Home owners of Lemmy do you have any advice on dealing with the stress of owning a home?
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Every drop of water, crack, ant, royally freaks me out at this point. I can't afford to rent. I own a shitty house that is a fixer upper. So frustrating.
Don’t tell me… I’m 36 years old. Five years ago, I bought my house—an old one in a small town here in Spain that needed a complete renovation, including the roof. After four years of very, very hard work, mostly done by myself, I managed to restructure the house. I redid everything except the exterior walls. I moved in six months ago. So, here’s what happened: last month, some workers were installing new fiber optic cables for the whole street. They climbed onto my roof without asking and drilled a hole in it to run the cables—without my consent. For the past two weeks, I’ve been battling the fiber company and insurance to get this fixed. Meanwhile, I’ve had a bucket in one of my rooms for two weeks, and the room is now full of humidity and mold. The entire ceiling, which is made of drywall, needs to be completely redone. My hair is falling out nonstop—I’ll be bald like a light bulb in a couple of months if this keeps up.
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The way people should think about it is not whether or not they break even compared to having not purchased the house. The real comparison is if they end up better off than if they paid rent that whole time instead.
If you bought a house for $300k, paid $420k for it over 30 years, and sold for $320k, you could think of it as a $100k loss, but you'd still end up $740k ahead of someone who had the same monthly payment going to a landlord.
Totally agree.
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Every drop of water, crack, ant, royally freaks me out at this point. I can't afford to rent. I own a shitty house that is a fixer upper. So frustrating.
Learn to fix these things.
I get ants turn up maybe once a year during summer. putting some ant killer powder down when they show up usually sorts them out.
DIY isn't too hard, plenty of vids on youtube about how to do more or less everything.
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I don't have a fixer-upper per se, but the dude who flipped my place to sell it really cut corners. I do as many repairs myself as I can. I consult the Internet, local hardware shops, and people I know who have done home repairs. I'm currently dealing with a toilet that won't stop running unless I cut the water supply to it. I know that I need to replace all the parts in the tank, but I haven't been able to make it to the hardware store to get the parts.
Also redneck engineering temporary fixes is totally a valid strategy. My parents put flex seal on a fucked up part of their roof and it kept the leaks at bay for 4 years. It could have lasted longer, but they got the whole thing replaced.
My screen door is broken, and I haven't been able to replace it, so I have it tied open and held in place against my porch railing with some yarn. In bad storms, before it broke really bad, I used duck tape to keep it shut so it wouldn't go flapping around.
Parts of my porch siding (plastic lattice) would also start blowing around in bad storms, so I used spare boards to prop everything in place until I was able to cut all the lattice down.
i had the toilet running issue. turned out i just needed a new seal for the bottom of the flush mechanism.
was a little more expensive than i'd like on account of the fact that the mechanism in my toilet is no longer produced but managed to find one.
Still cheaper than replacing the lot
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i had the toilet running issue. turned out i just needed a new seal for the bottom of the flush mechanism.
was a little more expensive than i'd like on account of the fact that the mechanism in my toilet is no longer produced but managed to find one.
Still cheaper than replacing the lot
I'm not 100% sure what part is causing the running, so I'm just replacing everything. It's all probably due to be replaced anyway lol
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I'm not 100% sure what part is causing the running, so I'm just replacing everything. It's all probably due to be replaced anyway lol
well check that bottom seal, it was pretty obviously toast when i looked at it
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I'm trying to convince myself I need a table saw to replace a rotten board in my deck.
One board? Hell no. Circular saw it. If you don't own a circ saw, buy that instead
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well check that bottom seal, it was pretty obviously toast when i looked at it
I did. It looks a little rough, but doesn't seem to be complete toast. There's also another mechanism that might be malfunctioning. I adjusted it like I was instructed to and the dripping got worse.
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Homeownership is man's continuous battle against water.
Yeah, a heck of a lot of household troubles can be put on the backbone, but anything involving water intrusion needs to be fixed right away.
My home is from the 1890s and has a sandstone foundation with no footer. It leaks ground water, but only after a torrential downpour or when a lot of snow melts. Sandstone was not designed to ever be completely watertight. Leaks are incredibly common due to it just being a stack of rocks in the ground.
Luckily it all leaks right into an old grey water line in the floor. It tends to slowly fill up, then makes its way back into the earth either through that or my brick floor.
It can be a little gross and stressful at times but I'm waiting til spring to install a sump pump
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Don’t tell me… I’m 36 years old. Five years ago, I bought my house—an old one in a small town here in Spain that needed a complete renovation, including the roof. After four years of very, very hard work, mostly done by myself, I managed to restructure the house. I redid everything except the exterior walls. I moved in six months ago. So, here’s what happened: last month, some workers were installing new fiber optic cables for the whole street. They climbed onto my roof without asking and drilled a hole in it to run the cables—without my consent. For the past two weeks, I’ve been battling the fiber company and insurance to get this fixed. Meanwhile, I’ve had a bucket in one of my rooms for two weeks, and the room is now full of humidity and mold. The entire ceiling, which is made of drywall, needs to be completely redone. My hair is falling out nonstop—I’ll be bald like a light bulb in a couple of months if this keeps up.
Username checks out.
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Every drop of water, crack, ant, royally freaks me out at this point. I can't afford to rent. I own a shitty house that is a fixer upper. So frustrating.
Maybe take a moment to appreciate the incredible privilege you have to own your home. Nearly everyone reading this will never get to own a home.
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Not really much advice other than being proactive about issues, but it is funny how concerned you quickly become with all types of water once you own a home. Rain intrusion, drainage in the yard, leaky pipes, dripping noises, frozen pipes, gutters, humidity, water heater, storms, etc, etc. It's a real menace and so are squirrels (as I also found out after purchasing a home).
Ugh gotta repair my roof in a few weeks. At least it's metal so cheap af.. Damn snow pulled some flashing down.
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Every drop of water, crack, ant, royally freaks me out at this point. I can't afford to rent. I own a shitty house that is a fixer upper. So frustrating.
Make more money.
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Learn to fix these things.
I get ants turn up maybe once a year during summer. putting some ant killer powder down when they show up usually sorts them out.
DIY isn't too hard, plenty of vids on youtube about how to do more or less everything.
To add to this, perfect is the enemy of good. You probably won't do it as well as a professional, but having it done is better than not at all (since DIY is generally cheaper.
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Maybe take a moment to appreciate the incredible privilege you have to own your home. Nearly everyone reading this will never get to own a home.
It's been far more expensive than renting. We bought a house with a lot of problems and kt8a struggle. I would never call it a privilege. It's like buying a car built in 1983 with 500,000 miles.
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I know it is cheesy, but look at every maintenance project as an opportunity for learning a new DIY skill.
Start going to garage sales and flea markets to collect tools.
It helps if you can chitchat with someone IRL about mutual homeowner issues.
Homeownership is man's continuous battle against water.
I agree so much with the water thing. I spent two days on reshaping my yard
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It's been far more expensive than renting. We bought a house with a lot of problems and kt8a struggle. I would never call it a privilege. It's like buying a car built in 1983 with 500,000 miles.
Then sell it
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One board? Hell no. Circular saw it. If you don't own a circ saw, buy that instead
Yah, I was going to just get a board cut but this is an excuse to buy a new tool, right?
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Then sell it
Oh, I want to so much. But I can't convince the wife.
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My home is from the 1890s and has a sandstone foundation with no footer. It leaks ground water, but only after a torrential downpour or when a lot of snow melts. Sandstone was not designed to ever be completely watertight. Leaks are incredibly common due to it just being a stack of rocks in the ground.
Luckily it all leaks right into an old grey water line in the floor. It tends to slowly fill up, then makes its way back into the earth either through that or my brick floor.
It can be a little gross and stressful at times but I'm waiting til spring to install a sump pump
I know some people with a similar house. I guess the bright news is that when a house gets that old, but it's still standing, you probably have some time, lol.
