Wreck the halls!

When you bought your first home, how quickly did you begin to beg for the “undo” button? Maybe it was more subtle. Something along the lines of “well, it could have been worse”, before it went on to actually become worse? If you have answered yes to either of these questions, congratulations, and please tell me how to save my sanity.

So, let’s rewind back to February of this year. I was sitting inside of my apartment seething about how much rent was going to go up at renewal time, while the building I was living in considered functional elevators a luxury that we couldn’t have. This was in Bellevue, Washington. A place where, notoriously, you couldn’t walk to your car without spending $100 on the way there. But hey, such is life and I knowingly chose to live there despite that. But, this “luxury” apartment building was actually a faithful reconstruction of Alcatraz, except vertical. Except the folks on Alcatraz had fantastic door locks and no Amazon package theft.

I was breathing the “copium” hard. At this point in time, I had been in the building for about 1.7 years and generally enjoyed it. The last few months however felt like an Olympic sport in trying not to pop a blood vessel when building management would regularly inform us that we would spend the next TWO months climbing the staircase to our apartments. From my car to my front door, that was a whopping 25 stories. Lord have mercy. I’m not exactly the super fit type of guy either, so doing this unwanted Planet Fitness from hell was really pushing me to the limit. But regardless, I persisted.

Then came one fateful day, where I got a new neighbor that was directly behind my apartment’s bedroom wall. They loved music, except only if it was playing at 10PM. Oh, and action TV shows, so gunfire and explosions came as part of the lovely package. The result was akin to this every night:

That is when I had my eureka moment. I was gonna buy… A HOUSE!!!

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I had an agent ready to go and my bank account shivering at the thought of opening a mortgage. Despite all odds, I had succeeded in finding a home across the water over in Bremerton, Washington. A cute 1000sqft house, with an attached garage (apparently hard to come by in good ol’ Brem), and a fully decked out HVAC system with gas heat and A/C. Lord, I was in heaven. Fast forward to a few days after I move in, I’m busy unpacking boxes and then get to the stack of clothes that I have on the couch. I then decide to use the washing machine that the prior owner had in the house, as mine was in the garage and had to be converted slightly before I could install it in the home.

So, I throw my clothes into the wash (Samsung washer from circa 2013. The warning signs were there). Then, I proceed to go out for breakfast while the clothes were being washed. As I close the door to the garage, I pat the walls and smile, proud of my life’s biggest achievement up to this point. I then sit in the car and drive away, thinking about all of the fun painting, lighting, and other HGTV-induced projects I would begin over the next few months.

I come home to a quiet place. Washer is humming away, TV is off, and I’m a bit sleepy. So, I walk over to the bedroom to kick off my shoes and get comfy in my new home.

squeak squeak squeak

To say that my blood ran cold is an understatement. I look down at my feet, and my hardwood floors are flooded. The hallway is flooded. The bathroom is flooded. The bedroom is flooded. The laundry room is flooded. The closets are flooded. My house, which I’ve had lived in for only days, was now the USS Ezrilov, where it's dry on the outside and wet on the inside. I immediately grabbed all of my clothes to form a wall that would prevent water from rushing to the living room and then started putting towels on my hallway floor. I look around for a source, and to my utter disappointment, this shitass washing machine was gushing water. I run to the garage and shut the water main off and go through the motions of emptying the water pipes in my house to stop any new flow from occurring. Despite this, the washer had become a gluttonous reservoir of water that continually spilled everywhere. After what felt like eternity, I stopped the flow of water, and my neighbor (God bless them for being so quick to help the new dork on the block), was kind enough to lend me multiple fans to dry everything out. This began a 24-hour mop, dry, store process that left me feeling like I was on the verge of collapsing.

Magically… No property damage. Other than a couple of spots that needed minor repair, the floors were saved, and the integrity of the house was unchanged. I had survived the first flood.

Keyword: first.

Fast forward to… yesterday. I love my house. At this point in time, lots of lights and electrical stuff had been replaced by yours truly, and therefore I was saving BANK from not having to hire anyone to come out and replace a fixture or install new faucets. I decide that a calm project would suit me best this weekend, so I decided to just do some Christmas-ing of the house. I go into the garage and begin to unbox my cheapo Lowe’s tree (either it was a real tree or Lutron dimmers… I will choose dimmers every time). As I’m working in the garage, nothing interesting is happening inside of the house.

After working for about an hour in the garage (got carried away with trying to replace my garage door opener because I want to control it with my phone), I decided to have a bathroom break. I walk in the bathroom, and Mt. Kohler had apparently decided to erupt. Thankfully, not dirty water, but nonstop flow of clean water from the tank failing to do whatever the hell it was supposed to be doing. At this point, life had taught me that getting into a hissy fit doesn’t make the problem go away, so I calmly put down my phone, repeated the Army Corps of Engineers procedure of placing clothes and towels on the floor, and got to work. Thankfully this time around, no hardwood was harmed in the making of this Saturday. The bedroom carpet however, gulped that water down like me discovering the hidden Topo Chico bottles at my parents’ house. I was shocked. So, after the flow was stopped, I went back to Lowe’s, where at this point, I simultaneously held the statuses of “Gold Member” and “Broken Inside”, and picked up a carpet cleaner, before driving at a perfectly legal pace back to my house. At 6PM, I began to wash the bedroom carpet, and by midnight, the great national nightmare was over. Carpet was dry, bathroom sanitized, and a banger Prince album playing on the smart speaker. It turns out… it definitely could’ve been worse.

In conclusion, is buying a house akin to sticking around in a relationship that’s rampant with financial abuse and random fits of anger and despair? Absolutely. I’d actually argue that owning a house should be a prerequisite of getting married, because both of them show their true colors AFTER you sign the papers. But also similar to marriage, most of the time, it’s the best decision you’ll ever make. Sure, it costs an arm and a leg to maintain, but as you deal with these things, you get smarter and more mature with handling it. Despite my house’s tendency to whip my ass during what is already the bankruptcy holiday we call “Christmas”, I am incredibly blessed to own this place, and will continue to put up with it’s schenanigans for the foreseeable future.

And the best part? It’s still cheaper than Alcatraz in Bellevue.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to you all.