It’s all fun and games until it’s not...

What do you do when your furnace doesn't work? I know!

 

Buying a house, fixing it up, and taking pictures for your friends to see is totally fun. Living in an old house with quirks and issues? Not so much.

With the changing seasons, issues can and do arise. The following is a list of a few things I’ve had to deal with:

MICE

Snap Traps.

I was out of peanut butter to use as bait, so I used this organic almond butter instead. Hopefully these are hipster mice.

My neighbor let me know that some people on our street have encountered mice. Now I fully  understand that in rowhouses, particularly older ones, mice can be an inevitable part of the cold-weather experience. They like to come in our houses to get warm and find food. How sweet.

I HATE MICE.

I haven’t seen any yet, but I’m convinced I hear them in the walls, and every time I see a shadow or a piece of my hair falls in my eyes, my brain thinks it’s a mouse. I set traps and have been feverishly looking into all the methods to ridding my home of them, including alternatives like peppermint oil. We’ll see how that goes. Sigh.

CRICKETS

One of two sticky traps. It's a veritable cricket smorgasbord.

I had a cricket problem this summer. The bathroom in my basement needs a little (read: a lot) of work and there are lots of open cracks and crevices that creepy crawlies use to get inside. Cue the crickets. Giant scary crickets! I bought some pesticide that killed them, but not before they crawled into the main basement area to die a dramatic death all over the carpet. I bought my Shop-Vac specifically to clean them all up. I also got wise and bought some sticky traps, thinking it would catch a few as the season wound down. Between the two traps, there were probably 20 crickets. Ugh.

Furnace troubles

He looks like a little robot. A sad, cold little robot.

I bought my house in the middle of the summer. In 90-100 degree weather, the heating system wasn’t a priority. Even still, as part of my renovation I had my contractor’s team run and test it. Supposedly there were no issues. Fast forward to November when it dips below freezing. The good news is the furnace turns on. The bad news is that it doesn’t heat the house. Brr.

The house was nice and toasty after a little while. Using the oven as heat is the temporary fix.

My main reason for writing this post is to show the not-so-lovely side of home renovation. This is what they don’t show  you on HGTV!

Just to be clear, I want it to be known that I’ve enjoyed my first 4 months in this house. It’s nice to come home to a place that looks just how I want it to and know that I can call it MINE. Despite all these annoyances, I am thankful for it all.

Thanks for reading!