Water and weed aka home owner woes

I have incredibly mixed feelings about home ownership. Yes, I love the freedom of deciding how many pets I can have and what colors the walls will be, but the stress of not knowing how to do much maintenance, beyond cleaning and replacing, weighs heavily on me. It means I’m dependent on others to take care of things, and in effect, me, and that doesn’t come easily to a person who holds on to her independence with a firm grip.

In recent weeks, I’ve been contending with both indoor and outdoor challenges. Let me begin with the problem outdoors, namely the poison ivy in my backyard. Well, actually in my neighbor’s backyard. You see, there’s a really big tree back there that abuts the shitty chain link fence which has been dividing our properties for only God knows how long. In recent years, I’ve tried to get the weeds and vines that climb the fence under control with mixed results. It looks a little bit better, but I’ve paid the price (along with poor N.!) by getting poison ivy, with last fall’s dose being the worst case I’ve ever had.

It was hideous.

Last month, as I watched the poison ivy growing up the large in a remarkably fast manner, I knew I had to do something. I spoke my neighbor, who was unaware that the lush vine climbing up the tree with practically the speed of light was poison ivy, and was given the green light to address it. On a somewhat overcast Sunday morning, I covered myself to limit exposed skin, grabbed my gardening gloves and hedge clippers and seized the moment hacking at the those squiggles of vine to kill that damn plant – or, at the least, the ropes of it climbing the tree.

The instant I was finished, I fled the backyard and immediately stripped down and jumped into the shower where I ultimately used more soap than a typical 8 year-old boy uses in a month to be as certain as possible that any oil that may have made its way to my skin was sent down the drain.

I absolutely did not want to experience another round of poison ivy like last year.

Within a couple of hours I began to see the greenery wilting. It seems that I had successfully damaged my nemesis, the poison ivy. That was the good news… The bad news? Well, as I washed my hands for the umpteenth time of the day, I realized my hot water was no longer. In fact, it was tepid at best. Off I went to the basement to see if I could determine what the problem might be.

Now, you have to understand that I own a two family house, which means that my basement has two boilers and two hot water heaters. You also should know by this point that I have extremely limited maintenance skills. Incredibly, I was quickly able to see which of the hot water heaters was causing my issue (the one that was rather aggressively drizzling the concrete floor with water) and reacted by turning the power button to off and also turning the valve to stop water from entering the tank.

Yea, me!

Now it was time to start pricing replacement hot water heaters and arranging for a new one to be installed. After a little quick research, I figured out what I needed (another 40 gallon unit sure to need replacing in less than another ten years) and was able to contact the plumber I use in situations like this. We settled on an all in price of $1500 and a date – tomorrow.

As of the next late afternoon, we once again had hot water. I had spent 10% of the money I’ve been squirreling away for the first floor bathroom reno I have planned for this year, but it wasn’t like there were options. Hot water heaters, and their tanks, are designed for obsolescence and they seem destined for scrap yards and landfills. Otherwise wouldn’t there be a way to reseal the tank or some sort of rust resistant material used in their construction?

I’m trying to focus on the positives here and am appreciative that I avoided catching poison ivy and that there was hot water precisely when I needed it most, but still…there’s always something to deal with when you own a home. I guess I’ll call this one no itch, less scratch.