Stuck at Home With My Old House

Hi friends!

I know what you’re thinking. "But Lisa, don’t you mean 'stuck IN your old house?'"

No, I do not. An old house has a life of its own. If you are the inhabitant of an old house, I feel like you’d agree with me when I say you are NOT stuck in it, you’re stuck with it.

I mean that in the most loving way. The same loving way I mean it when I say I’m stuck at home with my husband or my animals.

They are noisy and smelly but I love them. EXACTLY like my old house. It, too, is noisy and smelly but the best old house. *pat pat*

For those of you who do not have the distinct pleasure of living in an old house, today I’m going to tell you what it is like. The good and the bad. The struggles and the joys. The old plumbing and the good bones.

Welcome aboard!

Why are we talking about old houses? Excellent, and completely fair, question.

This is a quarantine blog, how does that even make sense? Another excellent question.

This is how. For as long as Ben & I have lived in our house, 2.5 years, we’ve had a smell. It’s the kind of smell that sometimes smells like distant farts and other times smells like fresh butthole. I know that is extremely vivid, but it’s important for setting the scene.

The smell has always lingered. It’s like an old friend who you don’t actually like, but you just can’t get rid of. But when we weren’t here all the time, it was like an old friend you just don’t like that much who happens to live out of town. Then Covid happened and it turned into an old friend you just don’t like that much who moved in with you during quarantine.

We affectionately referred to it as “the smell”.

Throughout our 10 months stuck at home, I have often shouted to Ben, “it smells like a flaming butthole in here”. It did! Like a butthole on fire. The worst of smells. Recently, when discussing the smell with my parents, I referred to it as “a smell tornado”. Also accurate, though perhaps not vivid enough.

Throughout our 2.5 years of homeownership, we have fought the smell on and off. We’d come up with a fix that we thought solved the smell, but then without fail, the smell would be back.

If you’ve spoken to me with any regularity over the last year, you have undoubtedly heard me talk about the smell.

Well, a month ago, we FINALLY made some progress on finding the source of the smell. We had spent so much time thinking the smell was coming from the basement floor, we didn’t even consider it might be coming from the basement ceiling.

But then one day, we let our sniffers guide us, and we realize the smell was above us! We thought it was connected to the pipes where the kitchen sink and dishwasher drained.

That was Step #1 in our “the smell” progress saga.

We cleaned the sink holes (aka drain, that is the technical term, but in this blog we use the term hole). We cleaned out the dishwasher food catcher (also, not a technical term). And we crossed our fingers. Alas, the smell remained and we were disheartened.

But then we found a stray PVC pipe with no cap which had been hiding behind insulation. When we went up to sniff it it was obviously the source of the smell. I’ve been told the smell was stuck in Ben’s nose for far too long. If he could unsmell the smell hole, he definitely would have. But FINALLY we had found the smell. The smell which we had been hunting for 2+ years!

The ending is extremely anticlimactic. We put a cap on the hole and the smell went away. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely relieved, but I felt the kind of mutual relief/loss that I assume a detective feels after catching a criminal they had been hunting for a long time.

It’s amazing but it’s also like, what do I do now? After searching so long, I finally put “the smell” away. LOL seems fitting, like the smell could also be the name of a hardened criminal.

That was an extremely long-winded way for me to say, this is relevant to being stuck at home.

Old House Struggs

Old house struggs are aplenty. Smells might not even be the worst of old house problems! Read on, I will take you on a journey through the adventures of an old abode. Ab-old, if you will.

It’s Dark Everywhere

It’s possible this is not exclusively an old house problem (I do not know, I’ve only had an old house), but it’s dark all the places.

Overhead lighting? Never heard of her! And, of course, it’s one of those things you don’t notice when you’re buying the house. Because obviously your showing was scheduled for daylight, when your old house glistens it’s most beautiful glistening.

So you buy your old house and you move in and it’s nighttime and you’re like, “DAMN, it’s dark!”

Recently, Ben and I also solved some of our lighting issues. We installed a new fan in our sunroom which has a light. Great idea, wish we had done it many moons ago.

We also got some new basement lighting. I’m not talking upgraded fixtures or anything. I’m talking plug-in LED shop lights. They’re not glamorous, but they’re lights!

The Basement, It’s Creepy

This is a perfect segue into the creepy basements of old houses. They’re dark, they’re smelly, they’re sometimes damp. It’s like the perfect place for an old creepy guy named Earl to live and also try to murder you.

If you have a creepy old basement, I guarantee I can one up you.

We have a secret room in our basement. It’s probs a storm shelter, but it’s old and dark and tucked away. We affectionately refer to it as “the hole”. To be precise, we call it the dudehole hole.

Gross, why? Fair question.

Ben hates the name man cave, so we refer to the basement as the dudehole, coined by my brother, who couldn’t get enough of telling Ben he was sleeping in his dudehole when he came to visit and slept downstairs. Because the secret room is a hole within the dudehole, it’s obviously the dudehole hole. Duh.

When we were in the process of buying our house, we had high radon tests and it was clear it was due to our creepy, dirt floor dudehole hole. So it was sealed off. With a clear plexiglass screen. Yes, you can see into the creepy dudehole hole and I constantly wonder who will appear behind the plexiglass and try to murder me.

The Appliances Are Extremely Sketchy

This may not be true if your old house has new appliances. But if your old house has old appliances, who knows what you’re in for. When Ben & I moved into our house, we had a lot of inexpensive but newish appliances from our apartment. Washing machine, microwave, etc. We moved them into the house, but I was very insistent that it was a waste of space and that we did not need two appliances.

Then, our washing machine started staining all our clothes. And we just switched em out.

THEN, our microwave stopped working. And we just brought up our old microwave.

I have frantically apologized to Ben multiple times for doubting his spare appliances. I was v thankful for our appliance stash. But I still want to get rid of all the other extras. What a waste of space, right?

The moral of this story is that old house appliances are creaky and terrifying and that you should hoard appliances.

The Stairs Are Scary

Some of these issues can apply to any house, but I definitely feel like the scary stairs situation is specific to old houses.

I don’t know if 80 years ago people had tiny feet or just like, really impeccable balance, but the stairs are so small and slippery.

If you know me, you know that walking on a small, slippery, inclined surface is not my forte. I take my socks off to walk down the stairs, just for the extra grip. And I still find it to be an extremely stressful experience.

Could we solve this problem? We probably could, but would it even be fun if we don’t wait like 7 more years and have really pent up anger about the stairs. I think not.

The Sounds

‘Nough said. There are lots of them and they’re always unpleasant. The worst part about the sounds is after you’ve watched a super creepy Netflix show (Night Stalker, anyone?) and then every sound reminds you of the creepy dudehole hole and Earl the murderer who probably lives in your damp, dark basement.

Even when you haven’t watched a creepy show, there’s constantly a, “should it sound like that” sound. Doesn’t matter what it is. We never know if it should sound like that or not.

The Previous Owners

TBH, the core of most of the old house problems comes back to one thing. The previous owners. Lots of people have lived here. Lots of people have worked on things. Lots of people had no clue what they were doing. And now we’re stuck with their botched handiwork. A “patchwork” if we were trying to put it nicely.

Why are the handles upside down? We don’t know. Why is there an entire addition to the house which has no airflow? Great question. What’s behind that board screwed into the wall. We haven’t checked, we’re scared.

Old House Joys

It might sound like I am complaining, but I swear I am not. Old houses come with lots of struggles, but I kind of, not so secretly, love the adventure.

It’s like a fun (stinky) puzzle

It’s a giant mystery.

What odd thing will I find today? Where is it coming from? How will I fix it? I don’t know, and I might not know for years! What a thrill!

I’m not joking. I am not being sarcastic. I find it enjoyable in a, “I hate this and it’s terrible” kind of way.

You know that feeling where you’re just like, damn, I’m an adult. Or, damn, I’m a homeowner. Like when something super adulty/homeownery happens and for once you feel like you’re not just a giant child in disguise?

That’s how I feel when stuff gets weird in our old house! Ben and I grab our flashlight and we venture into the basement, like Scooby and Shaggy fighting crime.

I am obviously Scooby.

I guarantee I find these journeys fun and thrilling because 95% of the time I am not useful in any way and I just snapchat things like, “look what we found?!?”

I can see that it might be less fun when you’re Ben who’s sticking your face in smelly pipes. But I’m not Ben, so I will continue to enjoy and Snapchat away.

There’s lots of other old house joys as well!

There’s Nooks and Crannies

I understand some people consider this a negative. More like a clown house than a charming old house feature. I am not one of those people.

I want to put a dog bed in all the crannies. I want to hide in a nook and pop out and scare the bejeezus out of Ben. I want the odd storage cubbies. I want it all!

There’s Weird Old House Stuff

Like central vac! And an old coal shoot. How surprising, how exciting! How vintage, as they say!

There’s Trees That Weren’t Just Planted

This can also be the worst. Derecho, am I right? But it’s super lovely to live in a neighborhood with established trees. It’s just so scenic and neighborhood-y. When I see trees I sometimes have that, “damn, I’m an adult who likes trees” moment.

There’s a Community!

This is not specific to an old house. Some old houses don’t have a community feel. Some new houses do. But it’s great nonetheless. I love living in a house where I can walk to get coffee, I can walk to get Mexican food or ice cream, I can walk to the park, roller skate to a brewery, etc. It’s fantastic and I highly recommend being within walking distance of the foodz and the drinkz, just in case you get desperate, and you need to rely on your legs for transportation.

In conclusion, I love my house.

I will now end this blog the way a 12 year old ends a book report. In conclusion, I love my house and you should too.

I don’t have anything else to say, it just is what it is and I love being direct.

Whether you live in a new house or an old house, I support you and I am here to talk about your noises or your smells or whenever you want. If you don’t want to be constantly disgusted or annoyed by your home, we can also talk about pleasant things like all the windows you have and your home decor.

You know where to find me: in my (no longer) stinky old home!

Cheers,

Lisa