Hazards of Home Ownership...

2010 got off to a bit of a rocky start for me, but things are looking up. Let me tell you about the hazards of home ownership!

I woke up on Monday, Jan. 4th to a very cold house. It was OBVIOUS my heat was not working... so I called my home warranty company and they came out to look at it and as luck would have it, my heat exchanger needed replacing. There had been a Carbon Monoxide leak in my house! Whaaaaaaaaat?! I could of died!! I mean-- I know I talk about dying a lot... but this was a real brush with death! Apparently, it was pretty bad. So, they shut it off and said they would try to fix it in the next week or so. Meanwhile, Nashville was experiencing record lows in temperatures--I'm talking single digits, people. Single digits. Anyway-- I sent out a mass email to my friends asking to borrow any and all space heaters they had lying around.

In about 10 minutes-- I'd collected 7 of them. I rounded them up and it actually wasn't unbearable in the house, so I thought all was well... UNTIL I woke up at 4am the following morning to what sounded like a waterfall in my house. For real--that's what it sounded like. I went into the bathrooms and water was overflowing from the bathtub and toilets. I mean--water EVERYWHERE. I used my beach towels to soak it all up and called my home warranty company AGAIN. They said they'd send someone out first thing in the morning, but I never heard from anyone. When I called back at 8am-- they had sent a plumber to Joshua Winters house in Nashville. What the hell?!... the incompetence of these home warranty people was really astounding.. but I can't go into all of the details because I will get really angry and have panic attack... So-- moving on...

They FINALLY sent someone out at like noon that day. He worked and worked and worked and worked for 5 and 1/2 hours. He didn't fix ANYTHING and left me with no plumbing but said he'd be back the following day. Unsuccessful AGAIN-- He advised me to call a different plumber. He also informed me that the warranty company would not be paying for the additional plumber because it didn't appear that this was a problem that could be "snaked out", therefore it would be on me. At this point I had been three days without indoor plumbing.. so I really didn't give a damn, but I DID want the thing fixed... SO...

Roto Rooter came out to take a look. There was definitely a problem. A BIG problem. The whole main waterline/sewage pipe needed to be replaced. Sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And they were going to have to cut through my driveway to get to it. That seems like sort of an irrelevant point to make-- I know.. but it's NOT because APPARENTLY that that ups the price by about 2k. I'm not even going to tell you how much something like this costs... it was A LOT more than I wanted to spend. Lets just put it that way. I documented the damage with my camera. I haven't really figured how to get the pictures exactly where I want them on this blogging site... but they are all posted above in no particular order.

I had about 1000 people offer to let me stay at their house, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving my home with a bunch of space heaters running here and the plumber had advised me to leave them on so that the rest of my pipes wouldn't freeze. I figured with the kind of luck I'd been having--- I'd better not risk it. I stuck it out over here in the cold, cold temps without even a bathroom to use! I showered at friends houses and did a lot of driving back and forth to the gas station/walgreens to use their restroom. I refused to do that in the middle of the night though. I had to get creative---God bless my daddy for taking me camping when I was little.... and God bless ROTO ROOTER!!!

They fixed the plumbing issue in ONE day. I was without heat for a total of 10 days. I got it back just in time for the 60 degree weekend weather. Nice, right? So it goes with home ownership I guess. At least that's what they tell me.

It took me until now to muster up the courage to blog about it. I'm not kidding. I needed some time for my SOUL to recover! My bank account is going to need a lot MORE time, but I guess it could've been worse... ... (although I'm not really sure how).

In closing, I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone who loaned me a space heater, shower, restroom, or a sympathetic ear for me to vent to over the past two weeks. You know who you are--- I appreciate it more than you know.

Now--- onward with 2010~! It can only get better from here!