The Subaru Baja from Auto Maxima

I worried about this happening--I write cliffhanger blog posts! Since I never finished my story about our floor, I knew I really needed to wrap this car story up. Did we buy the Subaru Baja? Did our mechanics find anything? I'll finish the story in THIS post, ok?

[If you forgot what was happening, this story is continued from part one, part two, and part three.]

So remember, I had decided to keep quiet about my suspicions that Auto Maxima was doing some shady things. If there was really a problem, our mechanics would reveal it, anyway.

Not long after that, J texted me:

J: Turns out the subaru has been in a very minor accident, Gustavo just disclosed. Hmmmm. We'll see what the mechanic says about it (Wed Oct 27 12:11pm)

I replied:

E: I've been very curious. I think many of their reviews are fake. I think some are real. I think the mechanic will be able to let us know more. Can I call you? (12:14pm)

So I called J, and I explained why I was pretty convinced that some of the reviews were fake. J agreed that it was pretty likely. We decided that we would tell Action Auto Repair to especially watch for accident-related damage, because we suspected Milla and Gustavo were not being straight with us. J said Gustavo was delaying taking the Subaru in--he was supposed to take it at 10 or something that morning, but he was just now getting to it. He said Gustavo mentioned the accident pretending that he had already mentioned it before. (Uh...we would have remembered that.) It was just a minor accident, though, he said. The airbags were not deployed, or anything like that. Nothing serious. Gustavo was also going to e-mail J a copy of the CarFax report. J said he would forward it to me as soon as he got it. Great.

J texted me: Bill warns that subarus are unusually vulnerable to undetectable engine damage when hit from the front. (12:32pm)

He also forwarded the CarFax to my e-mail...

Except that it wasn't a CarFax report; it was actually a report that eBay does for all cars listed on the auto portion of their site. Still, it had useful information. The report indicated that the Subaru had never been in any accidents...BUT it was not driven between February and May of this year. And not driven much since May, either.

So the Subaru was listed on eBay Motors. The seller had 302 transactions and 100% positive feedback. Hmm. That's a lot. So maybe they were not as deceitful as they appeared? If they had sold 302 cars and everyone on eBay gave them positive feedback.

I pulled up the listing on eBay so that I could check out the feedback. Only about thirty of the transactions were from this year. AND, all of the feedback was from buying things, not selling. Last year they sold a lot--but still no cars. They sold face cream, and make up, lingerie, and just some really random things. I wondered whether they listed vehicles on eBay just to be able to give out copies of the vehicle report, since maybe the eBay one is less revealing than real CarFax? Not everyone has cars checked out by a mechanic before they purchase, so it would be a good plan for fooling a lot of people.

It was weird though...why would Gustavo tell us that it had been in a small accident if the vehicle report was clean? Didn't that indicate the report was not accurate? Also, I noticed the Subaru had actually been in Texas up until now. Hmm. And it was in an auction. What causes vehicles to be in an auction but not reported for something or another?

J and I e-mailed back and forth.

J's e-mail: I just checked out usedcars.com to see prices of Bajas around the nation. It's easy to see that the deal we have brokered is a very good price relatively speaking. So, there is a discount there for something undesirable like damage. How much that's worth to us or how bad the damage might be will hopefully become clearer to us today. (1:42pm)

My e-mail: Yeah, I'd say it's probably 50/50--it may still be worth it. What does the warranty do, if we were to insist upon the warranty based on new information? Do they replace/repair/refund/or what? Any idea?... This is great fun! If it turns out to still be worth getting, I will name the car Carmen, maybe, like Carmen Sandiego, since we're so interested in where she's been and what she's done. Ha! And I will like her all the more, because she's been on adventures. (1:51pm)

Soon after, J called because he was on his way to the shop. The mechanic told us what we had been waiting to hear:

The Subaru was in a major accident--it wasn't a small hit at all.
- The unibody frame was bent. This would mean that we would wear tires faster. Subarus require special tires, so we would have to buy a $600-$700 set of tires every 10,000 miles. (Ouch.) Plus, it would all just get worse, from being driven.
- The radiator was hit, and it was cracked. A new one would be $300 new.
- The right wheel axel shaft (?) was torn and leaking. It would cost $200-$300 to fix that.
- One of the lights was broken. It would be another $200-$300.
- The rear wheels fell off before. The body was scraped up from it. (Uhhh, that's a lot different from what Gustavo told Jeff originally. When they were first making the deal, Gustavo said the worst thing about the car was a missing hubcap. Hmmm.)

J told the guys at the shop that he was getting it for $4000 under Blue Book. They told him "this is why you brought the car in" and told him definitely, definitely don't buy it. Even way below Blue Book.

J and I agreed that we would not be buying my perfect, favorite Subaru Baja, which I loved so much.

J called Gustavo back. I didn't hear the call, but here is the part of the conversation that I remember from what J told me about it:

J: The mechanic advised me that this vehicle was in a major accident. The unibody is bent.
G: Take it to another mechanic. They each have their own opinion.
J: I am comfortable with their assessment.
G: It's not that big of a problem. It can be fixed.
J: They advised me not to purchase it at any price.

That night, J left a review on Google. He wrote:A couple days later, Milla posted another review:

It's kind of a funny review, because there are hints of the truth, but basically the review is totally false.
- The actual deal was not for $9000...it was for $11,700, with them also including some detail work on our car that we are about to sell.
- J didn't leave a bad review because he couldn't have the car for $9000... like... why would we pay $85 to take it to our mechanic if we hadn't even agreed on a price? (Also, he almost didn't want to leave a bad review at all, because it could be bad for their business. But we decided it was better to leave a review for future people thinking of buying a car from them. But he kept his review all just factual information. They may be very good at detailing cars, we decided...)
- Scott said "there is no frame damage even idiot can see it"? Hmmm. Is Scott a real person? Does Scott work for them? Frame damage isn't exactly something subjective. And Action definitely wouldn't tell us there was frame damage just for fun. Milla and Gustavo do collision repair...but they wanted one more opinion? Why would they want one more opinion? The car probably came to them crunched up to begin with. They know exactly what happened to the car.
- Why would we make up stuff about the wheels? What is our incentive for that?
- Also, they never did provide a CarFax.

They listed the Subaru on KSL as a Featured Ad, and then after a little while the ad went down. I suspect they've probably sold it. Too bad for whoever bought it.

The car shopping continues...at Auto Maxima! (part 2)

[Continued from car shopping and Auto Maxima (part 1).]

So it turned out, J didn't actually expect to pay $9,000 (plus the trade in). He thought they would make a counteroffer. They just didn't know how to do business quite right. They could have at least countered $100, if they weren't going to lower it at all, because that keeps things moving. J loves haggling. He thinks it is great fun. I do not.

On Tuesday, J wanted me to scan a bunch of documents, because we are refinancing our Yaris, since rates have gone down. I really hoped he had gone back and I was scanning documents for the Baja, but I had been pretty frustrated with him, because he was immediately ready to go back to looking at that one Tacoma (which was probably smoky) and the Isuzu. So I figured we were done with the Baja.

EXCEPT! J really did know that the Subaru was a great deal, and he wanted to make me happy, and he knew that it would meet our needs really well, so he actually DID go back. He was going to keep it all a surprise, and one of these days I would go outside after he left for work and he would have taken the Yaris to work, and instead of the Elantra being there, my new, perfect Subaru would be waiting for me.* Even though I had been a pain Monday evening after we test-drove the Subaru.

The thing was, it was going to take a few days for it all to wrap up, and he felt like it would be deceptive to keep it a secret for so long.*

"The loan docs are for the Baja," he told me.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Really?" I was so excited.*

He told me he had gone back and talked to Gustavo, and he had offered $11,000 without the trade in. Basically, Gustavo had asked if we would maybe want any detail work done on the Baja, in the future. He offered to include that. Instead, J negotiated to have him fix the dents on the Elantra, and detail the Elantra, since we're about to sell it. And then it would be worth more money to us. So the negotiated price was $11,700--for the Baja and a bunch of work on the Elantra.

"WAY TO GO!" I told J.* What a great solution! They get the money they want to pay their taxes with, or do whatever they want, and we get a bunch of stuff that has value to us.

"I told him the Elantra has to be done before we close, because that's our leverage. If we close and it's not done, they may not do it."

"Right."

"But he wants to close by Friday, because, you know, the end of the month. So I'm kind of putting him under some pressure, but he thinks he will be able to do it. I'm going to give him a deposit of $500 so he doesn't worry about doing the work on the Elantra and then us not buying the Baja, or something."*

J pulled up the reviews on Google for Auto Maxima. "They have great reviews! There are 29 and they're all 5 stars, except one. But I don't know, because someone came later and even defended them after the one negative comment. I bet they're good for the work, even after we close. We can probably trust them."

J had scheduled to have Gustavo take the Baja to our mechanic** the next morning. I helped him scan loan docs, and as long as there were no major surprises at the mechanic, things would all be in place and they would sign a contract! Tuesday evening, J and I were both very excited. Also, we looked forward to being done with our car shopping project. And J looked forward to being done driving the Elantra.

The next morning, I started looking at the Auto Maxima reviews online and I became a little concerned. As I read through the reviews, I noticed that most of the reviews read similarly. Little grammar mistakes appeared frequently, and they seemed to be written by someone who spoke English as a second language. (Although Milla and Gustavo speak English very well, I am pretty sure both of them speak English as a second language.) There were other similarities, too:
- In many of the reviews, the reviewer does not capitalize the first letters of sentences.
- The reviews focus on the same things, like price, and like buffing headlights, and how dirty (or filthy, or stinky) their car was.
- Verb tenses are not correct in many of the reviews, like, they use present-tense where they should use past tense.
- Several of the reviews mention Milla and Gustavo by name. All in a row.
- Many of the reviewers use "dol" as an abbreviation for dollars.

I looked for other used car places in the area, and most of the other places had 1-2 reviews. Some had 7. Low Book Sales (which does a TON of advertising) has 79 reviews. So...how, exactly, did a tiny dealer nobody's heard of get 29 reviews? Most other places had 3 stars. Some other places had 2 1/2 stars. There were a couple 3 1/2 - 4 star places. So...earning 5 stars from 28 people would seem to be pretty challenging, wouldn't it?

I began clicking on the names of the users who had submitted reviews. Most had only reviewed Auto Maxima.

Hm.

Uh oh.

The one bad review was beginning to seem much more relevant.


I noticed that Auto Maxima is a sponsored page on Google. So they must think online presence is important. Also, their website is intense. There are 19 different sections on their website. They specialize in detailing cars, actually. On their website they have before/after pictures, they have a forum (with four sections: auto detailing questions, car buying tips, car selling tips, and auto body work. In all, there are 27 total posts.), a blog, reviews, their location, a link to their Google profile, a link to Facebook, etc.

Okay, they are on Twitter and Facebook. On Facebook they have 17 friends. Two of the friends are Milla (she has 2 profiles for some reason), and one of the friends is Milla's daughter. So. It's just a little weird that they go so overboard for a tiny place that sells 4 cars. But, obviously they think online presence is important. And of course if you think online presence is important, you're going to want to have good reviews. It is important to have good reviews.

I remembered that Gustavo had said the windshield was replaced. Hm. Okay. It could have been hit by a rock, or something, and that's what we had just assumed. But they are an auto body place. I began to develop the idea that maybe Gustavo and Milla were fixing cars up and then selling them as though they had never been fixed.

Could this be possible?

I hoped not. I loved the Baja. I was so excited that the Baja was going to be mine.

But it's true that you get what you pay for. Was the low price an indication that they weren't being straight with us?

I decided not to tell J that I thought the reviews were made up. The car could be fine, anyway, and I didn't want us to not buy a perfect car just because the reviews were fake. After the inspection by our mechanic, we would know more.

[To Be Continued]


*What a guy!
** Have I mentioned our mechanic before? We take our cars to Action Auto Repair on 3900 S. We started going there because Jiffy Lube told me I had like, 20 rock chips to repair. I took the Elantra to Action Auto Repair because they had a sign up with their rock chip price on it, and it was like $10 instead of the $25/chip that Jiffy Lube wanted. The guy climbed up on the front of my car to look very closely, and feel the windshield. "Welllll," he said. "You do have a lot of rock chips..." he kept looking, "but they've all been filled." So he didn't charge me anything for his time, and I left with a great feeling of not-having-been-ripped-off. We've been back a few times, and they're not the cheapest place out there, but their rates are very reasonable, and they're very good, and they're honest. We like them.

The car shopping continues...at Auto Maxima!

I was looking through the KSL ads and I found a Subaru Baja that was within our price range. SWEET! J has a co-worker that recently bought a Subaru Baja and he pointed one out to me when we were driving to the gym recently. Pretty much they're a truck that's a car, that's a truck.

Subaru only made Bajas from 2003-2006, and I'm not sure why, because they're pretty much amazing. They're a car, with a shortened truck bed on back. And then you can put the tailgate down, and there's a new tailgate that you swing over to extend it all into a small truck bed. And there's a spot where you can open the space between the passenger seats in back and the truck bed, in case you wanted to put longer things that don't fit the mini truck bed.

There are two types of Bajas--the regular, and the turbo. The turbo Bajas have more horsepower than most of the trucks we were looking at. And I don't know what else is different, I guess.

So we found this 2005 Subaru Baja turbo online that was listed for $11,900. AMAZING! And it had an automatic transmission, and of course all Subarus have AWD. Plus, this particular vehicle had a leather interior, 6 CD player*, a moon-roof, and I forget what else. Clean title, and 68? thousand miles on it. On Kelly Blue Book it seemed to be worth about $15,000.

We decided to go check it out on Monday, during J's lunch hour.

When we got to the dealership, Auto Maxima, we were surprised that they seemed to only have four cars for sale. It was a little place that also did detailing and repairs. We walked into the office, and it was kind of weird. There was a big open waiting room, with a couple red couches facing each other, and a table with enough magazines to keep someone reading for a year.

Nobody was there.

One wall had a window on it, like they have at medical offices, and we could see that nobody was in the office on the other side. We crept down the hall, past the restrooms, and into a mostly empty break-room. I felt like we were intruders back by their microwave and stuff. J knocked on the Employees Only door, and nobody answered, so he opened it. A guy came to meet us.

"They no in office?" he asked.

"No, nobody's out here."

"Ohhhhhhh, they just leave." He walked with us out to the front, and then out the front door. "You call them." He went back inside.

J called the phone number on the sign, and they were at the bank. They said they would be back in 5 minutes. The worker came back out to us, and gave us their business card. J told the guy they were coming back, and he said ok, and he went back to work.

J and I decided to go take a look at the car some more. It looked perfect.

A lady pulled up in a black Subaru SUV. It was Milla. "You need the keys?" she asked.

"We were hoping to test drive your Subaru Baja," J explained.

She had us follow her inside, back past the break room, and around into the office. She set her purse down, fumbled with some things, and set her tea on the desk. She chattered about something. "Where are you from," I asked her, because she had a pretty accent.

"Russia," she said.

"Ah. Cool."

"We saw the tag on the Subaru said $13,500," J began, "But we found this car on KSL and it was listed there for $11,900..."

"Yes, it's just that we have to sell it as soon as possible because sales tax is due," Milla** disclosed. She fumbled with some more things, and found the key to the Subaru, and set it out on her desk. As she reached for something else, she spilled her tea all over her keyboard and desk. She turned her keyboard over, and tried to get the tea out of it, and I went down the hall to grab paper towels. J and I helped her clean up the spilled tea.

I think Milla made a copy of J's driver license, and she had him sign something saying that our insurance would be responsible for any damage if we were in an accident. (Does it even do that? We weren't sure.) "Your insurance usually covers it," Milla explained. "It's just that our insurance requires us to have people sign these, otherwise they won't cover the cars."

As Milla was filling out the form, J asked, "And we saw that the Subaru is covered by a warranty..."

"Yes, it's this one." She handed J a brochure that listed several different levels of insurance, and she pointed to the top one, out of like 7.

"So it's only these things?" J began reading drive train parts, and Milla was surprised.

"Well, yes. That's all you need, isn't it? Because if you have a problem with something else, you were in an accident, and your insurance covers that."

"Huh, I guess so."

"How long will you be gone?"

"Ohhh, 20 minutes?" (It was 12:20pm)

"I'll put 1:15 as the return time," she said.

We chuckled. "It won't be that long," I assured her.

She went outside, and unlocked the car, and handed me the key. We got in, and headed out, and I loved it.

"This car is perfect," I told J.

It really was perfect. It hugged the road so closely, and it had so much power! There were no churning sounds or ticking sounds, or anything. It maneuvered very well. "But what about that sound?" J listened. "There's air coming in somewhere." He was right. There was a faint whistle.

Eh, who cares. "Wouldn't that bother you?" "Nahhh." ... "Well, we should at least see how much it would cost to have it fixed." "Why?" "It would bother me if I were driving it." "Well, if you have music on, you wouldn't even hear it." "There's some truth to that."

I drove around for a little bit, and took it on the freeway. The Baja was a champ. "This is the perfect car for me, J." I loved the Baja! "Think about it. It has AWD like I want, and it can do all of the truck things, too. It would be perfect for bringing boxes from CA when we go, or moving a dishwasher, or picking up things from HD. Plus it has enough power to pull the trailer..."

We traded places, and J began driving. He SPED and STOPPED. "This does have a lot of power." Test driving cars with J is enough to make you car sick. He drove around, and got on the freeway too. "So is this it? Would you want this?"

"Definitely."

"Ok. We'll see what they're willing to do about the price."

"Ughhh, it's already low, though."

We realized it was past 12:50 (!) and took the car back. When we went back inside, Gustavo** was also there.

"So?"

"We really enjoyed driving it," J handed the key back to Milla. "It does whistle on the front passenger side..."

"Ah. It's the windshield. We had it replaced. Don't worry! It's still under warranty. They will fix it," Gustavo told us.

"Okay."

The rest of the conversation was kind of awkward. J offered $9000, plus the Elantra as a trade in. (Oh, yeah, we had talked to Milla about that before we test drove, and she said they do take trade-ins.)

"I don't know what to say," Milla responded. "This is a very good car, already at a very low price."

Milla and Gustavo paused.

Gustavo asked how much we thought the Elantra was worth, and after J strategically*** avoided the question, I told them we were planning to sell it on KSL for $1200. It has a few dents in it. Gustavo said he would give us $1,000 for it.

"So that's a difference of $1,900," (Between the asking price of $11,900 and J's offer of $9,000 plus the Elantra.) Gustavo concluded. "Did you expect us to make up the difference?" He seemed almost disgusted.

"Well," J explained, "We were really looking at 2WD pick up trucks. So this car has some extra things like leather that we just don't care all that much about, and aren't really worth all that much to us."

"This will be much easier to re-sell than a 2WD truck," Milla said. "You may not care, but you will be unable to sell a 2WD truck in Utah. You'll have to take it out of state."

"We're looking for one, though," J said, "So some people buy them."

"This is a very good vehicle. Some Subarus with smaller engine cannot make it up a hill, but this one can!"

"Yes, it is very powerful."

"It is already very low price," Milla said.

"So your final offer is $10,900 plus the trade in," J asked.

"Yes," Gustavo said.

"All right. Well, thanks," J said. And we left.

And I was very frustrated, because I hate test-driving trucks. And I'm tired of J wanting to get a 2WD truck when everyone keeps telling us it's a bad idea. I was so sad.

We found the perfect car--a girl truck! And J wanted it to be cheaper than was even fair...

[To Be Continued]


*Although, really, do people still use CDs?
** Names NOT changed, to protect the innocent [future buyers].
*** Awkwardly

The car shopping begins!

Last weekend J and I started test-driving cars. It's about time for us to replace our 1999 Elantra* so we've been car shopping online very casually for a few weeks now.

We were thinking we wanted/needed a truck, because**:
- It would be very useful for property management things, like moving large appliances.
- It would be very useful for trips to home improvement stores, because my little car doesn't fit much. HD sometimes tells me, uh, maybe it would be best if I just come back for the rest of whatever I've bought.
- It would be very useful for pulling our DOOOOMBUGGY when we take it to go buy hay each year, and when we use it to transport animals.

Last Saturday we went to test-drive four different truck models, so that I can see how I like different kinds. J wants me to have a preference. He picked the Yaris, he says, so I can pick my truck. I just need to pick something that is within our budget, not too old, and something that meets our needs (like, I can't totally ditch the truck idea and get something sporty**). But I could get an SUV if I wanted.

First we went to test drive a Toyota Tacoma. It was a lot dirtier than it had seemed in the pictures online. There were thug-ish vinyl decals on the outside. The windshield was cracked (but the guy said he would get it fixed for a real buyer)...and when I drove it, I LIKED it! It was not nearly as truck-like as I expected it to be. BUT... it really wasn't going to work for us, because it smelled like smoke. I am super sensitive to cigarette smoke, and within a few blocks of our little test drive, I was feeling sick. It was ok, though, because it taught me that I like Tacomas. When we brought the truck back, I did a terrible job of parallel parking, because I couldn't tell how wide I was. As we were leaving, the guy offered to clean out the truck and see if he could get the smoke smell out, but I said it probably wasn't going to work out. Sorry.

Then we drove out to Brad's Cars*** to test drive a Nissan Frontier. It was even cleaner than it had seemed in the pictures online. It looked brand new. The dash was SO classy. I liked it! And then, when I test drove it, I felt like I was driving Noah's Ark. The truck felt huge, and I hated it, and it made me feel as if I was being a really risky driver because I was afraid that I would sideswipe, like, everyone. When we brought that truck back, I didn't even bother trying to park in a particular place, because I would have crunched other cars that they had for sale, for sure. Also, that truck made a churning-thumping noise as I drove it, so that wasn't really confidence-inspiring either. We decided Frontiers were out, since I hate them.

Our third stop was down in American Fork, to test drive a Chevy Colorado. The outside of the Colorado looked nice! The inside had seen better days. The weird thing was, we're only looking at trucks that are '04 and newer, but the dash in this thing looked like it was from 1980. It really did. And then we started driving it, it was ok. It was boxy, but not as bad as the Frontier. Nothing to get excited about, but it would work, I guess. And then we realized the back had no seats. It did have one car seat anchor thing, but no actual seats. That salesguy said it was because it had been a work truck. Ah, ok. Well, we're limiting our search to extended cab stuff, so the Colorado was out.

Then we drove home.

In the evening, J found a Tacoma online that he wanted to check out in Salt Lake (because it was cheap and low miles) but the guy couldn't meet us that night, so we didn't go. Instead, we went to the Toyota dealership that J bought our Yaris at, just to see what they had.

The sales-guys laughed at us for wanting to spend what we've decided we want to spend. Then the sales-guys laughed at us for looking at 2 wheel drive trucks in Utah. They didn't really have anything that met our criteria. Our sales guy tried to talk us into buying a Tacoma that was 4WD, with a shell, which had just been a trade-in from the night before. He was telling us he could do that for $15,000, and he would give us $1500 for the Elantra as a trade-in. Hm. Well, that was more than we wanted to spend... What about for $14,500, he asked. We decided to test-drive it.

Visibility through the truck's shell was minimal. The brake light stayed on, even though I'm sure the parking brake was off. The engine made a weird noise. I pulled it into the next row of parking stalls, and that ended my test drive. We went back inside to find our guy, and he came back out and tried to drive it. He tore through the parking lot, turned around and came back. He told us the brake light clicked on and off for him. He said the tires were having some problems, so it was a bumpy ride. And then he told us it hadn't been through their shop yet, so they didn't know how much that was going to cost, and what if if were a little over $15,000 but we kept it close to $15,000 and he wasn't sure if he could, but would we be interested? Eh. Not really. Thanks, though.

So, our next options were the Tacoma that J had found, or an Isuzu that was cheap (but 3 hours away, in Idaho), or another Tacoma that was a little spendy, but looked nice, and was up in Bountiful.

And then, something amazing happened. I found A PERFECT CAR.

[To be continued!]

* Which J actually bought new.
** We keep borrowing J's dad's truck for things.
*** NO CREDIT CHECKS!!!!! WE CAN FINANCE ANYONE!!!!! (uh oh)

Our new DOOOOOOM BUGGY (aka. Horse trailer)

On Friday, J and I went on another fun date. We went to go buy a horse trailer. The main reason we need one now is because we need to be able to transport our calves. We brought them home in the back of J's dad's truck, and that just isn't going to work for them anymore. We also need a trailer because we will probably use it a few times per season to buy many bales of hay, or a lot of grain.

We decided to get an old trailer because new trailers are very, very expensive. Old trailers hold their value very well. J found this one on KSL. It is a 1984 horse trailer. The tires are pretty new. Some of the lights weren't working, so J offered $100 less than the price the guy had listed it for, and the guy accepted the offer. We hooked it up* and drove off. Later, the problem with some of the lights corrected itself. Great.

We had intended to park it in our garage, since there's space. Horse trailers are heavy enough, though, that you can't move them after you park them. So it would have been tricky to maneuver. For now, it is parked in our backyard** but we plan to move it either to the side of the house or to the driveway.

J keeps telling the calves that it's what they will take "to get to Heaven." I tell him that's sad, and he shouldn't say it. They don't understand, though, so they're pretty interested in it.

I keep wanting to call it our Dooooooomsbuggy (in a creepy voice) because to me it looks an awful lot like the little buggies that you sit in for the Haunted Mansion, at Disneyland.*** I want to repaint it. J says we don't have time. (Yeah, we actually don't.) Maybe someday.

I also keep thinking we should really get a horse or two. J says to save my personal money. He also says we don't have time for a horse. (Yeah, we actually don't.) He also says we don't have money for a horse. (Yeah, we actually don't.)**** When we have more money and time I can have a horse. That will probably be in a while, though.



* It was pretty funny, actually. The trailer was in the middle of a field and when the man was showing J how to hook the trailer up, the horses that were in the field became curious about what was going on. They came over to check things out and started nibbling on our clothes, etc. I forgot how much I love horses.
** Which had a ton of space and was still tricky to maneuver. J just needs more practice.
*** It turns out those are actually called "Doom buggies." Eh. Whatever.
**** J also says horses are too big. They make him uncomfortable. I tell him it's kind of like business: some business people are afraid to hire people that are smarter than them, or bigger than them, or better at things than they are. This is a mistake. Good business people hire people who are better than them whenever they can because they help you make your business stronger. Or, it's like the Lion King--"But what if he's on our side." I told J: "A horse could plow our crops much faster than you can." But, we don't actually have any crops, so it doesn't really matter.

Dog Lake, part 2 (sort of)

This isn't actually about Dog Lake, but it is from that hike. This is something fun.

About a year ago (October 17th, the photo thing says), J and I went hiking and we had our picture taken together. I probably posted it on my blog somewhere before, but this is the picture:


This year we took a new picture together, on the same hike, in the same month, in front of the same sign.

It's kind of like those drawings where the pictures look alike but you have to find a certain number of things that are different between the two pictures. For instance, in the first picture we're broken up; in the second picture we're married. In the first picture, we have no dog to enjoy hiking; in the second picture we have Chalcy.

I kind of think we should go back every October and take another picture there. Then, someday it will be kind of neat to flip through our pictures and watch ourselves age and things change. We'll see.

(Isn't that cool?)

Dog Lake, part 1

A couple weeks ago J and I decided to go for a hike, and we decided to bring Chalcy along.*

We ended up doing one of the hikes we used to do back before we were married. I think it's called the Big Water? trail. Anyhow, it leads to Dog Lake**, and I'd heard Dog Lake is a lot of fun. So we went.

Chalcy was off-leash for the hike, and I was a little worried about that, because it was our first time taking her anywhere off-leash (except for the dog park). She didn't fall down the mountain, though, or race off after some other dog, or anything. She just had a lot of fun hiking right next to us. So it all worked out well.

We saw tons and tons of dogs on the trail. Pretty much all of the dogs were friendly. Some people could tell Chalcy is still a puppy, and she got a lot of attention from them. ("OH, LOOK at your BIG PAWS! You've got a lot of growing to do!!") We saw another Dane on the trail, too. It was fun; we stopped to chat with her owner for a couple minutes. People who own Danes seem to always love them so much. So that was kind of neat. Sometimes I forget how big Chalcy will be.***

When we got to Dog Lake, it was nice. It's this little lake where dogs run all over the beach and play in the water, etc. Chalcy was afraid to go in the water, so J and I started tossing a stick for her, just barely in the water. She would fetch it, and we would throw it for her again, slightly farther out in the water. The game worked pretty well until one time I threw the stick about 4 feet farther into the water, and she RAN out to get it, and suddenly STOPPED in the water, a couple feet before reaching the stick. The water had gotten deeper, and her belly was getting wet now. She left the stick right where it was and returned to the shore. We laughed pretty hard, and so did the people around us. Funny dog! Chalcy is getting better at socializing with other dogs. She tends to be a little shy, but then she warms up and starts playing too. She's definitely not a barker or aggressive at all. She's always very friendly with the people around us. Just sometimes when there are a lot of dogs, it's kind of intimidating.

We're thinking we may take her to California with us for Thanksgiving. She would have more fun with us than hanging out at home without us. We'll see.

* We found out that the Cottonwood canyons do NOT allow dogs. But Millcreek Canyon does.
** Eventually. After like 4 miles of hiking.
*** It just seems like other dogs are getting smaller. Like, I thought Labs were pretty big dogs, but now they look really small. On a similar note, as of a week or so ago, I can't pick Chalcy up anymore. She's too heavy for me. Not sure how much she weighs.

P.S. The last photo of Chalcy investigating the water is not blurry because dogs splashed the camera, it is blurry because it is like a dream come true for dogs. It's a dreamy-effect that just automatically happens when you take pictures there. :)

As of today...

All of our properties are rented!

Last Saturday was our busy, busy day where we had four people all fighting to apply first. In slow-motion.

On Monday everyone passed background and credit checks.

Monday evening I signed the first rental agreement, and Tuesday evening I signed the second one. This week I hustled to finish everything. Both wanted to pick up keys last night, so we did that, and they started moving in. Yesterday was chaotic! I hired a cleaning lady AND a handyman to help. I found out that the dishwasher I was hooking up was actually broken* and J arranged for a lady to deliver one. So I installed TWO dishwashers yesterday. I'm getting better at that. Last night J and I were there re-installing the dishwasher, re-gluing linoleum, and drying out carpet until 10pm. Each unit has a couple more things to do, but nothing too urgent.

In order to rent the fourplex we posted (and re-posted) ads on KSL, Craigslist, Rental.com, and "Over 20 other sites!" (through Rental.com). We also put a FOR RENT sign in the yard.

• Our first applicant was someone who had noticed people moving and asked my other renters for my phone number.
  
• Throughout the vacancies, I had many calls and showings that resulted from KSL and the sign out front. People who called about the KSL ads were almost always calling about the unit I put fake wood floor in. Even though the ad had pictures that represented the apartment well, the people almost always ended up deciding they preferred carpet. (I think this was because the unit with carpet was closer to being done.)
• Of the two accepted applications, one was from people who drove the neighborhood looking for a place, and the other was from KSL.
• Rental.com has neat tracking stuff to tell me how many leads have been generated. They assigned me a toll-free number that interested parties could call. They claim one person called. If someone did, it did not result in anything.
• I also received two e-mails about the Rental.com ad. Neither were serious. The first was from someone with an obscene name, who also listed an obscene e-mail address. I don't know if they were real or not, but I didn't call him back to find out.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of Craigslist.
• NOBODY called or visited as a result of the "Over 20 other sites!".
• Lowering the deposit seemed to make a big difference in the quality of the people that were interested. So did lowering the price.
  

Today is a lot less stressful. Things are feeling better. They will feel even better when I get our house clean!



*I found this out by, you know, flooding the whole kitchen.

Congratulations, Chalcy!

This Monday, Chalcy graduated from Puppy Preschool!*


Our original class had Mos-B (?) (a big...retriever?), Mini (a little black fluffy puppy), Zulu (a Rhodesian Ridgeback show-puppy) and Breezy (a tiny yellow lab that looked like the Cottonelle? puppy). Plus Chalcy.

Mos-B only came the first week because his person (an older lady) had a hip problem and she wasn't going to be able to bring him anymore.

Mini just stopped coming, I think. She came consistently for the first month, and made up a couple classes, but we haven't seen her in a while.

Zulu stopped coming about when Mini did. Zulu's sister was in intermediate, and they stopped taking her, too.

Breezy missed a couple weeks towards the beginning, but she made them up, and Breezy has been at all of the classes since then.

Chalcy's graduating class included: Cougar (a bitey dog that we had never met before that class, so maybe he was making up his last class) and Breezy! Breezy is MUCH bigger than she was at the beginning, but she wag-wag-wags!!! her tail all the time and gets SO EXCITED!!! about everything. Breezy will do ANYTHING for a treat. If she can figure out what you want her to do.


Anyway, for her last class we practiced combining commands (Drop it- Leave it), "Return to heel"***, we learned how to do "Puppy-Push-ups" (sit! down! sit!) and we talked about what a great value Intermediate class is and when Intermediate class is starting. We also talked about how the Intermediate class fills up quickly and how it's even more fun than Puppy Preschool because it's building on what they already know. And then everyone got to have their picture taken--the dogs wore caps and so did their people because we're BOTH graduating. And then Robyn (the new trainer) filled out our graduation certificates. (And reminded us that we can sign up for Intermediate if we want.)

We may do Intermediate sometime, but we're ready for a break from classes for now. Life needs to settle down before we'll have time for more classes.

*Her certificate says Beginner level, because the trainer grabbed the wrong certificates. But they are equivalent classes.**
** But really, they're not, because Beginner is for dogs 5 months or older. We did NOT let our dog get out of hand and then finally try SOMETHING, ANYTHING to fix her. We were Responsible Dog Owners, so our certificate should say that it was the puppy class. Not that I'm bitter, or anything.
*** I typed "Return to hell" first. Not sure what THAT trick would be.

Little update - part 2

Aside from work, there have been many other things going on.

- We got new chickens. Did I blog about that yet? I don't think I did, but maybe I did. We got them to replace some of our older layers that will uh, "retire" this fall. I got two teenage hens* from Sunny Brooke Farm in Sandy, where we got our adult hens last year. This year I added a gray Araucana (like Gertie and Maude are, except she has no tail. It will lay blue or green eggs, though.) and a Black Australorp.

I also got silkie chicks. Silkies look ridiculous! When I went for the other hens, the lady had silkie chicks "straight run" (which means 1/2 will be girls, 1/2 will be boys). I picked a white one and a red one** to take home. They live in Chalcy's old kennel, in our garage. Unofficially, I have called the white one "Cotton" and the red one "Karl." They're the funniest. Silkies have poofy feathers that look like fur. They have fluffy heads and fluffy feet. I often giggle when I look at them. God has a sense of humor, for sure. Anyhow! A couple weeks ago, Karl started trying to crow. "Err-errrrrr-rr!" He tries to crow usually about 8:00 am. Slacker!*** It's such a funny sound, though, because he's just learning. So he hasn't quite got it yet. It's like...half a crow.

- In anticipation of..uh... "retiring" one or both of the calves this fall, we got a couple more goats. One is a papered**** doe. Supposedly she is pregnant. So we should be able to milk her at the end of January, we think. She is so, so mild. Her people called her "Caroline" and she is very gentle. Despite being gentle, she is also a jumper. She keeps going to this one weak spot in the fence (where it is just the metal 4" squares, and not wood pickets) and she backs up a bit, TOTALLY clears the fence, and then RUSHES our garden to start eating the strawberries as fast as she possibly can. HEY! NO! So I take her by her head and guide her back into the fenced area. Naughty goat! A couple times the neighbors brought her back. We chained her to a post away from the weak part of the fence, but she doesn't like being restrained like that, so she has broken 2 collars and a chain collar. Ugh. Now we've just closed off that part of the yard and everyone is in the front and middle pasture. But she's about the calmest, sweetest goat you could think of. She was a 4H project.

Our other new goat is a buckling. He was 6 weeks old when we got him. He is from a family who was just getting into milking goats, so his mom supposedly gives a lot of milk. We wanted him to eventually breed Feta (our doeling that we already had), because by the time he's interested in her, she'll be big enough to breed safely. The family who sold him to us was VERY happy that we plan to keep him, because bucklings usually become meat but they like him. He's a cute little guy. He's kind of like a puppy--he'll follow you around and play chasing games, and he jumps up on people (which doesn't hurt and is adorable). He still drinks bottles.*****

- J and I have been married for 6 months (as of yesterday)! Go us! We got our wedding pictures back like a month ago, and I want to post some sometime, but Blogger laughed at me when I tried to post some because the files were too darn big. Eventually.

- Thursday evening J and I were driving up to Ogden and we talked about wishing we were going on a road trip. So we decided to take a road trip this past weekend! We ended up going up to Wyoming and Idaho, near Jackson. Our favorite part was actually Bear Lake, which we discovered by accident. We ended up stopping by again when we were headed home. We had a pretty good time.

- Chalcy is getting bigger! A couple weeks ago I took her in for her final shots and she weighed 54.6 lbs. She was almost 4 months old then. So. She's growing up. Next week is the last week of puppy preschool. (There were a couple weeks off because of Labor Day, and the trainer being sick, etc.) Chalcy is usually a good dog, but she sometimes gets a ton of energy. It's a puppy thing, I'm sure. She does this funny thing lately where she will sit on the couch halfway. She's tall enough that she can sit her bum on the couch and keep her front feet standing on the floor in front of the couch. (Kind of like how people sit, if you think about it.) It looks pretty silly, but she'll just hang out that way. Other news with Chalcy is that we discovered the joy of dog parks! They are SO FUN.*******

- I learned to separate cream yesterday. This makes J pretty happy. Cream is his favorite thing.

- Our garden is producing! Big tomatoes. And that's it. No blueberries. Not many strawberries (although the plants keep making more plants). Nothing else.

Well, there are probably a lot of other things happening, too, but that's enough for now. I need to get back to work!


* Not laying yet, but not so little that you have to keep them under light and be careful with them. They went outside right away. (But in a separate section next to the big chicken area, so that they wouldn't get pecked by our flock. Chickens are funny that way--the lady told us to have them in a nearby area for a couple weeks, so they can see each other but not get to each other. Then, one night, after the hens are asleep, take the new hens and put them on the perch next to the sleeping ones, in the chicken coop. In the morning our birds would wake up and think "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? ... I've seen you before, though, so it's ok.")
** GO UTES!!
*** I think it's because they're in the garage. So he doesn't get as much light as if they were outside.
**** Fancy! She took 2nd place at the Fair! She also has her registered number thing tattooed on her ears, with little holes, so you can shine a flashlight through her ears and read who she is. That's what they do with fancy papered goats.
***** When I go to feed him, I have to let him out of the pasture area and onto our driveway, because otherwise the calves see the bottle and push him out of the way because they want to drink it. LOL. They have nice memories, I guess. Also, here's something funny. The kids named the buckling "Nanny" and put a pink collar on him. I call him "Kiddo" because he is a kid, but that won't be good for when he gets bigger. Sometimes I call him "Buckley" because that's a little more masculine, but "Kiddo" comes more naturally to me.
****** Actually, she mostly just goes around and says hi to all of the people who brought their dogs. She sometimes plays with the other dogs, though, so...you have to start somewhere, right?

Little update - part 1

One of these days I'll have time (or make time) to finish the story about our floor.

For now, here is a little update about life.

- I am still working, working, working at our fourplex. We keep trying different things to get more, uh, qualified applicants. Right now we're doing a "FIRST MONTH PAY 1/2 RENT!!!!!" special. It's just been kind of a problem because I've shown both of the apartments a lot and for a while I was getting people who just...well...they were way too risky to rent to (or, they're not actually interested). Among people who have come to see the apartments:

* many people without jobs (so...uh...how are you planning to pay rent?*),
* a felon ("Is it a crime that the city considers a danger to neighborhoods, including sexual crimes, crimes against property, or violent crimes?" "Yeah, it's one of those ones." "Oh."),
* someone in the process of being evicted ("My landlord is such a @#$)&$* !!! He said he's not going to give me any of my security deposit because we have cats and we're not supposed to, but I have a note saying they're COMPANION cats for my daughters** because they've been through a lot, so they have to let me keep the cats. But he's evicting me so I'm going to just stay there another month and not pay him rent since he's not giving me my deposit back."
* people thinking about moving (after 30 minutes showing both units and discussing where to put furniture, etc: "Now, I have to be honest with you--we're not really sure we're moving. We won't know until Tuesday. In fact, I can't even say there's a 50% chance we're moving." [So...why am I spending my weekend with you instead of my family...?] "Mhmm...", OR "If I give you $100 will you hold this apartment for me until October?" [back at the beginning of August... Ouch.] "Uhhh, no. If you want to put down the deposit and first month's rent, then maybe." "Oh, no, I just have $100.")
* guys who just want to hit on me (A couple guys drove by while I was watering the lawn and they started honking and calling out to me. Then they called the number on my FOR RENT sign in the yard. "Did we just see you out watering the lawn? ... Ohh, hi! Can we come look at the apartment?" They did at least pretend to be thinking of moving.)

Anyway, we're*** hoping to finish getting the units ready pretty soon. There really isn't much left. I've learned a lot in the process. Next time we have a vacancy, I think it will probably go smoother. I will hire help faster. I will have clean pictures to post so that people can get an idea while I'm still actually fixing it up.

Some of the things I have done at the fourplex are: replaced tons more sprinklers, installed 17 boxes of fake wood flooring. Replaced showerheads. Whitened grout, re-caulked tub. Used an airless paint sprayer to paint all of the rooms in one unit and the downstairs of the other unit.**** Patched four holes in walls. Replaced ghetto 1970s ugly lights with modern light fixtures. Re-seeded the lawn. Cold-welded an iron handrail that renters broke. Installed a new motion light outside. Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. Installed a dishwasher and new garbage disposal (but I still have to finish that because it needs some change to the pipe work beneath the sink.) Changed locks. Replaced 10? sets of blinds. (But I mostly had my brother and the other guy I hired do those, because I really don't like installing blinds.)



* In Utah, you can't discriminate people based on "source of income." It's a Utah thing. That to me sounds like prostitutes and drug dealers, but Utah actually means you can't say no to people who receive housing assistance or child support, etc (if they are otherwise qualified). And that's completely fine. The trouble is, lots of people are unemployed and have no "source of income." (You can "discriminate" about that.)
** Can I say their names online? Stormy and Sulfur. And I don't mean the cats' names. They seemed nice, though. And I would have rented to them if they applied and were qualified.
*** [I'm]
**** Ha! I'm so bad at using a paint sprayer. It takes practice, I think. In the rooms that were dark, I ended up with drips all over the place. In one of the living rooms, I accidentally got way too much paint on one wall. I wiped it off with my hands (into a little bucket) and I painted a whole big storage closet all with the extra paint from around the outside of just that one closet door. Oops.

Free CIRCUS tickets!

Every year Jess blogs about going to the circus, and I've been with her a couple times. It's fun stuff.

The only thing better than going to the circus is going to the circus with your family or friends, FOR FREE!

This year, the Circus gave Jess 4 sets of tickets to give away on her blog. What an awesome giveaway! It's kind of like having a giveaway for 'magic,' or a superhero, or something. Who does that?

Her blog is small enough that I am going to win tickets for sure. So. Yeah. Kind of fun, because when TAMN gives something away there are like 900 entries and then it's just a waste of time even entering.

Since she has four to give away, all three of you guys reading this can go claim your pack of tickets on her blog. Hurry, because the deadline for the giveaway is TONIGHT.

Maybe we can all sit together!

New Toy!

Fun things to do with Carpet Tape Roll*:

1. Roll it like a BALL (on the roll-y side)!

2. Slide it like a puck.

3. Bounce it 3 feet high, like the pink bouncy BALL! and then GET IT.

4. DROP IT off of the side of the couch because it falls on the floor and makes noise!

5. Try to fit the whole thing in your mouth by squashing it a little.

6. Hold it in your mouth with the round part above your mouth.

7. Carry it in your mouth with the round part below your mouth.

8. GET IT and DROP IT so someone will throw it and you can go GET IT.

The carpet roll kind of reminds me of Abby, because when we got her as a kitten, her people told us we should let her play with the plastic ring around the top of milk containers. She loved them. Paley does too. Carpet tape rolls are the dog-version of milk rings. It's going to stay an only-under-supervision toy for a little while, because it seems pretty durable (and Chalce doesn't destroy toys) but I don't know if she could break it or swallow it somehow. So, we'll see.

Chalcy is more and more fun to play with because we communicate better these days. Chalcy is learning so much! (Learning is a lot of fun because when you do things you get TREATS, which are Very Very Good, and Definitely Worth Sitting To Get One.)

We've been doing Puppy Preschool for a month now, and Chalcy is good at:
- Watch me.
- Sit.
- Get it.
- Down. (But we still have to do Sit first and then Down).
- Up [on the couch, usually].
- Off [the couch, but even though she knows it, a lot of times she doesn't obey for this one.]
- Kennel up! (Very good at this now.)
- Come here! (Usually obedient for this one, but not always. We still need to do "Come" in class, so I think that will help.)
- Drop it. (Learned this a week and a half ago, but she is very good at it.)
- Leave it. (Another new one that she is pretty good at, except if she is supposed to LEAVE IT [the cat or chickens] or LEAVE IT [the compost], and I don't have a treat with me.)
- Take it.**
- Fetch! (Not a class one, and sometimes she doesn't do it, or she gets it and brings it but doesn't give up the thing she fetched. But usually she does it.)

I forget what else she knows. She does not know how to politely walk on a leash, because we've only been on a couple walks--we mostly just play in the backyard. But knowing how to politely walk on a leash is important for big dogs, so we're starting to go on walks sometimes. She likes them more than I thought she would.***

This is just a little update (which ended up being longer than I thought it would) because

* It can’t be ROLL, because otherwise how will we teach her to ROLL over?
** But it usually means you're going to have to DROP IT anyway, so why take it if you can just LEAVE IT before you're asked? Shouldn't that be the same and get you a treat faster?
*** Which seems like OF COURSE, because all dogs love walks, but I just kind of figured that since she gets plenty of exercise in the backyard, walks were not really very important or interesting(it's not like she needs more exercise or fresh air...). Plus, if she knows that she needs to stay in the yard, she is safer. If she feels like she knows the neighborhood, maybe she will decide to go on adventures or run off sometime, and that's not fine. I like her not-run-over, thanks. But walks are probably about teaching her to stay out of the road, too, so they're probably good, anyway.

The saga continues! - Episode 2

[CONTINUED FROM EPISODE 1]


I suddenly remembered--our carpet has gotten WET! Remember? When I walked in the alcove that one day, my feet got wet. We pulled the carpet up, pulled the sheet rock off, and set up a fan, but maybe we didn't get it dry enough? Maybe it molded?

And then I remembered the day that I had poured gallons and gallons and gallons of water in our furnace/water heater closet*, only a couple weeks before. When our furnace was installed, it had a little pump put beneath it. After I poured so, so much water in there, we tried to use a Shopvac to pick it up, but we got, like, a pint of water. "Huh, that's weird," I said. "I know there was WAY more water than we're vacuuming, but maybe the furnace pump already took care of it?" It seemed weird, but the water just wasn't there, so it had to have gone somewhere.

Maybe more of the water was in the carpet than we realized, and we couldn't dry it fast enough with our fans. Maybe it molded.

J and I decided I would pull up the carpet to take a look. Most likely, the carpet and carpet pad were moldy, and anyway, it wouldn't be a bad idea to replace them. I've really wanted fake wood floors, and one of my buddies at HD*** told me I could put in Trafficmaster Allure**** and it would be SO easy, and SO fast, and he said it's cheap, but it actually lasts. So. I was excited that I would be pulling up the carpet that day.

I got up to go look at the carpet by the furnace area, and as I headed that way I realized something. "J, no way, I just thought of something and you're not going to believe it..."

I crawled into the furnace closet to look beneath the furnace at the pump.

Back when I installed linoleum under our kitchen counters, I saw beneath the furnace: there was a line of 2x4s. It needed to be there to access furnace stuff, I just assumed.

"Yep. The pump is self contained. J. Remember how when you were buying this house, there was a line of 2x4s out in the hallway by the garage?"

"Mhmm?" (He was listening.)

"I think...I think the line of 2x4s goes all the way down the middle of our house...And that's why the floor is not level, and kind of goes up in the middle."

"Ohhhhh..."

I continued: "Yeah. I'll BET...I'll bet when all that water poured into the furnace closet, it wasn't pumped at all. It couldn't have been, actually, since the pump is all self-contained. You know what it did? It poured into this channel down the middle of the house. No way... Hm. I'll bet that's it. I'll bet that's why you're so allergic to the house. Think about it! The floor would get wet, from when it rained, and any water that got down there would sit beneath the floor, down the middle of the house. And it would just sit there. And that's why you're sick a few weeks after I poured so much water down there."

J nodded. "I think you're onto something. We never even thought about the 2x4s in the hallway. I think we just thought it was a vent..."

"Yeah."

J: "So you'll go ahead and pull up the carpet, then, because that would definitely cause mold under the carpet."

Me: "All right."

And I pulled up the carpet while J was gone to work, so he wouldn't get super-sick from participating in the project.

Sure enough, there were boards down the middle of our main room.

I started to pull up the 2x4s and I was in for a bigger surprise than either of us had imagined!

The ends of the boards were resting on little concrete ledges. Basically, there was a trench down the main room of our house. It was about 15" across, and about 10" deep. The bottom of the trench was gravel and dirt--just like the ground outside our house! Except, this gravel and dirt was damp, and very musty.

For sure, for sure, I had definitely found the source of J's allergy problems. No question about it.

The trench connected with the section outside. Down the middle of the trench, there was a 1" PVC pipe. The pipe we already knew about--it comes up from the 2x4s in the hallway outside.

When I talked to the previous owner (and also on the How the House Works DVD), he explained that the pipe went up along the wall of the patio, out to the roof outside, and then along a fence that no longer exists. They used the pipe to water their garden outside. Now, the pipe still goes up the wall, and outside, but then it is severed--there is no fence or garden.*****

So definitely, what happened is, all of the gallons of water went into a trench in the middle of our house, and sat there. But not only that! This year, we began irrigating. Any time water runs near the house, I am quite certain we have also been irrigating the middle of our house.

I determined that we should probably remove the PVC pipe and fill the trench in, but I wasn't sure what I needed to do, so I went to Home Depot to go find someone to explain what I would need to do.



[...TO BE CONTINUED!]


* This is a story that I meant to blog before, but I'm pretty sure I never did. Maybe I'll still get to it. This can be like LOST, with flashbacks that make the present stuff make more sense.**
** This is almost everything I remember about LOST, since I only watched part of one season.
*** Online, everyone calls HD "Orange" and Lowie's "Blue." So they're like, "I was at Orange the other day and they had x on sale!" Or, they'll ask "Orange or Blue?" and you're supposed to say whether you like Home Depot or Lowie's better. I don't get it. If I were talking about Vons, or Walmart, or Smithy's, or any other store, I would say the name of the store. Is there some reason we're not supposed to name names when it comes to Home Improvement stores? Like, I could say "Red, Blue, Yellow, or Green??" and mean, "Do you like Smithy's, Albertsons, Macey's, or Reams the best?!?" but I wouldn't...So, I'm not into using secret logo-color codes to talk about home improvement shopping, I guess.
**** When I say the names of home improvement project parts, it makes me feel like I am bragging about specs for something else--'It's got a 203948320 GIG HARD DRIVE, with 38 RPM!!' 'It's a Mac.' 'You just can't beat the suspension--nobody makes a better suspension than ThisBrand!' or 'We're installing Trafficmaster Allure. [*frownsmile*?] It has a 25 year warranty.' It's just like, whatever it is, it must be so good that for some reason I need to namedrop, and can expect people to know what it is. But actually, it isn't really bragging, because it isn't Pergo, and it's in my little house that is not deluxe deluxe at all.
***** The previous owner did not mention the trench went to the furnace closet. When I asked him about the 2x4s in the hall, and asked about what it connected to, he mentioned the garden, and he told me that, you know, they didn't do everything the best way, but that it had worked for them. When he said that, it confused me, and I just told him we enjoy the house a lot.