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Sunday, Jul. 05, 2009

House full of hate and breakdowns

I am starting to believe my house hates me. Don’t get me wrong, I love many things about the house, such as having a door to every room. This is a major plus with a 19-month-old running around. But then there is the absence of air conditioning and here in England we are experiencing some of the same abnormally high temperatures you are back in Middle Georgia, though our high was only 90.

While I was focusing on opening windows and finding the most strategic location for my newly purchased fan, one of my radiators decided to break. The living room radiator, which sits conveniently behind my sofa — or should I say settee — masked the leak by only dampening the carpet beneath it until Sunday morning. This is when Avery, my 5-year-old, was shocked when his bare feet felt the saturated carpet as he plopped on the couch to watch cartoons. Don’t get me wrong, had this been a rarity I would have taken a “stuff happens” attitude, but since we moved into this house it has been one thing after another. I guess we should have known it was a bad omen when the stove broke before we even moved in. But, honestly, I was so excited to have a home I didn’t even consider the stove was just the beginning.

For the next few weeks, one thing after another broke, though in all fairness it was mostly small things such as the garage light, the back-up water heater, the door knob to the study, the bathroom light switch, etc. The first big break was the toilet in our bathroom, which at first wasn’t a big deal, we had two more. But two weeks later toilet two broke, and yes you guessed it, toilet one was still waiting to be repaired.

After five weeks of running to the downstairs bathroom when the urge called, one of the two bathrooms was fixed. Apparently they could only get one set of the new parts in, so we were still waiting on toilet No. 2. When toilet No. 2 was finally fixed, toilet number three apparently couldn’t handle all the extra attention it was getting and it decided to break too. In the midst of our toilet debacle, numerous other things broke throughout the house. It was so bad the letting agency, or should I say rental agency, sent me flowers in an effort to apologize for the numerous service calls and the less than quick response time for the toilet repairs.

I was finally starting to believe everything had been fixed and I might be free of biweekly phone calls to the agency in need of more repairs. Then, the radiator leak, which of course ruined the carpet and left a horrible stench in its wake, apparently was the house’s way of saying, “I really do hate you.”

Did I mention it’s only Wednesday and though I am still waiting for the carpet situation to be resolved, I am also waiting for two door knobs to be fixed and a light fixture. I think the vicious cycle has returned with a vengeance.