Never buy a house when you're hormonal.
It's raining here today. A LOT. Heavy Rainfall warning, tropical depression a lot.
We have some kind of moisture/water issue in our basement, and house in general. When we purchased it. it was assumed to me a small amount of moisture, and the inspector wasn't overly concerned, since most was concentrated around windows, something I plan on replacing anyway. Then we come to notice there is a leak with the toilet. We fix the seal, and move on, assuming the weird smell was just some deteriation due to that leak, and I figure I'll fix it later. No worries.
Segue to this summer. Our basement has less than stellar ventilation, due to it being, well, a basement. It's "finished" if you consider piss poor workmanship finished. I've known all along I'd have to gut it, and quite honestly, I'm looking forward to it. Nothing makes me happier than taking something apart to fix it, especially if crowbars are involved. Then I find icky, black mold on the exterior facing walls in the room Rosalyn is in. We move her. I dig at the drywall and the carpet. No water, no moisture. I notice that the correct insulation hasn't been used however. I figure that the mold is there due to moisture trapped in the nasty carpet, which has no where to go, since the mold is only on the exterior walls, near the floor. So, I figure, winter project. Tear down the room, rebuild-easy, take me a few weekends perhaps, and it's a good kick in the ass to the Dorf, who bitches we have no money to do this, but then spends $800 on a guitar, and 90$ on new cd's. This way he has to do it. Doesn't help that he doesn't even know how to paint-THANK YOU FIL....
I don't believe that mold is toxic-it's everywhere, you can't avoid it. BUT, I don't want it in the house any more than normal, just like I want the spiders to kill the icky bugs, but I don't want to see any of them. And I don't want a gross smelly basement. Lord knows it's bad enough from the spit up and hunks of week old banana I keep finding everywhere...
Back to the rain....today, I go to get the vacuum out of the one small area that is true "basement" floor. (The rest is raised on wood).
Water. Seeping. Thru. Concrete. NOT. GOOD.
I'm not telling the Dorf. He won't understand, and he'll freak out. Actually, I'm thinking of freaking out, since the more I look around, and dig at stuff, I begin to see subtle signs of prior water damage. How exactly an inspector, who is TRAINED to look for this stuff misses it, I don't know. (I have some suspicions about a triad of evil consisting of Realtor+Seller+Inspector anyway, but I digress).
This is an older home, likely at least 60 years. If I was to build new, I would install weeping tiles, drainage, etc, etc since we're near a stream, and we're at the bottom of a hill. But to do these things now-to dig a drainage system, grade the property, fuck me. I can't even get the Dorf to agree to spend what will be less than 300 on gutters for the front of the house, let alone what all this will cost. And we can't sell like this. He will not get it. Unless I can draw it in a comic, he won't get it.
So now I have to figure out how to do this. I know there is no cheap way, and that this is showing me it's a VERY large issue with this house. Add to this the fact that all these issues are occuring underneath our large deck, rendering that part of the exterior inaccessible, and I'm not cool. Capilliary action? HELL YEAH.
I think I'm about to become even more broke. We bought this house because I loved the look of it when I was pregnant. Yes, there is always buyers remorse, but with the Dorf not knowing how to do things around the house, and clearly being unwilling to learn unless I lead him by the nose like a puppy, and me trying to do everything else....I shouldn't have lobbied for this house. My fuck up. AND his parents are trying to convince him that a little paint and spackle will render it purty so we can make a killing and sell it so we can move back to Toronto. They've never sold a house, since they still live in the first one they bought...so what the hell do they know?
Moral: Pregnant purchases are NOT GOOD.
Now, does anyone have any suggestions? It's so WET in this city-no wonder the trees all grow moss and algae and crap...
We have some kind of moisture/water issue in our basement, and house in general. When we purchased it. it was assumed to me a small amount of moisture, and the inspector wasn't overly concerned, since most was concentrated around windows, something I plan on replacing anyway. Then we come to notice there is a leak with the toilet. We fix the seal, and move on, assuming the weird smell was just some deteriation due to that leak, and I figure I'll fix it later. No worries.
Segue to this summer. Our basement has less than stellar ventilation, due to it being, well, a basement. It's "finished" if you consider piss poor workmanship finished. I've known all along I'd have to gut it, and quite honestly, I'm looking forward to it. Nothing makes me happier than taking something apart to fix it, especially if crowbars are involved. Then I find icky, black mold on the exterior facing walls in the room Rosalyn is in. We move her. I dig at the drywall and the carpet. No water, no moisture. I notice that the correct insulation hasn't been used however. I figure that the mold is there due to moisture trapped in the nasty carpet, which has no where to go, since the mold is only on the exterior walls, near the floor. So, I figure, winter project. Tear down the room, rebuild-easy, take me a few weekends perhaps, and it's a good kick in the ass to the Dorf, who bitches we have no money to do this, but then spends $800 on a guitar, and 90$ on new cd's. This way he has to do it. Doesn't help that he doesn't even know how to paint-THANK YOU FIL....
I don't believe that mold is toxic-it's everywhere, you can't avoid it. BUT, I don't want it in the house any more than normal, just like I want the spiders to kill the icky bugs, but I don't want to see any of them. And I don't want a gross smelly basement. Lord knows it's bad enough from the spit up and hunks of week old banana I keep finding everywhere...
Back to the rain....today, I go to get the vacuum out of the one small area that is true "basement" floor. (The rest is raised on wood).
Water. Seeping. Thru. Concrete. NOT. GOOD.
I'm not telling the Dorf. He won't understand, and he'll freak out. Actually, I'm thinking of freaking out, since the more I look around, and dig at stuff, I begin to see subtle signs of prior water damage. How exactly an inspector, who is TRAINED to look for this stuff misses it, I don't know. (I have some suspicions about a triad of evil consisting of Realtor+Seller+Inspector anyway, but I digress).
This is an older home, likely at least 60 years. If I was to build new, I would install weeping tiles, drainage, etc, etc since we're near a stream, and we're at the bottom of a hill. But to do these things now-to dig a drainage system, grade the property, fuck me. I can't even get the Dorf to agree to spend what will be less than 300 on gutters for the front of the house, let alone what all this will cost. And we can't sell like this. He will not get it. Unless I can draw it in a comic, he won't get it.
So now I have to figure out how to do this. I know there is no cheap way, and that this is showing me it's a VERY large issue with this house. Add to this the fact that all these issues are occuring underneath our large deck, rendering that part of the exterior inaccessible, and I'm not cool. Capilliary action? HELL YEAH.
I think I'm about to become even more broke. We bought this house because I loved the look of it when I was pregnant. Yes, there is always buyers remorse, but with the Dorf not knowing how to do things around the house, and clearly being unwilling to learn unless I lead him by the nose like a puppy, and me trying to do everything else....I shouldn't have lobbied for this house. My fuck up. AND his parents are trying to convince him that a little paint and spackle will render it purty so we can make a killing and sell it so we can move back to Toronto. They've never sold a house, since they still live in the first one they bought...so what the hell do they know?
Moral: Pregnant purchases are NOT GOOD.
Now, does anyone have any suggestions? It's so WET in this city-no wonder the trees all grow moss and algae and crap...
Move to California!!
You could grow olives and tomatos in your yard year round! Yeehaw!!!
I think it's funny when you bash the Dorf. My wife knows my blog so I can't do that too.
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:59 p.m.
We had a drainage promblem in our basement for a while a yard was slopped toward the house, we re did our lawn.
It seem like home ownership is never done.
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:29 p.m.
bugger - that sounds like a nightmare situation. Do you have insurance that would cover this???
sending ((hugs)) because home stuff is just sooooo traumatic
Posted by
Anonymous |
5:45 a.m.
It's just sounding a bit too overwhelming for me. That sounds like a pretty big/expensive job. I'm complaining that I need new windows and I can't even afford that. How about "extreme makeover - home edition!"
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:35 p.m.
I just noticed that I'm an "Elf" and not a "Freak". I can't wait to tell my husband the good news!
Our house is on a slope. My DH shoveled dirt all around the edges of the foundatation to try and make the surface water flow away from the house instead of down the basement walls and then under the house.
We also have a sump pump that seems to run constantly... even in dry weather. I worry that we'll lose electricity during a storm and our entire basement will flood, but we've been OK so far. I do wish we had a backup up generator.
In the meantime... I don't keep anything I couldn't stand losing in the basement. (It's mostly finished...)
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:13 p.m.
Where do you live? Email me (martian.anthropologist@gmail.com) -- I have some expertise in real estate.
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:48 p.m.
IDK what advise I could give, but if you find out anything, could you share? We're having similar problems, no visible leaks, but our ceilings look to me like water is pissing in....went in the attic and looked, all dry. this roof was supposedly newish. (3 years) I'm pissed...plus the guy felt that paint and drywall were the sure fix to everything.....we were sucked in, and our inspection didn't render anything bad on us either.
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:04 p.m.
Are you living in my house? We bought our house with a 'finished' basement. It was OK, but I hated the wallpaper, I figured we'd redo it in a few years. As we were moving furniture around, I noticed a piece of loose wallpaper. Under it? Black drywall. Hubby pulled it all out, but only the one wall was affected. If you can get the Dorf to cough up for the gutters it might solve your problem. Hubby cleared out our gutters and put in longer down spouts so the water drained further away from the house and we have no more damp walls. It still gets a little musty smelling, but we don't have to run the dehumidifiers 24/7 anymore.
Oh, I dropped by via Housewife Mafia.
Posted by
Anonymous |
5:45 p.m.
Where to start?
I had the same problem with my previous house. I ended up digging around the house and applying a waterproof membrane to the concrete foundation wall. If your house is 60 years old, odds are that the foundation wall is concrete block (or stone) and applying a membrane would be the sure fire way to go, albeit expensive. You could just try installing gutters and make sure the land slopes away from the foundation wall and see how that works.
Goold luck!
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:40 a.m.