can't pay you, that's why it's terrible.

[mrrieper]

That's just fucking rude of them.

[softfruit]

At the risk of opening a fresh can of worms, what's wrong with your garden?

[cosmolinguist]

Oh it's just ugly af, full of weeds, not very nice or usable.

[softfruit]

Ah, I wondered if it was that or something more practical like the pathway having subsided or suchlike.

[silveradept]

This I understand intimately and well. There are so many things I could do, and would like to do, and entirely lack the budget for, and that's with being employed stably. (Because of other regrettable decisions of my life that continue to eat my income for years to come.)