Okay, so let me get this out of the way right now: I have the natural temperament of a renter. I do. I know that. I come from a state of renters, I didn’t really grow up with a homeowner’s mindset, I spent most of my adult life in apartments.
I. Call. Maintenance.
I’m not necessarily proud of this fact, but I’m also not particularly ashamed of it, either. It’s just how it is. At any given time, I’d much rather sit on my ass troubleshooting some obscure issues with bits and bytes than banging boards together in the backyard. However, as a homeowner now, there’s only so much responsibility that I can dodge before I’m rightfully drafted by basic human obligation and common sense.
When did this shit start?
Eden has played a big role in my assumption this year of more home upkeep duties. While we still often call upon Kristi’s dad (with his much more comprehensive set of tools and experience) for larger and more complicated jobs, plenty of smaller day-to-day home repair opportunities regularly manifest as a result of our young Lab’s personal intervention. We joke now that Eden’s not destructive – she’s merely QA-oriented, constantly evaluating our home for inferior workmanship and weaknesses in our zombie apocalypse defenses.
For example. So this morning, she finally figured out how to beat our breezeway barrier. The house and the garage are separated by a rear breezeway that offers access to the side of the house; this side area contains our garden hose and various gardening implements, lemon tree, and our neighbor’s telephone wiring. Early on, we had discovered that Eden loved this area because of all the fab chewy things it had to offer. We lost a lot of sprinkler rig. But when she started chewing on our neighbor’s phone lines, we knew we had to somehow keep her out of there.
We had a pallet, so we took that and leaned it up onto the breezeway exit and basically just barricaded the shit out of it, propping it with heavy iron lawn chairs and securing it the best we could. That worked for about two hours, until Eden learned that she could go AROUND the garage, through the side crawlspace along the fence line, and BOOM, in the side yard again. So we barricaded the entry into that side space and that seemed to stop her.
Eden finally figured out today that if she pushed on the pallet at just the right angle, she could push it out of the way and free her access to the side again. Which she did. I was sitting on the living room couch, checking email and basically just trying to wake up, when I heard activity in that direction and went out to investigate.
Sonovabitch.
Of course, big doggy grin and VERY excited and OMG look what I did and OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG there’s a GATORADE BOTTLE CHEWCHEWCHEW RUN!!! ohdearlord..
Okay. Unlock the gate (I’d recently installed new locks on all our exterior gates), grab her by her new collar (the new heavy duty one, because yesterday morning we opened her crate to discover that she’d gotten her old one off and ripped it to pieces overnight), drag her around to the front door (because when she’s this excited, there’s nothing else you really can do), chuck her into the house and close the door. Then I went back around to investigate.
Yep. She managed to push it out of the way – there’s the gap, right there. Okay. Push it back into place, reinforce it a bit better, lock up the gate and come back inside. On the other side of the barrier, I moved another iron chair to better block that corner. That should do it. I let Eden out into the yard again, she tore off running, I went back to my daily business.
Not thirty seconds later, I’m hearing the same commotion from the side yard.
Goddammit.
Yep. She’s back. What the hell? I check the breezeway barrier. She pushed it out the other corner and got out. Okay. She gets fixated on things. Back around the front. Unlock the gate. Grab her collar.
Eden goes crazy and slips my grasp. Tears off into the front yard, running burnout loops at full speed while I’m standing there calling her back as nicely as I can without turning this shit into a game (because then I’ll never get her back inside) and finally – oh thank fucking god – she runs to the front door and waits to be let back in. I open the door, she runs inside, I close the door, go back and investigate the barrier.
All right. Let’s get serious now. Brace the pallet up hard. Iron chairs on both corners. Heavy concrete planters on both chairs. Heavy paver stones on both planters. Gaps minimized. She’ll have to put some impressive force on that to escape again.
Let’s go check the garage crawl space, the only other way she can get over there. Yep. She’s been working on this, too. We have a large plywood sheet blocking that route, but it’s been pushed a bit to one side – not enough to let Eden through, but she’s getting there. So I repositioned the board and weighted it a bit better. Again, she’ll have to work at it.
Eden is having a little crate naptime now.
This kind of stuff happens most days around here. I’ve reached the point now that, instead of getting mad, I just wait until she’s contained and then go out and fix whatever’s broken. For example, lately she’s been digging up our new drainage dry well; she digs out the hole in the morning, I go out later and fill it with gravel again. At some point midday, I walk the perimeter of the yard, looking for weaknesses, trying to keep one step ahead. I’ve recently fixed fence boards, filled in around dug-up sprinkler heads, installed new security on the gates. Kristi’s Dad was over here not long ago to install protective covers on our outside Internet cables and sprinkler valves.
It just goes on and on. The only real upside I’m seeing here is that I’m reaching the point where if the trouble at hand can be fixed with the tools we have, I’m not seeing much point in not just fixing it myself now. And most repairs around here require little more than a hammer, a wrench, a power drill/driver, and maybe a cheap part acquired easily at the neighborhood hardware store. I’m out there often now, drilling or nailing or screwing or moving shit around or doing whatever else is necessary to KEEP THE DAMNED DOG IN THE YARD.
The thing is, now that mindset is starting to make its way inside. Recently our toilet had been having problems, strange noises and constantly running and such. Five years ago, I’d have just said, honey, time to call the plumber. I looked inside though, saw that the fill valve was leaking, did some quick Internet-ing, and saw that the part could be had for about ten bucks. The replacement procedure seemed simple enough. So I went down to the hardware store, bought a universal fill valve assembly for $8.
And that is how, at the age of 44, I successfully replaced my first toilet fill valve. No trouble, no leaking, easy job, done, good as new. Now, as we just yesterday received notice of our October move to metered water, my mind is moving towards our leaky kitchen faucet.
Internet says I just need a screwdriver, adjustable wrench and a cheap part. So yeah.
Maybe Saturday.
Some days I feel like I’m maintaining our apocalypse defenses, other days I just feel like I’m being dragged kicking and screaming into being an adult. I suspect that somewhere in between, the truth probably lies.
The dog, however, will no doubt play a significant quality assurance role in any event.