The Joy of Home Ownership

So a week or so ago I was pulling into our driveway and noticed a little bit of standing water between the sidewalk and the street.

I immediately forgot about it completely.

But over the next few days I continued to notice the water.  It wasn't a lot, but it seemed odd.  I mean,  surely I would have noticed if that always happened when it rained or snow melted, right?  And the location of the water is right beside our water meter, which seems more than just a little coincidental.  So, I take it upon myself to be a good, concerned citizen and I contact the water company.

"Is it an emergency?"  the woman at the water company asked.

"Oh I don't think so.  I am just worried your pipe might be cracked out by our street.  You can send someone whenever you want.  It's your pipe!  I just thought you would like the heads up."

I patted myself on the back, then once again forget about the entire issue.

A few days later Nick picks up a piece of junk mail I had carried in two days before.

"What's this?"  he asks

"Oh, it was just stuck in the door the other day.  Some solicitor I guess... I just need to throw it awa..."

"But it says we have a busted pipe.  And it's our responsibility to fix it... and he could see our meter running."

"Oh.  So maybe I should have looked at that..."



An early morning view of our latest catastrophe.

So yeah.  Turns out when you buy a house, you also buy the pipes that come with that house. Even the pipes that are way the hell down by the ROAD when you would TOTALLY ASSUME they belong to someone else... like the city.  And if one of those pipes were to bust open, leaking water all over the damn place, then you get to pay to fix that little problem.  GOOD TO KNOW.


Nick contacted our plumber who did our addition and he said he could patch it, but that we really need to replace the entire pipe.  Nick said he would dig up the pipe and expose the leak just for a quick patch to stop the running water, then we would do the full pipe replacement, WHICH WILL DIG A HUGE TRENCH THROUGH OUR YARD in the next week or two.  As Nick searched for the leak, he discovered something disheartening.  It was actually under the sidewalk...So he did what any insane person would do.  He got a huge rock and broke up the sidewalk all by himself.  No.  Really. Just his own two hands and a rock from the back yard did all of this.

He said it felt very 2001 Space Odyssey as he threw the large rock at the sidewalk again and again to bust it up.. the plumber called him a maniac, but hey, now it's patched and we are no longer paying for water that was apparently shooting out like a high powered water gun.  So, an overall win for Nick and his awesome ability to take care of our house when I would just shrug my shoulders, cry a little, and throw money at people.

 Now we just have the fear of the water bill (EEK) and the overall pipe replacement headache to deal with.  Who says home ownership isn't fun?