settling in

[mellowtigger]

I've lived in (as opposed to merely owned) the house for a full day.

Gunshots last night (not too nearby) woke up the cat first and then me (as the cat stirred).  Neither of us spent too much time worrying after the first two shots, because it's just too cold to worry about anything else right now.  By the time it broke out into a burst like firecrackers, we just crawled back under the blankets to get warm.  The opinion I heard from a local person several weeks ago is that most of the violence here is drug/gang/turf related stuff, so I doubt they'll have much interest in some old guy with his cat.

The current outdoors temperature as I write is -21C/-6F (windchill -31C/-25F).  It really helps to put the house through an insulation test, although it's been a bit of a challenge for me individually.  I've run a small electric heater almost continuously today, and that'll get expensive.

• There's a spot underneath each outside door that needs to be fixed.  I replaced the trim insulation which helps, but that one corner is still leaking on both doors.  I need to patch it somehow.
• Air circulation upstairs is very bad.  It's cold in the bedrooms.  I've got one room shut, so it's even colder in there, but my room is still unpleasant without the use of a small electric heater.  I discovered that the vent in each bedroom is an intake vent only, so the only hot air is coming from the landing by the stairs.  That heated vent, though, has poor circulation, so I need to see what's obstructing it or leaking air on the way.
• Most of the windows seem to be sealed well.  A ground floor bathroom window leaks cold, so I've shut the door to that room.  The pair of windows in my room don't seem to leak cold, yet the outer storm panes have a solid coat of frost on them, so moisture is reaching them from somewhere (melting from roof?).
• There are still boxelder bugs alive and newly arriving in my sight.  How do they survive this cold?  Where are they getting indoors?  The house must have holes somewhere.  Not good.
• I've kept the basement door closed today to keep the cat from investigating until I've cleaned down there.  I'll have to go downstairs tomorrow, though, to check for cold air coming in.

I catnapped a lot today to make up for lost sleep last night.  I didn't get much accomplished.  I cleaned the gas stove burners again, so they work, but they still don't ignite on their own.  I got the dining room bookshelf put together, so the plants now have a home at the window, although little direct sunlight reaches there.  Tomorrow, I need to get the kitchen shelves done, so I can empty some of these boxes stacked around.

Tonight I broke out a wool blanket that I haven't used since Occupy Minnesota while sleeping outdoors in the cold.  We'll see if I sleep better with it on the bed.  Even Hope is spending time under the covers with me instead of on top.

I'll keep updating this thread in the coming days, so stay tuned for more escapades.

Edit: 2016 January 10 Sunday 07:55:
Currently -22C/-9F (windchill -31C/-25F) outside.  The wool blanket helped a lot.  Last night was more comfortable than the one before.  I didn't wake as frequently, so I must be growing more accustomed to the new place.

Edit: 2016 January 10 Sunday 12:50:
I did a first pass at cleaning the basement. I scooped up the cat poop that was transformed by alien fungus. 


I wore a dust mask.  I'm no fool.  I've watched X-Files, and I know what happens when you inhale bizarre fungal spores.

I figured the basement was finally clean enough to let the cat down there, so I opened up the door.  While I took my first shower upstairs, the cat disappeared as expected.  I figure she's hiding down there somewhere now.  Guess I'll leave her be while I drive to the old place to pick up more clothes.

The shower worked just as I expected (which was bad).  I need one of those U-shaped shower rods so I can pull a shower curtain around both sides and the back of the tub.  The window over the tub collected water drops, as expected.  The back of the tub collected enough water to run off to the floor a bit, as expected.  Both issues I can work around.  I just need to install a U-hoop shower curtain.

Also, I stuffed the opening of the dryer hose in the basement that was leaking in vast quantities of cold air.  That plug should help a lot with the temperature in the house.

Edit: 2016 January 10 Sunday 18:26:

Slow progress. I've moved everything from the former bathroom, living room, kitchen, and basement.  Maybe next weekend I can get everything from the bedroom and garage.  Then I still have 2 weekends free for cleaning the old place.  I've got a lot more stuff than I realized.

Sometime, I still need to settle into the new place too.  First on the agenda is getting the kitchen shelves ready.

I have a lead on a recliner chair and a 2-seat sofa.  Maybe I can pick them up next weekend if I reserve a U-Haul pickup soon.

Edit: 2016 January 12 Tuesday 21:02:

I discovered why I had closed the doors to those two rooms: the spare bedroom and the ground floor toilet.  Those windows have only a single pane of glass between inside and outside air.  There is no second storm pane to create an air pocket between the two environments.  Each window has now been sealed (ineptly) with plastic in addition to keeping the door closed.  I guess those windows will need to be addressed this summer.

Edit: 2016 January 15 Friday 10:06:

I bought some metal duct tape, so I could go around the basement and seal any leaks in the ducts to help airflow toward upstairs.  Instead of leaks, I discovered that there's a vent on the stack directly above the furnace.  It's in a hard-to-reach location, and it's rusted solid in full-open position.  Most of the hot air has been going just to the basement.  Doh!  I used the metal tape to seal up the vent except for a small portion to keep the pipes from ever freezing.  We'll see how the rest of the house feels when we're back to subzero (fahrenheit) on Sunday.  Today, we're at a balmy -6C/21F, so it's not a good test, since everything feels comparatively warm anyway.

Edit: 2016 January 15 Friday 20:00:

I don't have much in the way of glassware, but it's finally washed and in the kitchen shelves.  The date of the newspaper when I boxed up my glassware for storage last time: 2003 September 21 Sunday.  It's been a while since I've lived on my own.

Edit: 2016 January 16 Saturday 16:31:

I've been hauling back and forth most of today.  The temperature has hovered at the subzero point (-17C/0F) all day.  I got small amounts of ice in my beard from emptying out the garage today.  At least I've finished the garage... mostly.  There are some cinder blocks for gardening that hopefully can wait until warmer weather, since I might also retrieve additional supplies from the garden soil if they decide to cut back on the official garden area.  Meanwhile, sun is setting, air temperature has dropped subzero again, and it's time for me to start sorting through boxes in the living room to see what can go where.  I have way too much stuff from long-term storage.  I think most of it just needs to be donated to a local thrift store, since obviously I've lived without it for a decade or longer.

On one of today's many trips, I figured I'd fill up the gas tank at the corner store.  When I saw that it's a "pay first inside" gas pump, I knew that I wouldn't be coming back because it's so inconvenient in cold weather.  On top of that, I was accosted twice by strangers for money during my brief visit.  I declined both, since I'm not feeling like a money piñata at the moment.  I'm unlikely to be spending much of my money there during this year.

The only way this area (or any area) can turn around, though, is to spend money at local stores.  I heartily recommend "The Nature of Economies" by Jane Jacobs.  It's a very simple read, and it gives a great argument for how to view economic systems as biological systems.  Think of wealth as water; it simply must flow in order for there to be any ecosystem.  When it stagnates, the ecosystem changes in response.  It can arrive/depart in bursts (like gold rush mining towns or desert rains) or filter slowly through many layers (like thriving cities or rainforests), but the wealth/water must flow.  I need to start finding local stores (besides Cub Foods) to do my shopping, so this neighborhood can thrive again.

Edit: 2016 January 17 Sunday 07:16:

It's -25C/-13F (windchill -36C/-33F) outside.  We have a windchill warning, but it doesn't feel as bad inside this week as last week.  I think those small changes I've made recently have helped.

Edit: 2016 January 17 Sunday 15:20:

I'm a doofus.  I bought that U-hoop shower curtain rod without realizing that it needed to bolt around a vertical shower pipe (as pictured) instead of the horizontal that I have coming out of the wall.  So I went to the store and got a regular tension shower rod instead, and I installed it on the other side of the bathtub.  It works fine for now.  I think I'll keep that U-hoop, though.  Maybe one of these days (or months... or years... there's so much stuff to do!), I'll rearrange it so that the pipe that would attach vertically into the ceiling instead goes horizontal into a tension rod.  Then I could still have a U-hoop, and I wouldn't have to figure out how to attach something vertically on a sloped ceiling.

I also bought some corner door seal stickers.  Both outside doors now have much better air-blocking capabilities.

Edit: 2016 January 18 Monday 15:48:

Done hauling for today.  On schedule for finishing up the move and cleaning the old place on the coming weekend.  I need a nap.  And a vacation.  I feel old.  :)

Edit: 2016 January 21 Thursday 16:48:

Car repairs.  Yuck.  The last arctic blast destroyed whatever was left of my car's suspension.  Even the smallest bumps are now hard and loud thumps.  I knew this moment was coming, but I have to get it repaired now.  With two major expenditures under my belt during the last month, I'll be running short for 2016 already.  I'll have not-quite-a-year's savings.  All of my savings are the direct result of my short time spent at Dell.  (My bank account liked me working at Dell.)  I have a much nicer salary now than when I worked at AHS, so I should still be able to recover a savings account this year.  It just means that I'll do no major fixes on the house this calendar year.   And I can't do a major computer upgrade this year either.  :(  Unless I either work another part-time job or get a roommate, and neither is anywhere in my "want to do" list this year.

There's no time to ask the various neighbors for suggestions on good mechanics in this area, so I'll just take it tomorrow morning to the same place I've been going for the last decade.  I've already logged in to move the money from savings to checking to cover the expense.  Entropy.  Gotta love it, because we can't escape it.

Edit: 2016 January 21 Friday 18:38:

Ouch.  Just.... ouch.  It was about $2600 for repairs.



That's more money than I was estimating.  I had to dip even farther into my savings account than what I moved last night.  I still have enough saved to absorb one more major problem, but that's now my limit.

I know that having any money saved at all means that I am in better financial position than the majority of USA citizens.  I'm down to a 6-month buffer, which still puts me better off than 71% of USA citizens (see chart above).  I should feel lucky, right, that the "bar" here is so low that I'm well off in comparison?  How exactly did we stop being a civilized nation?

Edit 2016 January 24 Sunday 22:48:

I didn't get much accomplished today.  I was woken up at 4:30 by loud music nearby.  Later, I had help from two people with hauling a small sofa and a recliner across the Twin Cities to my living room.  I have furniture, yay!  Then I spent most of this afternoon napping.  Rest is good.

Edit 2016 January 25 Monday 09:43:

I forgot to mention that I dropped off my old house key with a landlord yesterday.  And this morning I mailed my first mortgage check.  So I guess it's official; I'm living in my own house now.

I wanted to spend $1000 on my first mortgage check each year, but I felt better cutting back to just $500 (actual minimum is just under $400) this time because of the massive drain on my savings during the last 30 days.  I know that the math shows I should pay extra anyway, because skipping an extra payment this early in the exponential function will cost me more savings later, but... it's also important to keep a small bit of savings around too.

I guess this update will be my last post in this thread.

Comments

[foeclan.livejournal.com]

Additional layers like curtains may also help. One of the sites I found suggested using a stick of incense to find leaks around the window pane and sealing them. There are lots of YouTube videos on how to seal window leaks if you need guidance.

[mellowtigger]

I hadn't though of using it around the windows, but that's a good idea. That's how I discovered that the bedroom vents are intakes instead of warm air from the furnace, so I already have the incense on hand.