Oh.. The Joys of Owning a Home

So our main phone line quit working and we called the phone company to figure out why. The phone lines in the back of the house were fine, which meant they would have to go under the house to figure it out. Turns out that they wouldn't go under, as there was a huge puddle of water underneath our house. After they left, I took a look and we literally had water that was crawling.. and flies were flying everywhere... Heebie Jeebies.....

Funny thing is.. Matt and I could smell something funky, but Brian stayed here for two days and mentioned that we probably just needed to clean out the line to the disposal. Which of course I kept putting off... cause I am over working on this house.

So we then called a plumber who went under the house. We turned on the sink faucet, then the washer and then the dishwasher and no leak. Then we turned on the disposal with the sink faucet and the poor plumber got a mouthful and face full of water all over his face. Turns out we have had a leak inside our kitchen wall going on for months. He measured underneath and then above where the leak was coming from, tore out the drywall in our hallway (Picture #1 & #3) and found that an old air pipe had not been capped off properly, and all the water from our kitchen sink (whenever we used the disposal) was flowing up and out of the pipe, and flowing underneath the house. 

Hence we had mold growing inside our walls for months. We looked behind the oven and behind one of the kitchen counters and it had infested the kitchen side as well. Of course the insurance company came out to take a look and they won't cover it... What the hell good is insurance for? Their claim was that it has been an ongoing problem and we should have known about it... Well how the hell would we have known about it, as there was no mold growing on the outside of the hall wall, and we can't see behind the kitchen cabinets!!!!!!!  IDIOTS... Hence we are changing companies and now know to look for the exclusions on the policy. So note to all of you.. Pull out your policies and check them out for the exclusions... We really need to get earthquake coverage as well... or just start a fire if an earthquake hits and the house falls off the foundation.. LOL.

Well luckily, the plumber we used is a plumber that Matt has used quite a few times in the past with his real estate clients, so he is just going to charge us for parts/supplies. He can even get us granite countertops at cost ($350 for the whole countertop) verses thousands, so we might do that as well. He said that whatever we can do ourselves will even make it cheaper for us.. So today, I unscrewed part of the countertop so that I could take out the one countertop that for sure had mold behind it. Then cut out the drywall. I could also install the drywall myself, but I am just done with all this home repair. If we decide to do the granite countertop, then I have to take off all the countertops and sink myself and they will reinstall the granite counter and reinstall the cabinet that I took out with a new back.

Another good note about all of this, is we have had mice coming into the house from underneath the crawl space during the winter months thru the holes in the 2x4's.. this will give us a chance to plug those up and hopefully stop those little critters from coming in and running around our house.. Emily actually caught one a few years ago.... so disgusting. 

What really stinks is that once the drywall is replaced in the hallway, I have to repaint it. Usually no big deal. But of course we painted with Ralph Lauren paint (special texture/special paint) which if you paint one section you have to repaint the entire wall; which wouldn't be bad, but that wall leads up the stairway to the entire Master Bedroom and it just won't mesh together correctly.. Note to everyone.. just use regular paint and add a little bit of sand to it if you want texture of any kind. So guess we are changing the color or the hallway/bedroom... UGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I guess I am just glad that this wasn't a leak from the second story... otherwise this mold issue would be a much bigger problem.

First found mold in the hallway leading upstairs.

Mold found behind the oven

First look at the hallway wall

Mold behind the kitchen cabinet after I removed it today.

Mold on the back of the kitchen cabinet after I removed it.

Matt's Realtor Easter Egg Hunt

The Kids Arrive

So one of Matt's Realtor friends moved out of town and sold Matt his community of marketing. There were certain stipulations to the agreement. Pass out Padres & Charger schedules every year, put an ad in the Homeowners newsletter every month, & hold the annual Easter Egg Hunt (this was the 7th year). and of course a certain amount of commission on the first certain number of sales within in the community. 

Dying Easter Eggs Before & After the Hunt

And off they go.. 3 & under go first

This has been a godsend as we were dirt poor and Matt now has 7 properties in escrow, ready to close. Just in time, as I am losing one of my biggest clients and now my income is going down the tubes. I refuse to have to get a job working for someone else, so I gotta find more clients.


Anyhow.. I was stressing about this Easter Egg Hunt, but what a success. 25 kids RSVP'd but of course about 40 showed up. Glad I decided to buy more eggs. I bought 230 eggs and stuffed them full of yummy candies (bite size Milky Way, Snickers, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Kisses, M&M's) the good stuff... 




We decided to let the 3 and under go first for about two minutes. Then released the 5-7 year olds, and then the older ones. Worked out well.

We had two prizes that were pre-made Easter Baskets from Toys-R-Us, and the Grand Prize of a $30 gift card to Toys-R-Us (The Golden Egg). 


The hunt lasted about 25 minutes before we decided all the eggs had been found, except for the Elusive Golden Egg. In the last 2 pictures you see all the kids crowded in the same area. We decided to bring all the kids together and tell them that the Golden Eggs was hidden within a certain area. It still took them about ten minutes to find it. I didn't think I made it that hard to find. I was wrong.




The Homeowner's Association supplied Boiled Eggs, Dye, punch and an Easter cake, so the kids had something to do before and after the Hunt.

One poor kid who was really shy, only had one egg at the end. I felt so bad for him. What are you going to do.  


I was really dreading this, as I am not great with kids I don't know, but it was actually fun. Everyone had a good time and all were very appreciative.

 I haven't been on here to post anything for a long time. I am happy to see that they improved the ease of posting everything. Able to move the pics and even post captions.. Maybe I will come on here more often now. I just found it too frustrating before.

HAPPY EASTER ALL. I would still like to know what the Easter Bunny and eggs have to do with the whole Easter thing.. Can someone explain? I think the show Southpark might have gotten it right... NOT!!!

The Search for the Elusive Golden Egg (Grand Prize)

Had to narrow down the search for the Golden Egg

Finally got the XMas tree almost down.. I took the decorations off weeks ago, but the half of the lights decided to go out before Christmas.. As we bought a fake tree in 2003, I was dreading this moment. The lights are wrapped around every single limb, which is fine by me, that's the way mom and I have always done it. But on a fake Christmas tree, they also have every limb attached with these annoying clips as seen in the picture. 1000 lights and 1000 clips.. It is taking me forever to unclip those. Not only that, but at the end of every branch, they have plastic ties..  Now I have to figure out which bulbs are truly burnt out, to try and make as many working light strands as I can for next year.

I figure that since I have to restring lights next year, I will actually buy a real tree next year. It is actually more environmentally friendly, as I learned this year. Tree farms plant more trees than are used, which in turn helps out our environment.... Fake trees take oil (that we are in desperate need of already) to make them. I can't believe how annoying this has been!!! Besides that I miss the smell of a real tree. Hanging the automotive scented pine trees meant for cars just isn't working anymore.. Just doesn't smell the same.. Just kidding.. I have never done that.. but that would make for a beautiful tree now, wouldn't it? LOL!!!!