As I mentioned I’m working on a couple of places to get them ready for new tenants, and most if it involves minor repairs and painting.

The one I’m hoping to get ready first is half of a concrete block duplex built when Harry Truman was President. It has a lot of thermal mass, so if you get it to a temperature it will hold that temperature with minimal expenditures of energy, but getting it to the comfort zone takes a while if it has been unoccupied.

The electrical is finished and it looks like the shower is no longer dripping, so it is time for the painting. The new water-based paints are much safer and easier to use that the oil-based paints, but controlling humidity is important. Lately we have had very high humidity with fog every night. The walls in the duplex are dripping which makes attempting to paint a waste of effort. The leak in the shower and washing the walls increased the problem, so things have been slowed considerably.

The individual who wants to rent the place and his friends have been helping with the cleaning, but they are unclear on several minor concepts – like gravity. I tell them that the new carpet and flooring will be the last things done because you work from the top and go down so you don’t have to be as careful about painting, and dripping isn’t as big a problem. They keep wanting to do something about the floors.

Today I walked in and there was a bloody pressure washer in the center of the living room. It hadn’t been used, but the fact that they even brought it in, shows a mindset that is out of sync with reality. If they had turned it on inside, not only would the place be soaked, every electrical socket would probably had to have been replaced, as well as some of the wiring. They apparently thought that they could speed things up with the pressure washer, not understanding why they are only used outside.

If killing them wouldn’t generate so much paperwork …

Neighborhood Watcher

What’s going on?

[Editor: This is CC on her towel in her window watching people working on one of the apartments. I’m surprised anything came out as it was taken in very low light, and she is behind a window screen. She “talks” to me every time I go by.

Friday Ark

In Memoriam
RIP Vinnie, NTodd’s tuxedo tom.