When It Rains.....

The roofing guy came on Tuesday and spent most of the day taking the evaporative cooler off the roof and replacing all of the worn shingles in that area. He said that there was a leak around the flashings of the cooler and a spot further up on the roof where the tar paper (or whatever it is they use under shingles) had deteriorated. He was so cool about the bill, telling me to send half when I got the invoice and the other half "in 30 days, or whenever."

Yesterday, we had a really heavy downpour in the afternoon. When I got home, I went upstairs to check and make sure things were watertight and the area in the guest room closet seemed fine (no water on the plastic we still have covering the hole in the ceiling). However, just on the other side of the wall, in the hallway, there was quite a big leak, with the drywall sagging on the wall and the ceiling also sagging from the wall to about 6-8 inches towards the center of the hallway.

I have no idea if this is the same leak (as the locations are so close) or a different leak under the tiles (which they did not pull, as we figured the problem was just around the cooler area). I put an email into him, but he is currently away at his son's basketball tournament and won't be back for a week. Sigh.

Mike is going to get into the attic and see if he can tell where the water came from, and perhaps put a bucket up there to catch any futher leaks (as it is supposed to rain at least 2-3 more times before the roofer gets back into town). I guess this also will postpone my fixing the ceiling closet, as we may now have more work to do in the wonderful world of drywall repair (and might as well do it all at once).

I just want a watertight house. We've done so much repair work on this roof since we bought it -- it probably would have been best just to pull everything off and start from scratch (but who can afford $10,000 plus for a new roof, especially now?) Water damage and electric things are what I hate/fear the most and they just cause so much stress! I could tell Mike was really bummed when he saw we still had problems. Luckily, I'm on the schedule at work most days in July and I volunteered to work the 4th of July, as I get time and a half. I'd like to earn enough extra to pay for the roof without having to have a balance on the credit card.

I HATE House Maintenance

I was so excited about the new guest room. I found a perfect cabinet to refinish and tile to match the nightstands (at the Goodwill for $9.99!). I went upstairs to measure the closet to be sure it would fit....and found this:

If you can't tell -- that is the ceiling in the closet, which has fallen in due to a leak in the roof! What is maddening is that it is obvious this area was a patch job, leading me to believe that there was a previous problem. This is one of many things the former owners of the house never disclosed to us. We realize that they were in dire financial straits and that they were trying to sell the house before the bank forclosed, but we would have appreciated knowning about problems, such as the master bathroom shower (which leaked), the many leaks in the roof (we found and fixed two right after we bought the place), and the fact that there had been a leak from the washing machine (which warped the subfloor upstairs) and a leak from the water heater (which needed to be replaced). I don't understand people who can be so purposefully deceptive -- how do they sleep at night?

Needless to say, I'm pretty depressed about it. Not only do I now have more work to do in the guest bedroom (and have I mentioned I hate doing drywall patching and mudding?), but we now have the extra expense of having to pay for another roof repair. The quote I got from our roof guy (who I totally trust and love his work) is $1000, because he has to take the swamp cooler off the roof in order to do the repairs and then install it again. I called and explained our situation (with Mike being unemployed) and asked if there was a less expensive option (that will still do the job and not leave us with problems later). However, we may just have to take the money out of savings to take care of the problem, which is scary. I can tell Mike is really stressed about it and I heard him muttering, "I need to find a job!" It makes my heart hurt for him, because its not like he is not trying to find a job -- there is just nothing out there that pays a decent wage that we could live on.

I'm trying to stay positive -- not only for Mike's sake but for my sanity. I'm focusing on positive things and accomplishing the tasks I can handle myself -- such as finishing up on that TV cabinet for the guest room and using a few old king size pillows to finish the accent pillows for the guest bed. Working on projects makes me feel like I'm at least making some sort of contribution.

Next weekend is the annual neighborhood garage sale. Perhaps we'll make enough to put a dent in the roof repair bill!