I am currently sitting in my guest room with a portable AC unit and my two dogs because my house was struck by lightning last night and it fried my central air along with all of the electronics in my living room and several electrical outlets. Oh, and my pool pump.
I now have to write this on my phone because my internet modem was part of the electronics that were in my living room. Why am I writing a whole post about this? Well, because this is not the first time shit has gone terribly wrong in this house and I just need to vent. Thank you for being here for me.
I am well aware that I am not the only one and that things could most definitely be worse. Save me all of your logic and just let a bitch get emotional for a few minutes.
About five years ago, our house was hit by lightning the first time, and it fried our television and microwave. Why has our house been hit more than once since we’ve been here, you ask? Well, I believe it’s because our house is about 2 feet higher than it was originally designed due to the first owners opting for higher ceilings downstairs. This made our house taller than any other on the block and maybe the neighborhood. I used to think this was cool. Ask me how I feel about it now.
We started having trouble with the AC about two years after we moved into the house and eventually had to just replace it. The cost for this would have been about $12,000, but being in the industry, I was fortunate enough to get a deal. However, we were without AC in July (fucking always in July) for days. Mind you, we live in Houston where the typical temperature this time of year is asshole hot. I say this because the humidity is higher than most places you have experienced except maybe your asshole. What this does is raise the heat index so that it feels about 10° hotter than the thermometer would indicate. While this is not the end of the world it’s fucking miserable and to top it off, I was keeping my son’s ferret for him at the time, and ferrets can not handle temperatures over something like 78°. So, I had to keep ice in my bathtub and create a platform above that to put him on and keep the whole tub covered so that it stayed insulated and he wouldn’t fucking die.
Because we had been hit by lightning once already, I paid to have a surge protector installed on the new unit. FYI, lightning doesn’t give a fuck.
Just last September we spent About $3500 replacing the compressor on the condensing unit when it went out. Two weeks ago we spent another $2000 replacing the coil on the indoor unit just to have mother nature fuck us right in the ass and fry the damn thing. The AC is painful, but it is not the only thing that has plagued us here.
About three years ago, we went on vacation and my son stayed here with the dogs. When we got back, we found that he had to turn off the water to the kitchen sink because a leak had sprung above the kitchen. It turned out that the PEX piping had turned brittle and cracked. My husband fixed that section, but then we had a huge chunk of ceiling cut open that had to be repaired/retextured. But that was OK, because we would then have another leak spring up above the living room for the same fucking reason.
We looked into it and found out that there was a class action lawsuit against several PEX manufacturers, including the one that was installed in our house for this very reason. Had we known this when we moved into this house, we could’ve had the whole thing re-piped for free. Of course, we did not know this because we didn’t have leaks. By the time that it did happen, it was, of course, too late to file a claim against the manufacturer. Insurance does not cover this kind of damage by the way. At least ours didn’t.
We had to get our entire house re-piped to the tune of about $15,000. All for shit nobody will ever see. This also included repairs to all of the sheet rock that was already damaged or that they had to cut open in order to run the new pipe, so that was good. But of course, it also meant that we had to repaint everything.
We had to replace the roof after a nasty storm came through and left water damage on our bedroom and closet ceilings.
When we renovated our kitchen a few years before that, we ran into all kinds of fun stuff in the walls, including a leak and some damaged studs that we had to replace. Like most things, it was not near as straightforward as it should’ve been.
During that renovation, I had the brilliant idea of building out the top of the upper cabinets so that they reached the ceilings and didn’t leave dead space above. We soon realized that the wall to the left of the fridge was so fucking out of plumb, we couldn’t box that part out without a 1 1/2” gap at the bottom of it, or doing a scribe cut that would have been just as blatantly obvious. So, we opted to end the box out before the fridge and install a shelf over that part, instead. It worked out and looks good, but WTF? The wall literally swoops out an inch and a half at the top. Probably because when they build spec houses, they use any warped piece of shit lumber they get.
None of the walls were plumb, honestly. It took a fucking hat trick to level the lower cabinets so we could install new countertops and not have it look like ass. Spec houses suck butts. Just absolute shit.
We decided to change out the flooring during this reno, as well, because the tile was some butt ugly, standard issue, off-white shit from 2007. Well, they installed the fuck out of that with about a full inch of super-strength, atomic level mortar beneath the tiles. The tile popped off easy. The mortar took days with a chipping hammer and a lot of cussing to remove.
I forgot to mention that the condensate drain for the AC was installed like someone didn’t give a shit and the pan overflowed and left water damage to the ceiling in our upstairs living area. Bonus content: I used to have dreams about water damage here before any of this shit ever started. Always in the walls and ceilings.
Anyway, I just ran out to the garage for something and saw the light on the door opener is on for no reason but the opener itself will not function. So, I guess the lightning got that, too. Coooool. Cool, cool, cool.
My husband, who was in the living room when the lightning hit, saw a fucking fireball come through the fireplace and it left a light halo in his vision for a while after. Thank god he’s ten years younger than me and his heart’s in good shape. Pretty sure we can see where it hit the chimney vent in this photo.
We’ve been working on getting the house ready to sell and the bitch is either trying to kill us or break us. Should’ve left years ago.
Thanks for listening. Wish us luck.
XO,
M
The universe is trying to kill us all.💀
I think you need to stop getting tradesmen to fix the problems are start getting an exorcist.