Home Repair

We've had contractors and their workers at our house off and on over the past few weeks. An undetected roof leak had been slowly soaking the walls of a small closet near our front door. Eventually, things got bad enough that the walls began crumbling away. In our defense, we rarely use this closet and don't routinely go around inspecting every nook and cranny of the house.

As long as we had the workers there, we also pointed out another issue with water that we've noticed at the back of the house. Again, we weren't quick enough to avoid some amount of water damage but at least it wasn't as bad as the front closet. The root cause of both problems is a pair of pine trees with annoyingly long needles. The trees are on our neighbors lot but they insist on leaning over our house. The needles have always made keeping our gutters clean difficult but in recent years the amount of needles has increased significantly. Looking up at the tree, one can see a number of dead needles - a sign, hopefully, of the trees' imminent demise.

I used to hate having people around working on the house. Not so much because of the intrusion although that is a little bit of a pain. No, I disliked having them around because I always felt like their presence was somehow a judgment about me. Why didn't I notice the problem earlier? What was I thinking with the repair attempt I tried? And finally, why on earth can't you just fix this yourself? I could feel their eyes watching me - "Look at him. Soft. Helpless. Inept. A real man would have taken care of this himself."

Thankfully, I don't feel that way any longer. I'm old enough now that I feel like most of the workers assume I probably made these sorts of repairs when I was younger. Now, as a middle-aged man, my time is too valuable to be spent on home repairs. I can afford to let the young whippersnappers hang the drywall instead of doing it myself (I've never hung drywall).

When I was younger and would ask a question, I swear I would get a look of condescension - like, "This guy has no clue, I can't believe I have to explain this to him". To be honest, they would have been correct in that assessment. Now that I'm older, I know a little bit more but still not very much. I've learned that if I just ask vague questions or obvious statements (e.g. "So, you took off three rows of siding."), I get a much more thorough explanation. Often, as they are explaining, I sense they are watching my reaction to see if I agree with their course of action. I always do since I really don't have a clue about most of it.