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By popular demand! Here is the BFC homeownership thread for all your chatting needs that aren't really related to the financial aspects of the actual purchase (we have a different thread for that). Popular recent topics include home automation! Roof leaks! That horrifying thing the previous owner did and then hid behind 40 layers of cardboard and dirt! We may give this thread a little tour over into the DIY forum at some point - a great place to visit if you have a homeowner problem that you want to solve by yourself.
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May 4, 2016 17:55
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 19:46 |
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My house has a half bath on the main level that has hardwood. All the other bathrooms have carpet. Two of them were tiled by the previous owners to sell the house, but one is still carpeted. Looks like I'm going to learn to tile because the hardwood floor is turning colors and warping from years of the previous owner just pissing on the floor and never mopping it up while the other bathroom will need to be tiled because carpet in a bathroom is the stupidest thing in the loving world. e: Also none of my outdoor outlets work and I can't figure out why. There's no GFCI outlet that's tripped, and all the breakers in the box are on. I even cycled them to be sure.
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May 4, 2016 18:42
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Ugh, carpet in the water rooms. Why the gently caress do people do that?? I will never understand.
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May 4, 2016 18:46
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slap me silly posted:Ugh, carpet in the water rooms. Why the gently caress do people do that?? I will never understand. Old people, really old people.
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May 4, 2016 18:48
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A super old sales lady at lowe's made fun of our house for having wood floors in the kitchen. I couldn't tell if she wanted carpet or vinyl, not everyone can afford tile!
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May 4, 2016 18:53
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80 bags of mulch. 80 loving bags of mulch to fill in all the plant bullshit I have going on outside.
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May 4, 2016 19:10
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VendaGoat posted:80 bags of mulch. 80 loving bags of mulch to fill in all the plant bullshit I have going on outside. We tried to talk our HOA into letting us use rocks to 'mulch' rather than the BS stuff that decays and doesn't do anything for your soil either. They had some bullshit reason about it getting too cold in the winter for rocks to mulch, when we're in gardening zone 7b.
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May 4, 2016 19:14
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slap me silly posted:Ugh, carpet in the water rooms. Why the gently caress do people do that?? I will never understand. Every house in the area that was built 15-25 year ago has this. ALL OF THEM. VendaGoat posted:80 bags of mulch. 80 loving bags of mulch to fill in all the plant bullshit I have going on outside. It took us 80 bags of mulch at our last house. It looked so much better when it was done though. Worth it.
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May 4, 2016 19:31
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VendaGoat posted:80 bags of mulch. 80 loving bags of mulch to fill in all the plant bullshit I have going on outside. Why the gently caress would you buy that many bags instead of just getting a truckload dumped off? Isn't that way cheaper and easier?
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May 4, 2016 19:39
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Has all the awful 70s wood paneling been ripped out and we're moving on to bitching about dingy 90s carpeting? Hell yeah that's progress.
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May 4, 2016 19:40
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No Butt Stuff posted:It took us 80 bags of mulch at our last house. It looked so much better when it was done though. Worth it. And this is exactly the reason why I am doing it. LogisticEarth posted:Why the gently caress would you buy that many bags instead of just getting a truckload dumped off? Isn't that way cheaper and easier? Because I don't feel like having a gently caress off pile of mulch in my front yard, until I find time to spread it all. Your point on it being cheaper stands though.
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May 4, 2016 19:49
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Yay a thread for homeownership bitching!
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May 4, 2016 20:00
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VendaGoat posted:80 bags of mulch. 80 loving bags of mulch to fill in all the plant bullshit I have going on outside. It is much cheaper to have a truckload delivered. This reminds me I need a landscaper.
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May 4, 2016 20:17
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VendaGoat posted:80 bags of mulch. 80 loving bags of mulch to fill in all the plant bullshit I have going on outside. We bought a new house last fall. This spring, 19 cubic yards of mulch. If bags are 2 cubic feet, that's equivalent of 256.5 bags. We live on a hill, and the highest drop off point is halfway up it.
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May 4, 2016 20:20
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Elephanthead posted:It is much cheaper to have a truckload delivered. This reminds me I need a landscaper. How do you find a good one. Every one I can find just half asses it. Like coming to cut the grass and saying they have no time for anything else when the grass is still <1 inch long cause they cut it WAY too short the last time. GRRR
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May 4, 2016 20:25
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Rurutia posted:How do you find a good one.
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May 4, 2016 20:26
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slap me silly posted:Good luck with that. I worked with three different ones, not to mention housekeepers and recycling pickup and other things, and every single one of them had at least one ball they would drop. My last 2 housekeepers destroyed at least one piece of property per visit.
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May 4, 2016 20:34
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The upstairs hallway and both sets of stairs are covered in carpet. There is nothing underneath he basement stairs, but the upstairs hallway is unstained/untreated? hardwood. I am hesitant to rip up the carpet though because I have no idea how to make what's underneath acceptable.
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May 4, 2016 20:51
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slap me silly posted:Good luck with that. I worked with three different ones, not to mention housekeepers and recycling pickup and other things, and every single one of them had at least one ball they would drop. I can't even get people to call me back! I have money to spend, people, take it! Answer my call!
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May 4, 2016 20:54
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Dazerbeams posted:The upstairs hallway and both sets of stairs are covered in carpet. There is nothing underneath he basement stairs, but the upstairs hallway is unstained/untreated? hardwood. I am hesitant to rip up the carpet though because I have no idea how to make what's underneath acceptable.
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May 4, 2016 21:16
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Rurutia posted:My last 2 housekeepers destroyed at least one piece of property per visit. Oh, yeah, if they're not dropping a ball they're dropping a fragile glass thing.
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May 4, 2016 21:17
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Omne posted:I can't even get people to call me back! I have money to spend, people, take it! Answer my call! Yeah if they were good at running a business they would be in another business. I've had them do work and never ask for money afterwards. Yay?
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May 4, 2016 21:35
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Pryor on Fire posted:Has all the awful 70s wood paneling been ripped out and we're moving on to bitching about dingy 90s carpeting? Hell yeah that's progress. I have both. Ding ding ding, winner. At least pulling up carpet isn't remotely scary. In contrast, I am far too fearful of what lies beyond to remove the copious amounts of wood from my walls. I also have a nice line in polystyrene ceiling tiles.
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May 4, 2016 21:46
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Testro posted:
Gross, you should cover it with popcorn!
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May 4, 2016 21:57
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Omne posted:I can't even get people to call me back! I have money to spend, people, take it! Answer my call! Had a contract with one, all written up, signed by me, just waiting for them to sign off on it. Cash money ready to be paid. No call, no show, don't even know if they are even still a business. Landscaping, the purgatory of business.
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May 4, 2016 22:03
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emocrat posted:We bought a new house last fall. This spring, 19 cubic yards of mulch. If bags are 2 cubic feet, that's equivalent of 256.5 bags. You poor loving..... You unfortunate....... Why the gently caress do you have that much landscaping, Richy McRicharson? 
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May 4, 2016 22:05
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VendaGoat posted:Landscaping, the purgatory of business. This week I had a landscaper ask me to send his money as a paypal gift. I believe the word "un-businesslike" was in my response.
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May 4, 2016 22:09
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emocrat posted:We bought a new house last fall. This spring, 19 cubic yards of mulch. If bags are 2 cubic feet, that's equivalent of 256.5 bags. Bozart posted:Gross, you should cover it with popcorn! slap me silly posted:This week I had a landscaper ask me to send his money as a paypal gift. I believe the word "un-businesslike" was in my response. 
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May 4, 2016 23:08
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slap me silly posted:Good luck with that. I worked with three different ones, not to mention housekeepers and recycling pickup and other things, and every single one of them had at least one ball they would drop. Yeah, I gave up on maid services. None of the three I tried at various times(move out cleaning, move in cleaning, etc) have been worth a drat. And contractors in general, just not calling back, not showing up, not billing, etc I just don't understand how any of them stay in business. And keep in mind, this is after already filtering these people through things like Angie's list, google reviews, etc. I hate to think about how much worse they could be.
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May 4, 2016 23:24
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So I'm in the process of trying to get some vegetables growing in my backyard and the existing "landscaping" which I want to replace with a garden is basically just two trees surrounded by bark mulch. In the process of digging out the bark mulch I discovered that it is covering a weed barrier fabric and then underneath that is "soil" that is basically just river rocks packed together. Looks like it was filled in with rocks to level it out before they dumped the bark on it or something. Any better way to handle this than using a pickaxe to try and break them up a bit at a time and slowly shoveling them into a big fuckoff pile of rocks so that I can get some real dirt in there? I think trying to run any kind of tiller through there to break stuff up is just going to gently caress up the tiller blades so that probably isn't an option.
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May 4, 2016 23:28
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King Burgundy posted:Yeah, I gave up on maid services. None of the three I tried at various times(move out cleaning, move in cleaning, etc) have been worth a drat. And contractors in general, just not calling back, not showing up, not billing, etc I just don't understand how any of them stay in business. Where do you live? I use franchise http://www.maidbrigade.com/ which has locations in every state of the USA. I love them. They do a great job, don't break or steal my poo poo, and don't mind that I have two cats that get in their poo poo while they clean.
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May 4, 2016 23:29
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When I bought my house two years ago I tried to get the phone connected. It gave a fault in the exchange because the electrician could do mains power wiring but was too retarded to do simple communications wiring. I got him back to fix his retarded installation and at one point I have the technician from the infrastructure provider on the phone so I could give the electrician instructions. He still got the wires around the wrong way and there was hosed up wired to the second jack point. Useless prick. Then there's a landslide that I've talked about before in BWM. Due to a lack of adequate retaining some of my shrubs and lawn slid down my property to gently caress knows where. Got an insurance payout that only paid for surveying and design. Spending $64k out of my own pocket to build a massive retaining wall, at least I know that'll never go anywhere, it's so massive it will probably outlast humanity. Of course this has sucked up a lot of money so I know I've got the cash flow to get back to sorting out things that are needed. So I finally paid for a new bed, the current bed has broken springs, the base has collapsed into a deformed parallelogram and now seems to have an incline. Buying a house can have some major financial implications, and create set backs. My plan for massive investment has been set back about a year due to this bullshit.
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May 5, 2016 00:06
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_mound_ant These fuckers currently have the run of my backyard. I am currently waging total war against them and the mice that attempt to infest my lawn mower.
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May 5, 2016 00:16
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novamute posted:So I'm in the process of trying to get some vegetables growing in my backyard and the existing "landscaping" which I want to replace with a garden is basically just two trees surrounded by bark mulch. In the process of digging out the bark mulch I discovered that it is covering a weed barrier fabric and then underneath that is "soil" that is basically just river rocks packed together. Looks like it was filled in with rocks to level it out before they dumped the bark on it or something. Any better way to handle this than using a pickaxe to try and break them up a bit at a time and slowly shoveling them into a big fuckoff pile of rocks so that I can get some real dirt in there? I think trying to run any kind of tiller through there to break stuff up is just going to gently caress up the tiller blades so that probably isn't an option. Raised beds, man. Just plop some raised beds down anywhere, put good gardening soil in them, and grow your veggies in them. They're way nicer anyway, you don't have to get on your knees on the ground to weed or pull out carrots or whatever, you can move them around if you want, you can run irrigation to them without too much issue using just a long hose or something, you can put wire over your seedlings if you need to keep them safe from critters, and you can leave your multi-layered landscaping foundation stuff alone.
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May 5, 2016 00:22
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King Burgundy posted:And contractors in general, just not calling back, not showing up, not billing, etc I just don't understand how any of them stay in business. One bright spot is my GC - using him adds a premium to everything but the work has a legal contract, someone supervising and choosing good subcontractors, and a vested interest in keeping me happy long term. And it is done mostly on time and on budget. Fuckin love this guy.
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May 5, 2016 00:58
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VendaGoat posted:You poor loving..... SiGmA_X posted:You either have kids or cash labor lined up, right? My folks had many yards per year (how many per truck? At least a truck a year ugh), I and the hired help hauled so many loads every spring... But the grounds around the houses were very beautiful! (Acre plus of landscaping) I mean, cause it looks good  We have, I think, .38 of an acre, its completely landscaped. Sometime in the 90s the prior owners and both our neighbors had all 3 houses professionally landscape architected or whatever. It is a lot of work, and it takes some money, but honestly it looks great and it makes me super happy whenever I look at it.Its done well too, pretty low maintenance given the size, well thought out in term of colors throughout the season, large swaths of groundcover that doesn't get mowed. Yeah so we def paid for some cash labor on this one. Its our first year here, so, we did a few things we did wrong. We didn't do a good enough job cleaning up leaves in the fall, making that job harder. Then we waited about a month too late to do it, so stuff was already coming up and we couldn't just throw it down without paying attention. Next year should be a bit better. 10 cubic yards of double shredded hardwood is 250 delivered, and if we get the timing right laying it out shoud be a lot less work.
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May 5, 2016 01:38
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If you have dogs that like to piss on things, make sure you have a fence around your A/C compressor. It is very corrosive and can damage the coil. Just had to replace a not so old one because my dog loves peeing on it apparently...
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May 5, 2016 01:55
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It makes such a satisfying tinkle sound! Luckily for me mine was outside the back yard fence.
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May 5, 2016 01:57
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emocrat posted:I mean, cause it looks good You're one of the good ones. Take that as you will.
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May 5, 2016 02:09
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| # ? Apr 16, 2024 19:46 |
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So is this thread going to be a little competition to see who has the best problem that they brought on themselves by buying a house? I think my recent one is pretty good: My house just got in a car accident. I bought a house with a shared driveway. This is pretty clearly a bad idea, but there are a lot of them in this city and I couldn't afford better. These seemed like good enough reasons. I did imagine some potential problems that could come about from sharing property with a neighbor. I did not imagine that one of them would be my neighbor backing his truck into my house. Twice.
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May 5, 2016 02:24
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