Mine. All Mine.

Yup, this is my new house (with no small amount of assistance from the Bank O' KK), all boarded up and ready to go:

(click pic to zoom)

"Fixer-upper" is putting it politely. The house was repo'ed, and apart from several decades of aggressive neglect, the previous owner seems to have ended his residence by punching out most of the walls and removing all of the water pipes and the water meter. I now understand that certain junkyards will pay a few bucks for a used water meter, no questions asked. Copper prices and so forth.

The electricity has been shut off for so long that the local utility company informed me that I'll need to get an inspection before they'll turn the juice back on. This turned out to mean that I had to visit City Hall, fill out some forms, and pay $70. I now am the proud owner of a permit to apply for a safety inspection and a secret phone number for a city inspector with whom I am to arrange for said inspection. Said inspector apparently doesn't believe in checking his voice mail.

While waiting today for the ain't-happened-yet callback from the inspector, I installed some new locks and a mailbox. The latter was good, because the letter carrier (dunno if I needed to be so PC there -- he was a male man) came by shortly after to deliver the bill for the balance of my homeowner's insurance.

Should be nothing but fun from here on out! Who wants to buy some claw foot tubs? And good deals are to be had on large piles of lath and plaster!

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I have just opened the insurance bill, and it seems that my new insurance company perfumes their mail. Not just maybe. We're talking stench. I mean, I know smell is the new thing in advertising, but how weird is that?

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Three guesses as to the new emphasis of this blog for the next few months. Now that the Democrats are sort of back in power, there's really no need for political snark, right?

(Long pause for rueful laughter.)

In all seriousness, the domicile pictured above will be my main obsession focus for a while now. If it starts getting annoying to read (post) nothing but outtakes from "This Old House," I might relocate the rehab updates. Lemme know what you'd like: keep it here or put it elsewhere.

Here's another bit of Rochacha homeowner happiness: I visited the city's web site, found a phone number for trash pickup info, and called it. I figured that I'd get to leave another voice mail (it was about 6 pm), but no! This office is open 24/7!

After overcoming the parallel universe feeling that comes when a human answers a phone that I expected to be machine-driven, I now, with breathless anticipation, await the delivery of recycling bins and trash barrels. Apparently, these latter are called "toters" around here. They have wheels, so I'm not clear about when, exactly, I am expected to pick them up and carry them.

So much to learn.