5 Comments
founding
Sep 25, 2023Liked by john sundman

Regarding the entombed cartoon; My friend, Bloxberg, just sold his house and behind the built-in microwave there is a note that says "Look behind the water softener." Should the new owners find the note and do as instructed they will find another note, and so on ... I don't know how long the chain of notes is or what he's left at the final destination but while there is a sense of an ending revealed by the first note, the terminus is somewhat irrelevant (it could well be "look behind the microwave") so in this case, it's the journey that matters.

Expand full comment
founding
Oct 4, 2023Liked by john sundman

Plumbing is not amateurs. I scored a rare victory over a "touch" faucet that had taken on a life of its own. A short (26 second) youtube video provided the game plan. There was some minor flooding but at the end of the day the faucet worked.

I won't be leaving any notes for the next homeowner but will leave a list with the phone numbers of all the professionals who tend to the pellet stove, the boiler and the pool. Both the least and the best I can do.

Expand full comment
author

Excellent! I congratulate you. Youtube 'how to' videos have saved the day in numbers approaching an infinity times a billion, I'll wager. Just two days ago I consulted Youtube for advice on how to reset the dashboard clock in my Subaru. It's been wrong for well more than a year & irritated me like a pebble in my shoe every single time I got behind the steering wheel. Guess what? The controls are the blankety-bleeping *(%#*$!@! steering wheel! Who the hell was responsible for that brilliant decision? I'd like to have a word with them.

I might add that I live on an island. I bought the car, used, from a Subaru dealership over in America, and it came without an owner's manual. For me to make a quick stop by the dealership would require $100 and an acto of God to get me a reservation at this time of year. (After the 5th broken promise that the manual was 'sitting right here on my desk; I'll get it mailed today.' I gave up.)

About pellet stoves: I have a few stories from my firefighting days. I'd be curious to know if your son has yet had any experience with them while on the job.

Expand full comment
Sep 27, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023

1. I, too, am looking for something two feet by three feet, and cheaper than repairing drywall.

2. I know a fellow who has partially buried a Halloween decorative skeleton (life-sized) under his new deck for the amusement of future deck repairing folk.

3. "Amusement" is probably not what he is hoping they will experience.

Expand full comment
author

Lane, thanks for this comment.

1. Best wishes for your drywall project.

2. That skeleton prank is very diabolical. Wow.

3. Who knows, with houses built these days with an expected shelf life of 30 years, and with half the housing stock in this country being bought up by hedge funds who leave them unoccupied to corner the market & drive up rents, that porch will probably be bulldozed before the porch is ever repaired.

Expand full comment