Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Ebb and Flow.
I’m feeling pretty good right now. Lucky, in fact.
I think my ex dumped this house at just the right time—before the new roof, before the Pergo went bad, before I hand-laid the new patio—and when the real estate market was still quite high. He got the max dollar for it that I’ll never see. I get to do all the repairs that should have been done years ago. Hopefully in the next few months, I’ll be done with them. Still much to do, but it’s slowly getting there and the house is a beautiful (though current chaotic with all the construction) sanctuary.
I’ve had to deal with dozens of repairmen, greedy lawn services, lying/cheating/scumbag roofers, insurance adjusters with friends (wink, wink) who’ll fix it cheaply for me, carpet layers, playboy tile layers, and air conditioner con men in the past two years. Most of them have been a bitch to work with. They weren’t this way when I was married, but as a divorced woman in a nice neighborhood? I’m sick of seeing green in their eyes and being patted on the head. I’ve seriously contemplated inventing a husband to keep the wolves at bay.
Thor. Yeah, just you wait until my honey Thor gets home!
And yet, there have been some very nice washing machine repairmen, a couple of carpet layers who liked intellectual discourse, and then a repairman worth waiting for. And whom I’m very thankful for at the moment. Not only is he trustworthy and honest, but he spotted a couple of termites. Yeah. That which wrests terror from my heart.
So despite the expensive termite prevention program that’s a necessity in Florida, a couple of the critters got by. The termite killers came promptly, assessed the damage and found none, and administered an immediate treatment. And we were done. We found it early enough that it wasn’t a huge headache.
As it turns out, termites like Pergo flooring and were attracting to the very thing I was having ripped out. Now I’m getting a solid understanding of why insurance companies often won’t touch a room that has Pergo—leaks, termites, cold weather—just about everything will go wrong with it. Too bad I couldn’t have had the tile I wanted several years ago instead of “floating” floors but I’d been told I couldn’t have tile and apparently tile is not a problem if the floor underneath is properly prepared. So out it goes. I’m getting what _I_ want.
And my decision to get rid of it now, with this particular person handling the job for me, well, this is good. Because of where he spotted the bugs, I never would have seen them. Not until the damage was done and the wall fell in.
So the right person, right place, right time, and I’m feeling lucky that it happened this way.
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