Webs 3, House 1
Although, I must note, that score is only valid since Saturday.
The house threw four things in my face recently, and I've handled three of them, albeit with some rough spots.
One of the sockets of the light fixture in the dining room sucked the life out of a fresh light bulb then stopped working entirely. I replaced it successfully. The new fixture is flush to the ceiling and works. It even looks nice.
One longstanding problem with the house has been the sump. When dry, it leaks sewer gas into the house and smells. We're still alive, so it can't be that dangerous, but it is unpleasant. The city came by to look at the problem and decided it wasn't their problem - the men told us to keep the sump full of water and that would solve the problem.
Until this weekend, we'd have to manually dump buckets of water, or water and bleach, into the sump. Meanwhile, the washing machine has been draining into a sink. I think I've solved the problem by extending the washing machine drainage tube to empty into the sump. It's not a perfect solution - the heavy, metal sump lid is waiting to break someone's toe - but I will count the outcome as a positive.
I have to give the house a point for another basement problem. When it rains, the top of our dryer gets wet. The weird thing is that the wall beside the dryer and the ceiling above it stay completely dry. The lint trap is also wet, but I don;t think the water is traveling down the duct and into the machine because the bottom of the lint trap stays dry. Only the top is wet, and I think that's from moisture that drips in from the top. We see no drips when it does rain. It's like the water just materializes.
My third point in my neverending battle was nearly a loss, and also involved water. Our kitchen sink has been slowly clogging. Elvi tried Drano, but that didn't help. The clog closed for good Saturday afternoon, as Child Three's birthday party got underway.
My vigorous plunging brought up a clay-like gray goop and clumps of black hair - odd, because none of us has black hair. My friend Neil showed up for the party and decided to help....
Sunday, we rented a rooter and an apprentice plumber. He cleared the clog, replaced the broken sink drain, and reattached all the pipe.
Final score: 3-1
Bonus pointer to screenplay tips:
Story editor Christopher Lockhart, of Two Adverbs, has a magnificent post on dramatic story structure in his Inside Pitch blog. Read it, spec monkeys.
The house threw four things in my face recently, and I've handled three of them, albeit with some rough spots.
One of the sockets of the light fixture in the dining room sucked the life out of a fresh light bulb then stopped working entirely. I replaced it successfully. The new fixture is flush to the ceiling and works. It even looks nice.
One longstanding problem with the house has been the sump. When dry, it leaks sewer gas into the house and smells. We're still alive, so it can't be that dangerous, but it is unpleasant. The city came by to look at the problem and decided it wasn't their problem - the men told us to keep the sump full of water and that would solve the problem.
Until this weekend, we'd have to manually dump buckets of water, or water and bleach, into the sump. Meanwhile, the washing machine has been draining into a sink. I think I've solved the problem by extending the washing machine drainage tube to empty into the sump. It's not a perfect solution - the heavy, metal sump lid is waiting to break someone's toe - but I will count the outcome as a positive.
I have to give the house a point for another basement problem. When it rains, the top of our dryer gets wet. The weird thing is that the wall beside the dryer and the ceiling above it stay completely dry. The lint trap is also wet, but I don;t think the water is traveling down the duct and into the machine because the bottom of the lint trap stays dry. Only the top is wet, and I think that's from moisture that drips in from the top. We see no drips when it does rain. It's like the water just materializes.
My third point in my neverending battle was nearly a loss, and also involved water. Our kitchen sink has been slowly clogging. Elvi tried Drano, but that didn't help. The clog closed for good Saturday afternoon, as Child Three's birthday party got underway.
My vigorous plunging brought up a clay-like gray goop and clumps of black hair - odd, because none of us has black hair. My friend Neil showed up for the party and decided to help....
Sunday, we rented a rooter and an apprentice plumber. He cleared the clog, replaced the broken sink drain, and reattached all the pipe.
Final score: 3-1
Bonus pointer to screenplay tips:
Story editor Christopher Lockhart, of Two Adverbs, has a magnificent post on dramatic story structure in his Inside Pitch blog. Read it, spec monkeys.
posted by Webs at
6:20 PM
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