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Terry: Home maintenance best left to professionals

In technical homeowner’s language it is known as “deferred maintenance.”

In the common man’s language it is just “too lazy and too broke to fix things around the house.”

link Karl Terry

Holding a roofing estimate in my hand has caused me to realize just how far behind I may have fallen in maintaining the castle. A man’s home is his castle, you know. I thank God I don’t own a real castle though; I once knew a man who owned a castle and his list of deferred maintenance was insane.

I’ve been vaguely aware of my predicament, thinking the best way to tackle it would be to take some time off and get those projects done. Seems these days I need those days off to actually rest a lot more than in the past.

I’ve had a whole routine of Pa Kettle-type reasoning for not getting started on projects. You know Pa Kettle — when Ma Kettle would get on to him he would point out that the weather’s dry and the roof’s not leaking. If it was raining he promised to get right on it as soon as it dried out.

If Pa Kettle did begin a project it would always take an immediate detour for materials, tools or labor that became an adventure all its own.

That is my life these days.

I can’t replace the carpet until I get that leak fixed. If we’re going to lay down new flooring we really should paint beforehand. Painting is going to require a pretty deep cleaning and straightening up job around the house. Once the whole thing gets rolled together we’re talking a lot of money ... not to mention the fact that if I try to save money by doing some of the work I’ll wind up not finishing within my time off.

Gosh it’s exhausting me just thinking about all that work.

The best idea, without a doubt, is to leave the job to professionals. They have the tools and can find them. They have the expertise and know what to measure when they’re measuring twice and cutting once (I always get that backwards). If there is injury or lameness in the back after the job is over, it will be on someone else’s insurance and not mine.

The list of professionals I’ll need could get pretty long, so I’ve contemplated finding a good handyman. In fact, I might be able to put someone on full-time in a permanent position rather than paying for things by the job.

The big trick is locating a handyman that makes less per hour than I do so I don’t go into the hole too quick. I’ll just have that handyman show up every morning, and over coffee we’ll figure out what to do that day.

No, wait a minute, that sounds like it might work out a lot like Alf and Ralph of “Green Acres” fame. They never got any more done than Pa Kettle.

Oh well, “I promise I’ll get right on that roof as soon as it stops raining, dear.”

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

karlterry@yucca.net

 
 

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