Dumpster - Day 1

No demolition of the basement yet.

First we have to declutter the accumulated junk from my wife's family (50 year span!).

That pic doesn't do service to how much crap I pulled out already. Many of the larger things aren't in the dumpster yet because I need lifting assistance.

There were tons of old tools. Large wrenches, 50 chisels, 25 hammers, innumerable coffee cans full of rusty nails, etc. Two massive desks that had to be disassembled to fit out the narrow doorways. Steel shelves bound by stripped rusty screws that also had to be taken apart.

I was so filthy yesterday....by boogers were black!

We will fill this thing up in no time. Junk is still all over our attic, the garage, the shed, and the yard.

Still haven't decided what to do about the demolition. The contractor's $4,500 seems steep.

It looks like there are few neanderthals on Craigslist who claim they will, "beat any estimate."

I'm thinking more like $2,500 for a demo. I will call the cavemen either tonight or tomorrow after I finish emptying the basement.

Verizon wants $135 to move our internet connection upstairs. On the phone I told them to, "go eff themselves." Not really.

It's bull$hit. We pay them nearly $300 a month for cell phones, color TV, a house phone that doesn't work, and internet.

And when we had it installed originally - 3 years ago - they had the stones to charge me like $450 or something. I'm pretty sure I blogged it.

I was in shock. Cable installation was FREE every other place I lived. After all, they are going to get over $1,000 per year back from a new customer.

But I think this is one of those typical NYC-are jam-jobs. Verizon figures you live in NY....so they can charge you more. This crap really pisses me off.

Everytime I call a service or contractor for a price the first thing they want to know is, "What town do you live in?"

They pulled the same crap up in Cohasset, MA when we lived there. Some maid service wanted $1,000 to clean the entire house!

How much does FiOs installation cost where y'all live?

Do My Own Basement?

Our basement is in desperate need of being "re-done".

It's already finished....but there's mold and nastiness throughout.

But the problem here on Long Island is that these contractors sodomize you, in terms of price.

They are rude-a$$ mofos to boot!

I mean how much do you think it should cost to demo, reframe, rewire, put up sheetrock, hang a drop ceiling, and paint a basement?

I'm curious what some of you in flyover country would pay for this.

Personally, I don't think it should cost more than $10,000.

But you watch, they'll try to charge me 50k!

That's why I'm sort of thinking about trying to do it myself. Well I checked out some book on how to do it at the library anyway.

I can demo it, right?

I just bought a reciprocating saw for $60 on Amazon. A dumpster here costs $350-$500.

I'm a little nervous about cutting into a pipe or wire - but I think I can handle that.

One guy, a contractor who told me he could get me a dumpster for "only $800" (!) said that the problem with demo'ing your own place is "controlling the dust."

I'll bet I can figure that out.

I'm seriously thinking about trying to find someone who lives 100 miles away to do it. They can sleep here. I'll help.

Doing any of this work myself would, of course, amount to a complete waste of my time in the long run.

But I don't think I can stomach a bunch of criminals coming into my house and robbing me for a few months or however long they drag it out.

Shedding Light On Dank Basements

We lose power in this house here....well, all the time. It's a real pain in the butt to put it mildly.

So it was an automatic that we were going to be without electricity last week from Irene, that Category ZERO *hurricane*.

But actually we didn't. I mean we had a utility pole in our backyard in flames for a couple hours and STILL the power kept flowing. Furthermore, all of our neighbors were cursing in the dark.

I started gloating on F-Book....and what do you know, after the storm was all but over, around 8pm on Sunday our power went out and stayed out for 24 hours or so.

My neighbors across the street weren't so lucky. Nearly 7 days after the storm hit they are still un-electrified!!!

In fact, the house just across from us had their basement flood. Apparently they had just spent *a ton of money* getting it totally refinished. I can imagine how much they spent seeing how they paid nearly $2 million for the house about 3 years ago. (High end, new construction probably shouldn't have water issues, right???)

The woman told me that the sump pump stopped working when the power went out. Go figure.

As my wife put it, the fact that they even HAD A SUMP PUMP ought to have warned them not to spend too much money down there in the first place.

This was only ammo for me too. My wife is eager to re-carpet and repaint our moldy basement (where all our computers and homeschooling work gets done) but I've been telling her that there's no way I want to do anything until I'm satisfied that our water problems down there are resolved.

My neighbor mournfully informed me that, "Insurance won't cover one bit of it..."

IndyMac Offering 3.125% Fixed Rate Mortgages!

I know someone who, like millions of others, had the misfortune to borrow too much against *their* home during the recent housing bubble.

Owing over $500,000 on what's now worth, supposedly, $350,000 he did the rational, best-interests-of-his-family thing and strategically defaulted on the mortgage (400k) and HELOC(150k).

His first mortgage, 395k, was issued by the long-since-bankrupted IndyMac bank. So now the note is held by Goldman Sachs cronies....er, I mean it's owned by us taxpayers and it's being *managed* by and to the financial benefit of Goldman Sachs cronies!

Seven months after deliberately missing his first mortgage payment, *IndyMac Federal Bank* - as it's been reincarnated as - offered him one of those so-called loan mods.

They, speaking for taxpayers and future generations, are offering him a deal:

They will transform his 395k adjustable (to LIBOR + 2.25%) loan to a fixed rate loan of 426k (includes late fees, taxes, etc.) at 3 1/8%.

3 1/8% for 30 years? Are you freakin' kidding me???!!!

The way he figured it, it came to $1,950 per month ("1556+395 for taxes and insurance").

BUT that wasn't precisely the loan *IndyMac Federal Bank* offered him via FedEx today. The numbers seemed off, too low.

Closer inspection revealed that IndyMac was actually offering him a fixed 3.125% mortgage for FORTY YEARS!!!

I have a question - can any of you Morons out there land such generous mortgage terms today?

Can any of y'all get a 426k, 3.125% 40-year loan on a house that, at the fleeting moment anyway, has manifest market value of $350,000???!!!

Realize that money, cheap as it is these days for those with access to the printing press, still isn't that cheap. So the government/taxpayers/IndyMac Federal Bank is offering a deal that's a guaranteed loser for itself.

Sure they can presently borrow short-term at less than 1% to fund these *mods* but that won't last forever - at least not for forty years. Once interest rates spike, not only will IndyMac become insolvent yet again, it will unleash another whole round of strategic mortgage defaults.

This guy asked me to calculate for him his net savings over the next ten years should he accept the loan mod versus, I guess, buying another place at today's market mortgage rate of 5.125%. I'll need some more clarity on the question/scenario to calculate anything at all.

But my hunch is that these hypotheticals are all quite beside the point. Since he'll always retain the capacity to simply re-default, I think he needs only to compare the $1,950 monthly number with what he'd be able to rent for that same monthly nut.

I told him that my hunch is still that the 40 year loan reset is a sucker's play. It's better to default now, and get one's good credit restored within 5 years than to prolong the agony. A loan mod, IMO, would merely delay the inevitable foreclosure as interest rates are all but guaranteed to rise significantly within the next 40 years. In other words, another leg down in the housing market will just, as I mentioned above, force him into another strategic default down the road.

Long-time readers well know my I'm probably not the person to ask about 40 year debt slavery sentences. I'm the one who thinks people should only buy/mortgage what they can afford on a 15 year term.

I'll have more on this one later on, for sure.

See also:

More On Goldman's IndyMac Thievery

The Cheapest Rent

How To Unclog A Garbage Disposal

As a consequence of my deadbeat landlord's *deferred maintenance*....I'm learning a lot about fixing stuff around the house: infestations, flooded basements, re-lighting hot water tanks, etc.

I've had two clogged sinks for some time now that the scumbag has refused to fix. I could always call a plumber, pay them to take care of the problems, and then deduct the bill from my rent. The only problem is, now I probably won't be paying any more rent. So everything I pay comes directly out of my pocket.

Today I unclogged my kitchen sink's garbage disposal - a Badger 7.

All that I had to do was insert a 1/4 inch allen wrench underneath it and turn it 90 degrees. That freed up whatever it was that had jammed it. Instantly, I could hear the water gushing down the drain.

I wrote this post because significant Googling did not reveal this very simple solution. Perhaps others will find this post and save themselves some time, effort, and a plumber's bill. Although the solution ended up being easy, that doesn't mean I didn't bend over backwards trying to figure it out!

Be sure to unplug the disposal before jamming any metal tools into it.

Next up - I'm going to have to kill three hornets' nests that have appeared in my storage shed. At least in that deparment, I have some experience.

The Risks Of Small-Minded Tattling

Dispute Between Neighbors

A city councilman in Utah, Mark Easton, had a beautiful view of the east mountains, until a new neighbor purchased the lot below his house and built a new home.

The new home was 18 inches higher than the ordinances would allow, so Mark Easton, mad about his lost view, went to the city to make sure they enforced the lower roof line ordinance.
The new neighbor had to drop the roof line, at great expense.

Recently, Mark Easton called the city, and informed them that his new neighbor had installed some vents on the side of his home...

Mark didn't like the look of these vents and asked the city to investigate.

When they went to Mark's home to see what the vents looked like, this is what they found...





It appears to be a 100% true story!

Not to defend the guy here, but who wouldn't be pissed when their neighbor erected a monstrosity which eclipsed a mountain view?

Water Levels, Boiling Over

It'a almost non-story that local water bills are rising.

"It’s going to be a big increase," Water Commission chair Glenn Pratt said in a phone interview. "It’s going to increase our revenue about 30 percent."

And they've got their pathetic excuses:

The 200-unit Avalon apartment complex has not broken ground. The Water Commission was expecting to receive a one-time windfall from their settlement with the company, as well as revenue once the project came on line.

The water department’s one and only wholesale customer, Linden Ponds, a retirement community in South Hingham, halted construction and is only buying about one-third of the initial water sale projections.

The result, Pratt said, is roughly a $500,000 change in budget revenue projections for fiscal 2010.

At the same time, the department’s debt service, where roughly $36 million is still owed, is rising each year until 2017, Pratt said.

This last line had me scratching my head:

And, due to lots of rain this past summer, water consumption is at a five-year low, therefore revenue projections are not being realized on that end either.

Okay. So we get some decent rain in the summer and embattled consumers get to save some money by not watering their lawn as much. Good, right?

Except that in this case water company *revenues* come up light and they can just raise the metered rates to cover their shortfall.

So, between the debt service that is rising until 2017, and the ability of the utility to claw back lost revenue...

They are basically declaring not only that WATER BILLS CAN NEVER FALL, but that they WILL DEFINITELY RISE!

With higher prices coming, basic economics and recent empiricism should condition the water company to expect a *six year low* in demand this coming year.

Homeownership Sucks!

I know a guy who, unfortunately is amidst a divorce and has left his 3,700 square foot, 100 year-old Victorian house and moved into a 3 bedroom rental apartment. He insists that aside from all the other issues implicit in a divorce, he is loving renting now. He has nothing to worry about fixing or renovating. He no longer comes home to annoyances like leaky faucets; he no longer frets about peeling paint or creaky steps. Now he just comes home from work and can finally relax.

My wife and I considered buying a decrepit Victorian house in Waltham and he, coming from the unimpeachable perch of experience, essentially said not to do it. Asked if he went back in time, would he still buy his old Victorian, this guy said he would only buy the house if he were "young and dumb."

This was one of the points I argued with my wife when we were jawboning buying a few places earlier this year. Every little repair job in a house is a burden on the MAN. He's the one that has to diagnose and research every little issue. He's the one who has to manage plumbers and contractors as they try to ravage his wallet. I told my wife that renting allows me to sleep at night - a luxury of almost unquantifiable value.

So I am here in my new place four weeks now. The rails on the staircase are falling off, the window sills outside need paint, the glass door on the shower is hanging by a thread, both the seal and the lock on the back door are in disrepair, the pump in the air conditioner has been broken and fixed twice recently, and there's probably some more stuff I can't remember at this instant. Again, this is only over the past four weeks!

Then this week my landlord got hit with two more little disasters. The blower on the septic tank went - cost $770. And, in the course of trying to convert the heating system from oil to gas he not only obviously needed to buy a new boiler - costing a few grand, it turns out the chimney that houses the exhaust also has all sorts of problems. It has a crumbling interior of asbestos, terra cotta, or some other junk; it had to be swept/vacuumed out and now needs a new steel liner. This will run around $1,800 - so they say. It might even make sense to completely rebuild the chimney, given the total cost.



So yes, I truly believe that Homeownership Sucks. It is completely overrated AND it makes no economic sense given that rental costs are roughly 70% of purchase costs nationwide. In Florida, they are down to 60%.

How many times have you recently heard Morons say they bought a condo because they didn't want to deal with yard work and upkeep?

Notwithstanding the premium of buying over renting a place, it makes perfect sense that an abode with outsourced upkeep should cost more than a place where dwellers are responsible for every little maintenance problem.

Devil's Advocate - No, those condos pool their upkeep costs, spread them over more people, so they'd be cheaper to maintain than individual units.

Now that's a great little theory, but have you ever seen low condo fees out in the real world? I haven't.

Added to that is the bickering amongst condo owners over management decisions. How often should the grass be watered? How much to spend on flowers for the common roadway? I know a new tony condo development in Port Washington, NY that is already awash in management strife. There was a big brouhaha about how long the parking lot lights would be left on at night. The cheap old folk wanted to save money on electricity. Remember, that's what fossils do whether they are rich or not - they run around turning lights off.

As I sit here typing this, my landlord is outside trying to remove a sliding glass door and re-glue the insulation. It's a little complicated to extricate such a door but he's hoping to avoid calling a carpenter.

I gave my wife last night the litany of things that have gone wrong in our first month. I chuckled that I love having a landlord because it's like having a handyman, on call, for free!

What could possibly be more ideal?

In this hectic age where consumers highly value their free time, don't y'all think that free maintenance and outsourced upkeep should demand a premium?

In other words, it should be cheaper to buy than to rent a given house that's replete with the on-call handyman.

Sometimes the market prices of our world really are upside down.

UPDATE - Door couldn't be fixed by owner. Carpenter has been called.