Learning new things about our house
December 24th, 2006Any day that you learn something is a good day. Today, we learned quite a few things about our house that we were previously unaware. Thankfully, we learned them because the previous owner stopped by to say hi rather than through too many things breaking.
The gentleman that we bought the house from got a Christmas letter from our neighbor which mentioned our break-in. He stopped by mostly to let us know that there is in fact a burglar alarm installed in our house. That was a nice thing to learn. He showed us where the controls are and how to operate it.
He also let us know a few tricks like where the water shut off is to the valve in the back (I had already found that) and that there was not one in the front because the shaft was long enough that you could just drain the water with it turned off and be all set. That had been driving me nuts because I could not find a shut off valve inside the house, and had given up.
Shortly after returning my neighbor’s plywood, which he lent us to cover the hole in the back of our house, I discovered that there was some plywood beneath our shed. The gentleman who sold us the house let me know that that is to cover the bushes and small trees in the front of the house from snow falling off of the roof. That’s a good tidbit to learn before we start getting significant snowfall.
It was very sweet of him to stop by and let us know about the burglar alarm and such. He misses his house; he built it with his own hands and lived here for 40 years. Him and his wife are too old to maintain a house themselves, though; she can barely move, and he is at the point where he can not mow the lawn any more.
I gave him one of our wedding beers as a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas.
December 29th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
That’s nice. I walked around our house with the old owner on the day of the inspection and he showed me some stuff, like where the septic tank is buried in the lawn, where the drain field is, etc. He also showed where the controls for the irrigation system are (under the house). But there was a lot of stuff that he didn’t mention, and the inspector didn’t catch… Such as leaky faucets, a rotting exterior door frame, and a couple of other treats. Oh, the joys of home ownership. Overall, though, we love our house, the lot, and the location.
December 30th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Yeah, we found where the septic was from a lot diagram, and the only time we’d had anything to do with the owner before he stopped by was at closing and the next day when his son picked up an air conditioner they left for us that we didn’t want.
It started snowing today, so I got our shrubs covered over. In fact, I should go write about that right now…
December 30th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
[…] Last weekend, the former owner of our house stopped by to let us know about a burglar alarm we had installed in the house. We were completely unaware of it, and he let us in on a few other tips as long as he was here. […]