B-Dry

I realized that what I said about my entrepreneurial great-grandmother could have left the impression that I grew up amid a lot of money. (Three out of four of my great-grandmothers were entrepreneurs, and I’m positive the fourth would have been, too, if she hadn’t died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1920. That was my mother’s father’s mother. My grandfather’s one sibling died, too, and his father had to be hospitalized. He returned from the hospital to find that his wife and one of his sons were gone. There a family photograph of that great-grandmother lying dead on what appears to be a table in their house.) 

It had never occurred to me until literally yesterday evening to wonder what became of the money my great-grandmother evidently had, but I am pretty sure my father didn’t inherit any of it. That great-grandmother outlived her daughter by five or so years—my father’s mother—and so perhaps her remaining child inherited her whole estate, or maybe her second husband did.

That first house my parents bought because they were going to have me was a pleasant, serviceable place in a working-class neighborhood. The next door neighbor was a house painter and the one across the street drove a taxi.

When I was seven, we moved to a fancier neighborhood, but that was due to my father’s own efforts. There a next door neighbor was a professor at the University of Michigan and the one on the other side was a doctor who pioneered a radiation treatment for prostate cancer. My father was later one of his patients and reported that Dr. L. had a superb bedside manner, taking my father’s hand, gazing tenderly into his eyes, and saying, “We’ll get through this together.”

Because my father grew up poor, it was important to him to live frugally, and by this I mean the bottle of shampoo in the bathroom he shared with us three kids was a container of Joy dishwashing detergent, and we drank powdered milk. He learned about investing and got his offspring started early with saving and investing.

Money is not usually a preoccupation of mine. Every now and then, I run around to the various websites to add up my holdings. Sometimes it’s six months since the last time I did it; sometimes it’s two years. I did it recently and was rather pleasantly surprised. (I guess I have also lived frugally, in a small apartment for a long time, with no kids, no car, no expensive travel or vices.) In addition, though we did our very best to spend every last cent of our parents’ money on our mother’s care, there is a little something left for each of us.

I actually could buy my siblings’ shares of this house I am sitting in and stop working, as well. I verified this by speaking the other day with a financial advisor. However, I can’t imagine I’d have the same carefree attitude about spending I have had in recent years. I have suddenly begun tearing paper towels—the ones that are already only half the size of normal paper towels—in half, and when I leave a room, I make sure to turn off the light.

I also put a cloth handkerchief everywhere I had a box of tissues, but had to rescind that when all my hankies began filling up with blood due to the low humidity.

Today I put on my fleece-lined flannel shirt and my base layer warm pants and tucked my shirt into my outer pants. Earlier in this adventure, I often forgot to do that last thing and regretted it when the cold wind blew right up the front of my stomach. I took my parents’ walk and felt toasty warm throughout.

I think this blog was a little more interesting when it was about people with cancer rather than about whether I took a walk or not, and the decision one oldish lady is trying to make which is of no consequence to anyone else on earth, but here we are; it’s helping me to write it. It moves the energy in some way.

Yesterday evening I felt gloomy, thinking that buying this house is a ludicrous idea: I don’t want to worry about money, and it seemed clear that this is really all about trying somehow to assemble one living parent from the combined artifacts of both, when of course nothing will bring even one living cell of either of them back, and then I cried and cried, which was good. I don’t think there has been enough crying because in some way, after my second parent died, I sort of felt, “I already did that,” but I didn’t, actually.

However, today I feel kind of bullish about this idea again, possibly thanks to my visit earlier today from the retired B-Dry fellow regarding the basement.

Not to make this even more boring, but there are three major repairs the house needs: The roof needs replacing, ditto the air conditioning system, and the basement floods every time there is a good rain or substantial snow thaw. The basement has seven distinct areas and I have seen water in every last one of them, which appears first right in the middle of one large room, which was a bit mystifying until earlier today, when the B-Dry fellow explained that the water is coming in where the floor meets the wall, not following its proper path because the clay tile under the house is somehow compromised, and then popping up through the floor and settling in the low spots.

Only the roof figured in the recent appraisal of the house, so replacing the air conditioning and fixing the wet basement would not mean we could sell the house for more, but not doing those things would almost certainly mean having to reduce the price we list it for by a substantial amount.

The B-Dry fellow retired just within the past year from actively installing these systems, which fix the problem from the inside. He said there will not be a need to dig a trench all the way around the outside of the house, which was good news. He was an absolute font of interesting information, including that once upon a time Lake Erie reached to as close as a block or so from here. He examined the storm drain in the basement and pointed out that it is bone dry: Water is not reaching it. Maybe keeping the basement dry is just a matter of opening the pipes up in the area of the drain; cross your fingers. He gave me the name of a drain place and I have an appointment with them on Monday.

He explained how a B-Dry system works and what installing one would entail, and gave me a ballpark price which is not actually out of the question. At any rate, it was less than half what the first roof place quoted last week; I will meet with two others after the roof is no longer covered with snow.

Furthermore, the B-Dry fellow said he wouldn’t even bother fixing the wet basement. He said just to disclose it to potential buyers. When I said that might be me, he said that even so he wouldn’t necessarily fix it because the water is only seen at the bottom of the walls: The problem is not the eaves overflowing and soaking the whole walls. The basement does not smell funny. There is no sign of mold. The walls aren’t bulging. While water can lead to mold, mold does not grow on concrete or tile. It grows on drywall and wood, so the B-Dry fellow said he would recommend removing the bottom six to eight inches of wood paneling in the one room in the basement that has it; you can see that bottom expanse has been touched by water repeatedly.

I asked about what we would do if fixing the drain doesn’t do the trick and we decide not to spend the money on the B-Dry system. Nothing?? Yes! He said he personally would do nothing, once we remove the bottom of the wood paneling and any items on the floor (ahem) that could grow mold. 

My father long ago set four or five box fans on the floor in the area that most often gets wet, and we turn those on when that happens. I asked the B-Dry fellow if we should upgrade our fans, maybe getting one or two of those powerful fans that blow right along the ground, and he didn’t even think we should do that, though I probably will get a couple of those if we don’t do the big repair and if I buy the house.