Friday Five, Raindrops Keep Falling

I know many parts of the country are suffering from a terrible drought. I wish I could give them some of our rain. We’re seventeen (yes, 17) inches above normal.

Most of the time, I love rain. It fact, I love the extra 17 inches. Except that those extra inches are coming into my house. Normally, when there's excess water we have a basement issues. This time, it's the roof.

And it wasn't, "Oh, look, there's a water spot on the ceiling." It was, "Oh, look, the shelf of books from the 1800s is swimming in water and the books are ruined. And, "Oh, look, another room has water dripping down the walls." And "Oh, look, the area around the fireplace in our bedroom in leaking and water is dripping down one of Cal's paintings."

So we called roofers, and they inspected. (I didn’t really expect to have roofing problems since we had the roof stripped down to the decking and replaced just over six years ago.) In any case, according to the new roofers—not the losers who did our re-roofing—we have a section of roof that needs to be replaced, leaks that need patching, and flashing that needs to be redone because the original roofers did it wrong.

They made an appointment to come on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s Friday, and they still aren’t here.

So I’m beginning to wonder why. Here are my theories.

1. The roofers have no plans to fix the roof. They have a sadistic need that forces them to go from house to house stressing out homeowners on the state of their roofs.

2. My children are paying the roofers money to stay away so they can find out how long it takes me to “snap” due to the stress of having books, furniture etc., stacked all over the house to protect them from water damage.

3. The roofers are waiting for the next deluge so they can charge extra for working in the rain.

4. Since my laptop is now fixed (even the repair people are surprised it’s working), I need a new source of patience-producing frustration.

5. The roofers are in cahoots with builders and they’re waiting for a good case of rot to set in. Or mildew. Or paint damage—oops already got that.

Maybe we need to rethink our roof and go with this. But I wonder how you’d mow it. Or do you have to buy a goat and let him do the trimming?

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Raindrops Keep Falling on the Computer

On Sunday, a huge band of storms moved into the area where we live. By Monday morning, a huge puddle had formed in our library (sounds fancy, but it’s just an oddly shaped room where we have a lot of bookcases). The puddle engulfed a computer.

Thankfully, the computer didn’t short-circuit (and none of the books were ruined—they were on the other side of the room). So we moved the furniture. We mopped floors and wiped walls and ceilings. Of course, the storm kept storming. We put basins, bowls, and towels everywhere.

Cal bought tar and went on the roof. Our roof was entirely replaced five years ago, but the warranty has expired. Of course. In order to give you a visual picture I have to describe Cal. He was wearing jeans with cut-off sweat pants over top to stay warm and a sweatshirt. But it was raining heavily, but he didn’t want to get his raincoat wet. So we got a contractor’s plastic bag and cut out head and arm holes. Then he put on a wide brimmed hat—I wish I’d taken a picture.

So he slapped tar all over the roof seams where one part of the roof attaches to the house. It’s a “vintage” home, code word for very old, so the roof does all kinds of weird things. After an hour, he came down. It seemed to help. Sort of.

On Tuesday, the leaking got worse. Cal bought more roof repair stuff—being that we own a “vintage” home, he’s on a first name basis with the Ace Hardware people. So he went and slopped more tar and plastic mesh on the roof seams. Halfway through, he came into the house. The bad thing was that Cal was wearing black shoes and didn’t realize that he had tar on his shoes until he’d tromped all over the house. It was especially evident on the winter white carpeting (so not my choice of colors). He called me. I took one look at the floor and said, “Oh, ‘cow poop.’” Okay, “cow poop” isn’t the word I used.

In case you don’t know, the only thing that gets lumps of footprinted tar off of carpet is turpentine.

It all seemed worth it when the leaks stopped. In spite of heavy rain, the roof stopped leaking for four hours. Then, the leaks started again. And not even lighter. Just as heavy as before, if not heavier.

So it’s time to call a roof repair company. And I’ll begin to ponder my new project—patching the walls and and ceiling, and then painting. Sigh.