Joys of Home Ownership

Brian Versus The Giant Lizard

This morning we were enjoying the screened porch and watching the Tour de France on the laptop, when Donna noticed something moving in her peripheral vision. When she saw what it was she jumped up. I turned to see what she saw and it was a giant gecko (or maybe a skink)1 crawling along on the screening, inside the porch.

It was requested that I remove the offending reptile. I went out to the garage and grabbed a pair of work gloves, a one quart pitcher (normally used to water plants) and a clipboard. My plan was to corner the sucker, force it into the pitcher, cover the top with the clipboard and escort this huge, Godzilla-like, beast outside.

I have exaggerated the size a bit, but this thing was more than twice the size of any we have seen around here before. It was probably 6-1/2 to 7 inches long, tip to tail, and it had a body diameter about the size of a Marks-A-lot.

After a couple of misses trying to get the lizard into the pitcher it became clear I needed something with sharp corners, not something round, because it kept evading me by slipping between the lip of the pitcher and the screen. Back inside. This time I returned with a rectangular piece of Tupperware. On my first attempt I almost had him (or her) but then he (or she) abandoned the screen and took to running along the floor hugging the back wall.

I side stepped around it and opened the door to the porch. I tip-toed back around where it was hiding, under the table that holds the portable gas grill, came at it from that direction, hoping to force it outside. We chased each other back and forth a couple of times until, surprisingly, it climbed the wall and ducked under the wood wall that closes the porch off from the old roof line.

As yet, our enormous lizard interloper has not reappeared.

House Hunters III

As I mentioned the other day how different a house and its street could look in 3D real life, as opposed to the satellite and street views Google provides. Figuring that same effect would apply to the interiors of houses and the photos on Zillow we decided to call a realtor and try to get them to show us a few homes.

We narrowed our list down to 4 houses. We picked the one that was the early favorite and called the realtor to she if she would show us that listing and if she had the time could she show us these other three. We agreed to meet at 10:30 on Wednesday. We were up front about our intentions, that we were just looking and and not actual buyers, for now. But we were seriously considering moving into town in the future and when and if we did, they would be our first call.

The first house we went into was practically around the corner from where we are staying. From there we headed into a nearby neighborhood that was close to the Oregon Tech. Then we headed off to get a look into a house we poked around outside of the 2 days ago. We even chatted with the neighbors. We finished off with the house that was the listing of our realtor. It was very interesting to see inside compared to the pictures online. At the end of the tour we thanked them kindly and went our separate ways.

If this were an episode of House Hunters and we had to choose from just the houses we saw today, we both agreed that the first house we saw would have been the winner. Not long after we got home, the realtor texted me to say that when she got back to the office she noticed that someone made an offer on that very house, earlier in the morning.

This afternoon we did a little more geocaching. Very little more, looked for 5 and found 3. Today’s walk was a touch over 1-3/4 miles. This “park” is on the other side of the Link River from yesterday and the word park is in quotes because it is basically a developer’s failed dream. There was a small loop of paved road with street lights and the utility boxes on home sites that covered a hill between the Upper Klamath Lake and Lake Ewauna, but no homes had ever been built. The land is city owned and open for walkers. Today’s photo is a field of wildflowers that had taken over one side of a large hill between caches numbers three and four.

House Hunters II

This morning we did a little more lookee-looing at houses around Klamath Falls. The one new house on Zillow that we added yesterday, its the one furthest east on yesterday’s map, we had high hopes for because it checked all the boxes and had a killer view. We drove up and down the street in front of it once and then parked at one end. We walked back up the block to see if we could get a good look at that view, we could and it was as advertised. As we started to walk away, the front door opened and a gentleman walked out to say hi. He told us that house was listed on Friday and the very next day they got a full price offer. Ouch for us, good for them.

We then checked out the community pool and YMCA pools for Donna’s swimming addiction. The community pool was way too busy and it was outdoors. The water is heated to 83-85 degrees, but still, with daytime highs in January of 40, that has got to be cold. The Y’s pool would work though. Its indoors and the cost would be not too much more than Golds is costing now.

We found a nice park with a ton of trails near our AirBnB, so this afternoon we did a little geocaching. Very little, looked for 3 and found 2. We walked only a total of about 2-3/4 miles, but both of us noticed the diminished oxygen at our current 4,200 foot elevation on the 120 foot climb up to the cache locations. The picture above is looking out over a piece of Upper Klamath and was taken from around the spot where cache #2 was.

House Hunters

We have made no secret about our reason for staying a week in Klamath Falls, Oregon, we think we might like to move there. To that end we have been perusing Zillow for a while looking for possible homes that we might like. We narrowed it down to a price range we think should be attainable if we sold the Bogardus Estate in Aiken. It has been fun “window shopping”, but now it is time narrow down the list of twenty odd homes that Mr. Zillow provided us with.

We spent pretty much the whole of Monday morning and then a little of the afternoon just driving by about 8 houses. We dismissed about half of them after seeing them in their natural habitat because we didn’t like the neighborhood. Amazing how different a house and its street looks in 3D real life as opposed to the satellite and street views Google provides.

But we discovered almost that many to add to the list because we happened to drive by them as we drove through neighborhoods between the ones on our list. And we found one that was almost perfect, except it is about $20k above what we want to spend and it is at the top of a steep hill.2

This evening we did a little more Zillow searching and found a couple new listings to drive by and look at in the morning. And then to balance it out we dropped two that were on the bubble. The blue pins with the white squares on the above map represent what our current possibles are.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Tuesday night we were sitting in our usual spot, the two chairs on the screened porch facing the backyard doing the usual thing, listening to the FRS on the “radio”3 when it started to rain. This was not unexpected because the weather folks told us is was going to happen. And there is nothing better than a nice rain storm on a summer4 evening. The flashes of lightning in the distance, the muted booms of thunder, the sound of water drops crashing through the surrounding trees and, of course, the 20 degree drop in temperature.

About 9:30 there was a very bright flash that was followed almost immediately by a boom that sounded like a 155mm howitzer firing in our backyard. After nearly crushing my hand in hers because the close-by noise, Donna suggested, “Let’s go inside.” So we gathered our stuff, unplugged the small fountain, shut off the fairy light LEDs, turned the ceiling fans to low and decamped to the living room.

Twenty-five minutes later the whole house A/C shut off. Donna asked, “Why’d it do that?” I replied, “Maybe because it is down to the temperature the thermostat is set to.” “No,” she said, “it is still 2 degrees warmer in here than the thermostat setting.” Oh boy. I turned the thermostat off, then on. I lowered the temperature. I swapped the fan from Auto to On. Nothing. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to check the breaker. It wasn’t tripped, but I cycled it anyway. Still nothing. Guess we’ll call the repair people in the morning.

We pay a fee each year to a local place so that we can get priority service appointments, free troubleshooting, a discount on parts and a free yearly check-up. I called at 8:00 AM and by 10:30 I was being told we need a new controller board. The fuse had blown, but apparently not fast enough as the heating section had failed (which also controls the blower motor.) Cost, around $500, but he’d have to check. In the meantime he had worked some jumper magic to ensure the A/C part would work.

In the last 4 years, every time they have done the check-up they they tell us that we should think of changing our unit out for something newer because it is getting close to the top of its average lifespan range and it would be more energy efficient. In those 4 years we have had to have two motor capacitors replaced, another controller board go bad and a gas fitting replaced on the furnace side of things. Maybe it is time to replace. We are getting ready to go on another west coast vacation soon, so with the A/C working, we told them to hold off on ordering the board, we’d worry about it all when we got back.

Garage Door Mods

About a year ago we upgraded from a rickety wood garage door that had a row of windows to nice insulated metal one without windows. Every time I pull into the driveway I marvel at how plain it looks. That row of windows on the old one broke up the large expanse of white. Also as a little bit of spice, a few years prior, I had mounted one of those fake carriage door kits that every new home in every new sub-division in America has.

The only reason I bought that door kit was because it was in the bargain bin a Lowes for like eight bucks. How could I resist? I’d grown to like it, so I saved it off the old garage door thinking I’d put it back on the new, but never have. Maybe it is time. Kind of hate to drill holes in the metal door though…

Another option would be to paint some fake windows on the door where the old ones were. That would be a nice change. I would use Plasti Dip so it would be removable. Or maybe I could do the top “windows” and put a little arch on them. Or maybe a combination of windows and hardware.

Adding Insult To Injury

We arrived home from our failed blimp finding mission in Hilton Head, in the late afternoon after driving about 350 miles. Donna walked into the laundry room (it’s at the back of the garage) to empty the little car “litter” bag. The light didn’t come automatically on, we have a motion sensor switch in there so you don’t have to flick a switch while holding a full laundry basket. I said, “The light bulb probably burnt out. I’ll check it in a minute.”

The first thing I noticed when walking into the house was the desktop computer was off. I looked into the spare bedroom and the LED alarm clock was dark. Donna noticed the microwave clock was blank too. The power must be off. But wait a minute, the ceiling fans were spinning, the power can’t be off. Besides, the garage door went up on demand…hmmm. A quick walk through the house and saw that the LED alarm clock in the middle bedroom was blank. The one in our bedroom was dark too, but the clock in the Ipod charger/player was on though. The LED clock under the TV was dark as well and the cable modem/router was flashing a bunch random lights instead of its usual compliment. TV came on, but no programming, the cable must be off.

We must have had a power failure. We went outside to ask a neighbor what had happened and that’s when we noticed a fairly large tree branch down on the far side of the front lawn. As we walked over we noticed another bunch of tree debris in our neighbor’s driveway. Donna said, “Good thing the neighbor had his truck on the lawn because that is right where he normally parked.” Took a closer look at the truck and we could see that it had been hit by a falling branch and moved after. We looked up and spotted a place on one of our trees where the offending may have come from. I went to their front door and rang the bell.

Neighbor came out and said, “Neat, huh?” As we walked back towards the driveway he described what happened. “At about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon they heard a loud bang and came outside. There was a tree branch laying on the hood of his truck, but more alarming was the live power line laying on his lawn that had been ripped from the side of our house. He called the power company and within an hour they had restored power to our house. He said the reason the TV cable isn’t on in your house is because it came down with the power line, it is coiled up at the bottom of the pole on the other side of the street.” When I said, “I’ll be calling our insurance company because we have a bunch of electrical devices that are toast in our house and I’ll tell them about your truck.” “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “I’ve already called Geico for the truck because when I looked up I could see where the branch came off my tree, so I took care of it.”

Sure enough, looking up I could see where it might have fallen off his tree. But directly across his driveway in our yard you could see a spot where it might have fallen off our tree. If we had a bucket truck or either one of us had a 40 foot vertical leap we could get a definitive answer on whose tree it was. The neighbor said, “You take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine.” “Fine with me,” I replied.

Further investigation around the house netted a passel of damaged stuff. The aforementioned 4 LED clocks, the microwave, the Kuerig coffee maker, the desktop PC’s speakers, the charger for the Dustbuster, the transformer for the sprinkler system, the 30-year old boombox in the garage, the electric pencil sharpener, the LED light bulb over the front porch, the LED bug light in the same location and the biggy, the dishwasher. There was a smell of ozone in the middle bedroom, but only the one LED clock was bad, the other three items plugged-in in the room were fine.

One of the EFI outlets on the screened porch had tripped, so I reset it. Later in the evening when we went back out it had tripped again. I went out to the breaker box and turned off the power to the porch, I then went under the house and checked the wire run, but (in my inexpert opinion) couldn’t see anything wrong. With discretion being the better part of valor, I added calling an electrician to my Monday morning phone call list to go along with State Farm, the cable company and an appliance repairman.