When does the joy leave the joy of home ownership?

By ERNIE ZIMMERMAN
Palms West Monthly
Posted Nov. 4, 2012

The house I currently live in has been my home for the past 26 years. There’s been many happy occasions in this house and, yes, even some sad times. Overall though, our home has been very good to us.

It's is only 26 years old. In New York it would still be considered new. Here in Florida, however, a 26-year-old house is considered old.

It recently occurred to me that I’ve lived in this house longer then any other house I’ve ever called home. I’m still having a little trouble with that fact.

Lately, I’ve been learning more and more about the “joys of home ownership.” They say the two happiest days in the lives of a boat owner are the day he gets the boat and the day he sells it. I’m beginning to get that same feeling toward my house.

Let me enlighten you. About two years ago my homeowners insurance company decided my house needed a new roof. I totally disagreed, feeling full well that our roof was in great shape. The insurance company responded by doubling the price of our insurance.

A couple weeks later my air conditioner decided to die. I have a two-zone house, so with one A/C unit working it really didn’t feel too bad inside. But, I did the right thing and decided to lay out the money for a new A/C unit. Thinking that would be the end of it, my A/C repairman proceeded convince me that I needed to replace both at the same time. Although the second unit seemed to be working just fine, he offered me such a “great deal” (according to him) on two new units that I couldn’t refuse.

Shortly after that, tree roots in the front of my house started to force cracks in my driveway. So I went and got a tree removal permit and removed the guilty trees. This latest project seemed to be going smoothly until three water pipes broke – including the main water pipe – during the tree removal process. Lucky for me the tree removal guy was also an excellent plumber. The pipes were fixed with in minutes, thus saving me more money, more importantly, from almost having a heart attack.

I replaced the area where the trees once stood with sod.

Thinking that would be the end of it, another problem popped up from where the new sod was laid. Some sort of weed that I’ve never seen before decided to take root on my lawn. At first I wasn’t overly concerned as my lawn service company says they specialize in weed removal.

To this day, they haven’t been able to fully remove the new weeds. In fact, some parts of our lawn seem to have more weeds then grass.

Now, everyone is telling me the lawn is too old at 26 years. Who knew that grass aged?

This past summer, our house continued to show its age, this time in our swimming pool. All summer the water in our pool seemed to be disappearing. Even with all the rain we had been getting, the water level seemed to be dropping. It turns out I have a leak in my pool.

Funny, I didn’t even know pools could get leaks. I now know better.

Another major incident at the Zimmerman house took place when Tropical Storm Isaac paid us a visit a few months back. Seems that water started to come up from the foundation of my home into one of our bedrooms. Not a lot, but enough to almost drive Sharon and me out of our minds.

It took a week to dry out the rug, but I’ve been assured by “experts” it’s not an on-going problem, just too much water with nowhere for it to go. These supposed experts told me this sort of thing shouldn’t happen again for at least 100 years. (I’d like to stick around long enough to see if they’re right.)

And of course, a small roof leak was also left by Isaac. However, I was assured by my roofer that my roof is in great shape and I don’t need a new one.

And just in the last month two more things happened – one of my toilets decide to drip water non-stop, and the shelves in Sharon’s closet decide that my wife had too many pieces of clothing hanging on them, so the shelves all on their own came tumbling down, in the process breaking the closet door.

With all these “joys of home ownership” piling up, I’m starting to wonder if renting is better than owning. If any readers out there want to share your experiences of home ownership, drop me an email.