I Ain’t Dead

by Bryan

14 comments

1 ellroon { 06.28.17 at 11:31 am }

Sounds like you have tenants who like to party? Or else your cats get in there when it’s empty and have batches of kittens?

Keep cool, be careful, and take lots of breaks!

2 paintedjaguar { 06.28.17 at 12:57 pm }

“I Ain’t Dead”

Yeah, well that’s what a bot would say isn’t it?

3 Bryan { 06.29.17 at 9:09 am }

They were tenants who hoarded and thought they were handy with tools, Ellroon. With the constant series of thunderstorms you get take a shower in your clothes getting tools and supplies out of the car.

No, PJ, a robot would have written “I Am Not Dead”, as it would use a spelling checker, and wouldn’t have read Terry Pratchett.

4 paintedjaguar { 06.29.17 at 7:54 pm }

Bryan, someday I’ll tell you about when my sister decided to take up the w-to-w carpet grip strips from the hardwood floors in my mom’s old house. Wish I could say “pry up” – still hurts to talk about it. From a well stocked tool closet, she chose a three foot wrecking bar for the job.

5 Badtux { 06.30.17 at 12:00 am }

Not even pining for the fjords, are ya? Glad to hear it.

6 Bryan { 06.30.17 at 10:51 pm }

Almost done,despite 16.58 inches of rain for the month, four times the average for June. Never rent to a tenant who owns a screwdriver…

7 Kryten42 { 07.01.17 at 5:54 pm }

Good luck m8! Sorry I’m late to the party! 😉 Just finished reinstalling W10 & some of my App’s. *shrug*

I have an inspection in a couple weeks. I’m going to throw the book @ the agent (and make sure it’s a hard back!) They promised to fix a bunch of things 6 mth’s ago, but only 1 thing was done (guttering was replaced). That was the 2nd time they promised to fixed things but the *handyman* they had was an idiot who either did a half-arsed job or made things worse (like my kitchen how water tap!) Hmmph!

OT: Just saw this: An article by Bill Moyers about a new ad by the NRA! See what you think.

NRA Issues Call for White Supremacy and Armed Insurrection

8 Bryan { 07.01.17 at 10:09 pm }

The NRA is part of the marketing effort of the small arms manufacturers. They will do and say anything that pushes gun sales. The easiest way to sell guns is with fear. and that’s what the NRA pushes. It makes no difference that all of their claims come to nought, their audience continues to ‘believe’.

It’s a win-win for the gun makers – The whackoes buy guns to protect themselves from the “OTHER” , and the rest of us buy guns to protect ourselves from the NRA members.

You don’t fix a faucet anymore, you replace it. I used to rebuild them, but now the parts cost more than a new faucet and there is less labor involved. The people who get classed as ‘handyman’ are usually underpaid individual who pass the entrance exam by being aware that that there are more than one type of screwdriver. They tend to be do-it-yourself people out of necessity – they can’t afford to hire the job done.

9 Kryten42 { 07.02.17 at 7:02 am }

I’ve told them 3 times to replace the taps. they are the old originals from when the unit’s were built! The plumber has had to be called out to fix them 4 times, twice on weekend! Given his emergency & weekend rates, they could have replaced all the taps twice at least (he said as much! Only 1 call-out fee for a start). Most owners & agents are idiots. Now the 2 security door locks are screwed & the wooden front door is actually a cheap closet door that was replaced just before I moved in. It’s already rotting for the rain & cold weather & swollen so that I have to force it open/closed which is damaging it of course. Only the outside of it was painted, & you can see the original blue stain under the thin coat of paint! No sealer, nothing! Stupid cheap bastards. Will cost a lot more than doing it right the first time!

Tired of idiots.

Speaking of: Explosive Link Between Flynn & GOP Operative Includes Bannon & Conway

More on Peter Smith’s convenient death:
Who Is Peter W. Smith?

Right. *shrug*

10 Bryan { 07.02.17 at 10:00 am }

The labor costs are what kill you on repairing a faucet. I still rehab some faucets, but after I replace them with a new one, and then only if they are washerless. I have to usually rehab shower controls because they are so difficult to get out of the wall, but I have been known to put a separate shut off valve on the shower head to avoid turning off the entire shower while waiting for parts. Faucets are $40 and under for new construction grade.

With my headlamp, memory foam pad, and basin wrench the old one is out and the new one in in less than an hour, quicker if you are younger and more agile. I clean the top of the sink to hint that the tenant should clean the rest.

Yes, with a new exterior or bathroom door you fit the door with all of the hardware installed giving yourself an extra ¹⁄₁₆ and then remove all of the hardware and prime it including the mortises for the hinges and lock set and the inside of the hole for the door knob. Then you paint it with semi-gloss or gloss enamel, including all four edges. If you don’t paint the bottom of the door, you can plan on replacing it every year or so.

Smith comes from a long line of Republican ‘dirty tricks/rat f*ckers’. His function was to disrupt the opposition candidate at any cost, legal or not. That he would cut a deal with a foreign power to damage an opponent, is no surprise if you look at the Republican Party since Goldwater. The purpose of these people is to make someone lose, because they don’t really think their candidate can win win on a level playing field.

11 Badtux { 07.02.17 at 12:30 pm }

Hey, not *all* tenants with a screwdriver are evil. It took me less than an hour to replace the kitchen faucet when it started leaking, same to re-gut the toilet when it started leaking. It would have cost my landlord (an old man who lives in Texas) at least ten times what the toilet guts and kitchen faucet cost to actually pay his property manager and her “handyman” to do the job, and then I wouldn’t have gotten the kitchen faucet I wanted (the nice one with a sprayer) or the toilet guts that I wanted (the one that’ll turn off the water automatically if the flapper thingy leaks, so I know it’s time for a new flapper thingy — they go bad fast in our hard water). I also fixed the self-cleaning mechanism on the stove — it just required adjusting a sliding thingy in the door so it’d properly register on the sensor that the sliding thingy was properly raised. I also put a new seat and guts in the hot water side of the bathtub when it started leaking (none of the rest was leaking, the hot water drives the minerals out of our hard water and makes the hot water side clog faster).

But when the kitchen sink clogged and a bit of drain opener didn’t fix it? Dude. I was on the phone to the landlord so fast to get a plumber out here to roto-root it. A dude has to know his limits. Unfortunately, too many don’t.

12 Bryan { 07.02.17 at 10:27 pm }

There were 8 lights and only one worked. The wall-mounted sink in the bathroom was gone and a rather beat up vanity was in its place. The drain was held together by duct tape, but the real drain was a bucket under the sink that was dumped into the shower or the toilet.

I use Korky red flappers because we are close to the water tower and the chlorine level is quite high. Anything made from natural rubber dissolves after a couple of months.

I’m getting too old for this stuff. crawling under sinks isn’t as easier as it was 5-10 years ago.

13 Badtux { 07.06.17 at 3:19 am }

Wow. That was bad. Right now my place has some screens that need replacing due to cat intervention, but that’s about it. If the plumbing under my sink went I’d be on the phone to the landlady as soon as their office opened the next day. Same deal if the sink fell off the wall in the bathroom. It’s easy to fall behind on little things like window screens or the latch for the backyard gate (which also needs fixing), but the big stuff like plumbing and electrical? Dude. There’s a reason why I have the management company’s phone number….

14 Bryan { 07.06.17 at 2:21 pm }

I didn’t mention what was done to the shower, or the swap of the toilet…

It wasn’t the worse, there were no pets, but it was pretty bad. The concrete walls in this unit helped.

I don’t do everything and I know when a licensed electrician or plumber is required.

After three rounds of insect fogging and and application of Bengal roach spray around the perimeter, followed by generous helpings of Odor-Ban, It was in renting shape.