Treasure Hunt

So I’m up on the ladder, minding my own business, happily scrapping paint off the bracket (it has been decided that it is a bracket and not a corbel) when out of the corner of my eye I catch a red truck turn the corner and pull up behind me on the street. A voice calls out, “Are you still looking for doors” . The voice is Sheri’s but the truck is her husbands. Sheri, you may recall, owns the antique store down town and sold me the pocket doors last year at a ridiculously cheap price.

I climbed down off the ladder and walked up to her truck. She tells me that Gary is running an estate sale and has some old doors. Gary owns another antique store in Old Town. He has a sort of bad reputation but has always treated me well. Some refer to him as Gary The Pirate. Gary’s shop is the place I call The Junk Store because it is filled with so much junk you can barely walk around in it, but there are some treasures to be had. In fact, I bought a set of 1880s copper plated pocket door locksets there for $5.00!

Anyway, I said, “Hell yea I’m still looking for doors” . I don’t go in to Sheri’s shop as much as I used to but every time I do go in she asked me what I’m looking for this time and I always answer the same, “Oh, nothing really, just browsing, but I’m always on the lookout for Eastlake Doors” . That’s why she came over and told me about the doors when she saw them.

She said she saw them yesterday and was going to stop by but she had car trouble. That’s why she’s driving Hubby’s truck. I ask where the sale is and she can’t quite remember the cross streets. She says it’s just off Fairfield on one of the “little streets”. Fairfield is only about 12 blocks long and runs along a bluff just above and parallel to one of the main drags in town. There are a series of short little streets that jut off Fairfield but they only go less than a half of a block before they reach the edge of the bluff. Sometimes a street may only have two houses before the bluff. I figured I’d just hop in the truck and drive around Fairfield and I’d find it in no-time. There is not much area to cover on Fairfield.

At this point I should note that I’ve been working on the North-East corner of the house. I know that the rest of the world is broiling in a heat wave but Eureka never broils, bakes, sizzles, burns, or scorches. It’s like we live on another planet. In fact, when Sheri pulls up, I’m wearing Long John’s under my jeans and I have two T-Shirts on with the outer one being long sleeve. The sun came out today, but if you get in the shade it can still be chilly. When I’m up on the ladder, in the shade, with the wind coming off the bay it gets down right cold.

I don’t think that I should strip down before I go, I just hop in the truck and start driving. I get to Fairfield and start driving around and there are a lot of signs. You know how it is with garage sale signs, people leave them up for weeks. It’s not something you notice until you are actually trying to read all of them. Intermingled with all these are signs for the estate sale. The estate sale signs are large and made of thin paper board. Because it is breezy they are all curled around the poles and you really can’t read them. I’m driving up and down Fairfield, turning on to every “little street” I see and I don’t see any stupid estate sale. Because I still have the Long Johns on I am literally sweating my you-know-what’s off. I’m getting very aggravated.

The whole thing starts to get a little frustrating. On top of this my old POS truck has a funny thing with the brakes. The front right tire tends to brake harder than the rest. You don’t notice it with casual driving, but this wasn’t casual driving. I’m driving hard and braking fast as I turn on to every one of these “little streets” and make a zillion 3-point turns. Ever time I hit the brakes hard the front right tire locks up and screeches. It’s a little embarrassing.

I finally decided to pull over when I see one of the curled up signs. I get out of the truck and walk over to it on the power line poll and unscroll it so I can read it. It says 2150 Fairfield. Ok, so I drive to 2150 Fairfield and there is no estate sale. There are 2 little old ladies in the side yard listening to 50s rock and roll while they work in their garden. I ask them about the estate sale and they say it’s around the corner but it’s been shut down for the day. Crap!

I walked around the corner and sure enough there was a lot of stuff still laid out in the front yard and a sign said, “More Inside”. Leaning up against the side of the garage I saw 4 doors. Sure enough there were 4 Eastlake doors in very good condition. Very little paint and most had a full set of hardware. They were absolutely beautiful. All 4 were in better shape than the 8 or 10 doors I had up in the door room at home. Most would need just a light sanding and would be ready for paint. The best part is, they are all 32-inch doors. Perfect for the bedrooms.

I went back to the little old ladies and asked them if they knew what time the sale started tomorrow. They said 10:00 AM. I got in my truck and started driving home, all the while plotting my return the next day. I wanted these doors bad. It would be tough to make it there at 10:00, though. I figured 11:00 would be the earliest. I started to get antsy. I’m running scenarios through my head trying to figure out how I can get their earlier. I decided one thing was for sure, I needed to show up with cash. It was about 4:30 so I decided to swing by the bank.

I turned down E Street and headed towards Old Town where my bank is. It then dawned on me that Gary’s shop (aka The Junk Store) is in Old Town on F Street. It’s only 4:30 and if he’s not at the estate sale then maybe he’s at his shop. I headed to The Junk Store.

I got a parking space only about a block away and quick-stepped it over to Gary’s shop. When I walked in he was at the counter with his back to me. I sighed deeply. Gary turned around and I asked, “Are you the one running that estate sale over off Fairfield”. He said, “Yes, I am”. I said, “I’m interested in those doors”. He said, “Oh, you’re the one Sheri told be about”. God bless that woman.

Ok, so the doors are essentially mine at this point. However, I am genetically incapable of paying the asking price for used goods. Gary’s no fool, though. You don’t get a nick-name of “Gary The Pirate” for nothing. I ask him how much he wants for the doors. Gary says, “Well, most of them have hardware and they’re in good shape” (he’s selling them) “how about $45 a piece” . I don’t want to insult him and he knows I really want them. If I go too low he may say the $45 price is firm. I say, “How about $160 for all 4”. Gary pauses, his mouth opens, and he looks up at the ceiling. He’s doing the math in is head. After a few seconds he says, “Deal!”. I tell him I’ve got to run by the bank and he says he’ll meet me at the estate sale house in 20 minutes.

I run by the bank and grab $160 and then head home to get off these stupid, GD, Long Johns. I am absolutely dieing in these things. I get to the estate sale and load up the doors before Gary arrives. As I’m loading a woman pulls up and calls out, “Oh, you got the doors, uh?”. She goes on to say she’s looking for Art Deco stuff for her 20s bungalow. She has her eye on some clothes rack some place. I went back to loading the doors. Just as I finish Gary pulls up. I hand him $160 for the doors and we shake hands. As I leave he’s haggling with the lady over an old clothes rack.

I head home and unload my treasure. I’m now the proud new owner of four 32-inch Eastlake doors with hardware. If anyone asks, I’ll say this was a good day.

Payback Is A Bitch

I few weeks back I briefly mentioned a local lunatic named Jerry Droz who is running for mayor. My connection to him is that he submitted a bizarre letter as part of the public comment process when I petitioned to have my house added to the Local Register of Historic Places.

A week ago Sunday I was over at a friends house and he was telling me about a pending lawsuit against him by some crazy neighbor of his. My friend is fixing up a property several blocks from his own residence and the neighbor in question lives next door to this property. I won't bore you with the whole story, but it has somehow ended up in court. Anyway, there were a group of us listening to the story and when he was through I said, “Speaking of crazy people, remember that lunatic Jerry Droz who commented on my house during the Registry petition? Well, he’s running for Mayor.” My friend looks at me bug-eyed and says, “Jerry Droz!?! That’s the guy who’s suing me!”

Yep, I live in a small town.

So, I’ve decided to use Jerry’s own words against him. I’ve made several copies of the letter he attached to my petition and I’m sending it to the 2 daily newspapers in town, a weekly paper that also has an editorial section, and a copy to the incumbent Mayor, who is running for reelection. I also gave a copy to my friend to give to his lawyer so they’ll know who they’re dealing with.

The letter is 2 pages, single spaced, and is not only bizarre but is poorly written. I know I have my moments in writing, but this is bad. Here are a few choice excerpts. The punctuation and spacing are exactly as Jerry wrote it. The letter is to the Department of Community Development and to the Historic Preservation Committee. It is a now part of the public record. It’s also interesting to note that Jerry is a State Licensed Painting Contractor. I think maybe he didn’t wear his respirator enough.

Request submitted by , City of Eureka

This is not a matter which should even be considered , since 
it already fits the category of   of an Historic structure 
therefore, it should already  be on the Local Register of 
Historic Places.It can not be on the Historic Registry if 
it has been altered or changed which would reflect a change 
to its original character or charm, It needs to be cleaned 
up & painted by a Professional State Licensed Contractor.


   The vacant lots within our City need 
trees and landscaping. Humboldt County is the Redwood capital  
of the World so , planted on these lots shall be Redwood Trees 
as big & as mature as possible and only along the Street.They 
must be set back the width of one and a half cars from the 
highway to allow for expansion if its ever needed .Access to 
the interior must be allowed so , no continuous trees will 
be permitted without allowing vehicle passage or access.


(There are a few more paragraphs of things completely unrelated 
to my house and it's nomination. He then goes off on a 2 
paragraph parable about a hardwood floor installer in Mexico 
names Felix Cortez. Things didn’t go well for Felix. 
Jerry continues....)

Likewise , those not following my lead will soon   find that 
things will not go right. I had asked , Dan Moody 
(Mr. Moody works for the city) to install signs limiting the 
amount of time  vehicles can park in front of , Kragen’s and 
The Golden Gate Service Station and so , while , Dan, like the 
hardwood floor installer  is still a wonderfully bright & 
talented gentleman and truly does an excellent job he still 
took it upon himself  to do the things his way.Now, vehicles 
that are for sale & have no intentions on leaving their vehicles 
there for any length of time can not park there. Now, just like 
the hardwood floors that one sign needs to be removed & the 
appropriate signs be reinstalled.


(It goes on and on with the signs and the cars. He finishes with…)

 Follow my direction. The city can run efficiantly.She has 
been neglected for years. We need to get her back on her feet 
again for this I need your help.




For I cannot succeed without you……………………God bless,

Yours Truly,
Jerry Droz

City & County Director
Acting Mayor

An article in the paper last week mentioned that Jerry at first had some trouble getting the 20 signatures necessary to get his name on the ballot. I thought about tracking him down and signing his nomination petition just so I could see him make a fool of himself during the campaign.

When Is It Too Much?

Once again I find myself doing a little soul searching. Two things brought it up this time. First, the "little shack" I showed pictures of yesterday will make just about anyone think things at one point had gotten out of hand. The question is, though, is it too much? I suppose if you don’t care for the style then the answer is, yes, they went too far. Even if you do like Victorian architecture you might think that is over doing it.

That house really is just down the street from me. When I first moved in I would walk down a few times a month to look at it. The house sits on a bluff overlooking the bay. It’s a nice spot to sit and look at the house, bay, birds, and boats. The house across the street from it is no eye-sore either. An argument could be made that the house is “too much”. If that’s not over-doing it, then I don’t know what is. I really like it though, so I guess for me it isn’t too much. It’s all so subjective.

The other thing that brought this up for me is the amount of time I’m taking stripping off the paint and then repainting the corbels and window trim. I could have sanded them down and then just done one color and it would have taken all of 20 minutes to finish them. Instead, I stripped to bare wood and then primed and finished with three colors. I would say there is about 7 hours of labor in the one window I did on the front porch. Is that too much? I guess it depends on who you ask.

Normally, I don’t question these sorts of things. When I’m sitting on the floor of the dining room stripping paint off wainscoting the hours just fly by and I don’t give it a second thought. I think it’s the fact that I’m out in the front yard doing all this meticulous work that I think about it. Gasp! What will the neighbors think? Maybe I shouldn’t care what the neighbors think, and for the most part I don’t. At the same time, though, I don’t want to appear to be too much of a kook. I could end up on some list like some other people I know.

The Nerve of Some People!

There’s this little shack on my street about 4 blocks away, someone told me it was built in the 80s, and they stole my color scheme! They must have painted it over the weekend, because I never noticed this place before. It’s just so irritating. Now there are 2 multi-toned green houses on the street! Grrrrr!

Cornered

Well, the new tenant came today and gave me a big ol’ wad of cash and I gave her the keys. I can finally give my full attention back to the house. I started on the outside corner today. I made the management decision to do both corbels, siding, and window all in one shot. It’s going to take a while but it’s the right way to go.

The first job – as always - is going to be to strip everything back to bare wood. I should have gotten a close-up of just how bad it is. I’m sure you’ve all see it before, a nice new thick coat of latex paint over old, flaking, dried up, 80 year old paint. Painting contractors should lose their license for doing this sort of shoddy workmanship

I’m sure a lot of people that pass by my house and see me doing this work think I’m crazy for spending so much time scraping all the paint off, but if they saw it up close they’d understand just how bad it is. Even if this corner were marginally good I’d probably do the same thing. This is the corner that points right at the street corner. It is one of my favorite parts of the house. It just has so much character to it.

The little first floor window that you can just barley see to the right in the photo is a small stained glass window. The big front arched stained glass window is just to the left of this corner. There is really a lot going on and it’s important that it looks good. There is also the fact that paint does much more than just make things look good, it also protects the wood. It’s important to get it right.

Two Down Four To Go

I think I mentioned the other day that I only had three of these brackets (or are they corbels) left after this one. There are, in fact, 4 more to go. The first corner I did was missing one of the brackets because of the addition, so I was only counting one on the opposite corner. In reality, I have two bay corners left, each with 2 brackets. It doesn’t sound like much, but they are time consuming.



I spent nearly 4 hours today painting this corner. I had the bracket, all the window trim, the sunburst over the window, and the trim (along with another sunburst) on the top-outside section of the porch. I was able to get 2 coats on everything and it was very slow going. One of the biggest obstacles was just getting up in there.

I own 4 ladders and I had to go borrow one from a friend because all of mine were either too short or too long. Even with the right ladder is was hard. I practically had to be a contortionist to get my body up in there and paint all the detail.



But it was worth it. Finally, now that I'm not taking shots in the direct sun, you can really see a nice contrast between the Clary Sage and the Livable Green. Now I really need to get the other side done to balance out the front of the house.

A Trip To Ranch Country

I spend almost all my time confined to the old part of the city. I live, work, and shop in the older parts of town, and all of my friends also live in this area, so I forget that there is a whole other side to the city. Last week I ventured over in to Ranch Country. Actually, I think these homes are only Ranch-esque in nature. They are 80s & 90s versions of the Ranch Home.

When I was a kid growing up we lived in a Ranch Home. My parents had it built in the early 60s. I guess you could call it a custom home but it was no McMansion or anything. I think it was about 2,500 sq ft, maybe a little larger. It had 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, large kitchen, dining room, and a very large family room. The floors were random width, hand pegged pine. One end of the family room was dominated by a massive brick fire place with a brick hearth that created a bench along most of the wall. On one side of the fire place there was a large cabinet built in to the brick for storing wood. It had a wooden door on it with very nice, sort of Colonial style wrought iron hinges and handle. It was a favorite place for me to hide. On the other side there were built in bookshelves.

The front of the house was symmetrical with the front door in the center with a small, inset porch. There were 2 double hung, 6 over 6 windows on either side. The front and back of the house were sided in wood and the 2 sides were brick. The house was on a sort of triangular shaped lot at the end of a cul-de-sac and it stretch out low and wide across the back of the lot. Out front were 3 big oak trees that caused my Dad constant problems because he could never get grass to grow under the thick canopy created by the three trees.

All of the homes on the street were of similar size, and even though I think they could all be considered Ranches, they were all a little different. Some had a more modern flare, while others maybe had some Tudor influence, but most were strict Ranch style homes. It was a fun street to grow up on. There were a lot young, growing families with kids. It was overly typical Americana for the 1960s. Of course, I’m sure there were lot’s of sordid stories behind those perfect doors.

Last week a friend stopped by to show off some treasure he had just found at a garage sale. Mainly he wanted to show me the big slab of redwood burl he had picked up. He stopped by to gloat, naturally, but also to tell me there was more where that came from. I hopped it my truck and drove across town to where the garage sale was. As I said, this was Ranch Country, but at the same time it wasn’t. There was lots of vinyl siding and T-111 siding. The homes just didn’t give me the same feeling as the homes on the street I grew up on. They were all kind of the same and somewhat uninspired in their appearance. Instead of being a nice neighborhood of Ranch Homes it was a neighborhood of Dude-Ranch Homes. There was something unauthentic about them.

Garage Sale Redwood Slab & Router: $20.00
A trip to another part of the city to get it: Priceless

So You Think You Can Strip

I’m amazed that I’ve managed to find time to strip some of the trim on the front of the house since I’ve had to deal with the apartment so much over the past week. I should probably have been finished with it at this point, but as it is, I’m far from being finished. I can feel the summer just slipping away, thank you very much apartment.



Here’s where I’m at. I’ve got all the trim around the front porch window stripped, along with one of three corbels – or is that a bracket? I’ve always thought of corbels as being thick, meaty, solid wood things that are just under the eaves of the roof. Anything else I’ve called a bracket. Last year when I went before the Preservation Committee to have my house added to the Local List of Historic Places I was corrected when I called it a bracket. I was told that is a corbel by one of the esteemed members of the committee. I never got a straight answer when I asked what the difference was between a corbel and a bracket. Maybe it is one of those “I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it” sort of things.

When I bought the house this corbel/bracket was the mounting place for the cable TV hook-up. Can you believe they just screwed cable right in to it? The house had 8 cable runs streaming all over it and they all converged on this spot. It was just a rats nest of cables right there by the front door. After about a month in the house I called the cable company to complain. The guy I talked to was familiar with the house and sheepishly admitted they don't do that sort of thing anymore. He said it would be a while before they could get a crew out to clean it all up.

We went back and forth on it and I finally convinced him to have a guy come out and give me a new drop from the pole with a new service entrance. They could abandon all the old cable and I would clean everything up. He had someone there in an hour! I was amazed. Sure enough, I got a brand new cable from the pole and then over the next week or so I stripped out 100s of yards of coax cable from the house.

Anyway, I hoping to pick up speed on the paint stripping once the new tenant is in. I picked up the new carpet today and I’ll install it Saturday morning. After that I just have to fix a hinge on the bathroom door and that baby is done. This assumes that the old tenant is coming back for her last few remaining things that are in the apartment. She moved 90% out a week ago but she hasn’t been back since. I sense there may be a dump run in the very near future for me.

Oh, and as for the show I alluded to in the title, “So You Think You Can Dance”, I’m amazed at how much I like it. My exposure to dance is very limited. Fifteen or 20 years ago I very briefly went out with a woman who was taking modern dance in college and went to a few of her recitals, and to be honest, it did little for me. Then when I worked at the local PBS affiliate for a short time I had to sit through a few Ballroom Dance competitions and that did even less for me. For some reason, though, this time I’m really enjoying it. Maybe my tastes have matured.

On Cats & Cat Pee

I’d like to thank everyone for their comments and suggestions over the past week or so concerning my rental unit carpet. I only wish I had more time to try some of the suggestions because it kills me to have to rip out and throw away carpet that I installed less than 4 years ago. What a waste. Even if I’m not paying for it, it still bugs me. Of course, I still have to do the work, and everyone knows I’d much rather be working on my own house. I think that bugs me even more.

Anyway, considering the number of suggestions I got, it seems this is a pretty common problem. I’ve lived with cats literally just about all my life. I think there were a couple of years in my 20s when I lived in a house that did not have a cat in it. Cats make great pets.

I only started thinking about this today and it dawned on me that in all that time, only once did I have a problem with cats peeing where they shouldn’t. What makes this even more odd is that those cats that peed on the carpet in my parents house were long-time residence of the house. We had several cats when I was growing up, but we had two cats, Zelda and Midnight, that were with us for more than 15 years each. They were well behaved cats for the longest time and then suddenly they picked a spot in the dining room and started peeing in the corner. My Mom was furious. I never really thought about it, but now it seems odd that they could go for so long and then start acting up. So what changed.

The one thing I can think of is that most of the kids had left home. I was the youngest and last to live at home. When they started their bad habit I was about 16 or so and never at home. Now that I think about it, I think these cats were accustomed to having a lot of attention all their lives and over the course of a few years it pretty much all went away. My dad was never a real big cat person, the kids were mostly gone, and the one remaining child, me, was never at home. My Mom was working a lot at that time so the cats never got attention any more. I think they started peeing on the carpet to get attention. It worked, all right, but it was probably not the kind of attention they wanted.

As for my current problem, it is a similar situation. I helped the tenant move in to the apartment. She was only a moving a few blocks, and I have a truck, so I helped with a few of the big things. When we went to her old apartment I was very aware of the condition of the place. I figured this would give me insight as to how well she would treat my place. There was definitely no cat pee smell. The cat was there, along with the food and litter box, and I didn’t notice a thing. It was a pretty normal looking – and normal smelling - apartment for someone who was in the process of moving. So again, what changed.

Well, as we all know, she pretty much abandoned her cat in the apartment so she could spend every waking and sleeping moment with her new boyfriend. Again, we have a cat that probably had a good amount of attention and suddenly it finds itself alone so it began to pee where it shouldn’t to get attention. I don’t think she stopped changing the litter box because I regularly saw empty cat littler jugs in the plastics recycling bin. Even my own cats will go in the litter box no matter how bad it gets, and it does get bad at times. They just keep piling it on.

I’m not saying this is the cause of all cat pee problems but I bet it is a big cause of the problem. Probably fewer people should have pets than currently do. They are a responsibility and they require more than just food, water, and poop dirt. If you don’t treat them right, they’ll let you know.

Now if we could just do something about the throwing-up thing they do. What is the deal with that?

A Valiant Effort Was Made

Well, no one can say I didn’t try. Ok, I guess you could say it, but you would be a dirty, rotten liar. On Sunday I was having dinner with some friends and I mentioned my urinous carpet problems. One friend suggested I try his Deionizer. It’s a little box that looks like an expensive fan and I guess it attacks the odor at the sub-atomic level or something. I’m not really sure what it does, or if it even does anything at all, but I had nothing to loose.

He brought it by my house Monday afternoon and I took it up to the apartment and plugged it in. I’ve got to be honest, I’m a little skeptical about this thing. I mean, it even sounds stupid – A Deionizer. What is this the Jettson's? He said it costs him about $500 for the unit and the only thing I could think was - SSSSSucker! Like I said, though, I’ve got nothing to loose.

As the deionizer {snicker} quietly whirred away in the background I crawled around on the floor again to see if I could find the source of the overpowering stench. It is incredibly strong. It just hits you in the face as soon as you open the door. The other tenant has been burning incense in the hallway because it tends to creep out there too. I made my way around the edge of the room crawling and sniffing and suddenly – Boom –I found The Spot. This was The Spot where the cat had done his nasty, sinful little deed. Or I guess I should say Deeds, because this was too strong to have been from just one time relieving himself on the carpet. I don’t see how I missed it before. The Spot was just under the window and it extended about a foot out from the wall, and was about 2 feet wide.

I positioned the deionizer {snicker} in front of The Spot and I then ran down to PetCo and bought another bottle of Natures Miracle. When I got back to the apartment I pulled up the carpet around The Spot and removed the padding underneath. I used several sticks to prop up the carpet and I saturated it and the sub floor with the Natures Miracle. I used the whole bottle on The Spot and extended out a good 2 feet in every direction around it. I let the deionizer {snicker} run over-night.

Today after work I ran up to the apartment and – Bam – right in the face again. Nothing had changed at all, it seemed. Maybe it was a little better, but a little better will never do. It either had to be stench-free or I wouldn’t be satisfied. I decided I had had enough. I went down and got a utility knife and 10 minutes later the carpet and most of the padding was piled up in the backyard waiting to be hauled to the dump. Immediately there was a huge improvement.

I went down today and bought new carpet and pad which I’ll pick-up Thursday. I’m going to run the deionizer {snicker} over-night again. Tomorrow I’ll shellac the sub floor to seal it and then install the new carpet on Saturday. The new tenant is supposed to move in on Tuesday. So far, I’ve chewed up about 2/3 of the deposit on the carpet, pad, and other assorted little things. Something tells me labor for installation will eat up the rest.

Local Traffic and Weather Together

I had a flurry of local hits on my blog over the weekend, and a few comments from locals. I don’t tell anyone locally about my blog, for what ever reason, so it was interesting. Also on Saturday, as I was getting out of my truck, a woman walking by my house stopped me and asked if this was The Petch House. She was nice, and we really didn’t talk that long, but still it was an odd experience. It was as if suddenly worlds collided. I asked her how she had found my blog and she couldn’t really recall exactly. She said she was just surfing around checking out other local blogs and mine was one of the few non-political blogs in the area that has regular postings.

Most of the local traffic to my blog was generated from people finding one of my earliest posts about me adding my house to the Local Register of Historic places. I won’t go in to the details again, you can read it if you want - Parts 1 & 2, but a local lunatic added a letter to my application as part of the public comment process. In the letter he complained about any city business that happened to pop into his pee-brained head. It was a little disappointing to me because I had spent a lot of time researching the house and The Petch Family and done what I thought was a very nice write-up, and now the only public comment to be forever attached to my write-up is this crazed letter by a man named Mr. Droz. Well, it seems he is now going to try and run for Mayor and I guess some local people Googled his name and found my blog. He haunts me even today.

I noticed that too about local blogs, that most of them that get regular postings by their authors are political in nature. This is a small town in sparsely populated county. We have only one real local TV news cast but there is a lot of print news media, considering the size of the area. Eureka has two daily newspapers, and then there is The Arcata Eye, and The North Coast Journal. With so much news in print already it’s hard to believe there is that much to blog about. I must admit, though, the population in this area is pretty polarized.

The county is dominated by the city of Eureka, and then 9 miles north, the city of Arcata. Humboldt State University is in Arcata. The majority of the county is liberal and registered Democrat or Green, but Arcata is about as far left as you can get. It seems like every other week the city council is voting to impeach Bush or Cheney for something. I am registered Green and consider myself to be Socially Liberal and Fiscally Conservative – to a point – but even Arcata is a little too far left for me sometimes.

Then there is another very vocal part of the area that is far right conservative. We get regular letters to the editor from people that sound like they want to ditch the US Constitution and use The 10 Commandments as law. And then there are just the hard-core Republicans and their letters are just so venomous. They must be listening to the hyperbole on Talk Radio 24/7 to get so angry and mad. I couldn’t imagine living my life like that. Lately there has been a tit-for-tat battle going on amongst letter writers arguing which are more violent, Christians or Muslims. To be honest, I think if you took a body count from the past 2000 years the corpses would be stacked pretty evenly on both sides.

When I moved up here from Santa Cruz about 7 years ago (Santa Cruz is another far left liberal college town, like Arcata) everyone looked at me like, “Eureka!?! Why aren’t you moving to Arcata?”. You would have thought I told them I was moving to Mars. Frankly, after 12 years in Santa Cruz I got tired of living in a crowded, far left liberal college town with bad streets, no parking, and over priced housing. Arcata is a nice town but there is no way I want to live there. People, tie-dye was a fashion statement 35 years ago, but come on….. we’re in a new millennium, for Pete’s sake!

No, I like Eureka and a lot of people don’t understand that. I like Old Town, Down Town, the old neighborhoods, and I love my house. Even in this county Eureka is the town everyone loves to hate. It’s almost comical how much some local people dislike Eureka. I think that you have to spend a lot of time someplace else in order to appreciate this city. Yes, there are problems with drugs, and the crime is higher than other parts of the county, but really, the city is pretty tame compared to every other place I’ve lived. I just have to chuckle when I read a letter to the editor in the local paper when someone complains that a cop didn’t stop to direct traffic when a traffic signal has broken and is flashing red. It’s quaint.

Yes this city needs help, but show me one city in this country that doesn’t. I think Eureka gets dumped on here a lot because it is the Big City for the area, and even though it’s small, it still appears to have Big City problems. It’s all relative, though. Spend a week in LA and you’ll think this is Mayberry only with better weather and better architecture.

And speaking of better weather, we broke a record with the heat on Sunday. It got up to a blistering 68 degrees. That is toasty for Eureka. Of course, with the heat index it felt more like 72. I came very, very close to breaking sweat…..but not quite.

Aroma Therapy

That’s what the apartment needs. I went in today and cleaned the carpets and they look great. The apartment looks great. The tenant did a very nice job of cleaning it. It just doesn’t smell great. I’m not even sure if it’s the carpet that smells. After cleaning the carpets I went around on my hands and knees and tried and find the source of the cat pee smell and I can’t quite find anything. It just sort of permeates the living room and kitchen. There is one area next to the heater that sort of smells, but it’s hard to tell. To be honest, after a few minutes of breathing deeply while crawling around on my hands and knees I start to get light headed and everything begins to smell the same.

The carpets sure needed cleaning, though, especially the living room. It was visibly dirty but there must have been a lot of dirt that wasn’t really apparent to the naked eye. This may come as a shock to some, but I don’t think past tenants vacuumed as often as they should have. Gasp! I know, it’s hard to believe. I rented one of those Rug Doctor machines from the grocery story and it did a pretty good job. The living room is 11X17 feet, I think, and the carpet is less than 4 years old. The reservoir on the machine holds 3.5 gallons of water and I had to change it 12 times! That is more than 40 gallons of water I went through, and each time I changed the water it was black!

Annie left a comment the other day about a product called Anti-Icky-Poo to try and take the cat pee smell away. I was going to go buy it, if for no other reason than I like the name, but the tenant had already purchased a product called Natures Miracle. She had already used about half the bottle and I used the rest today. I also got several more windows opened to air the place out, and I’m burning incense around the clock as well. I hope I don’t burn the place down (wink, wink). That would be a shame, wouldn’t it. I wouldn’t get to be a landlord anymore. That would really, really, really, be just too bad. Oh, woe is me. What would I do if I didn’t have tenants and instead I had a big fat insurance settlement check. My life would surly be over as I know it today. How could I possibly go on.

Somehow I’d manage.

I also called the tenant today and told her, basically, if she can get the smell out she’ll get most of her deposit back. I won’t charge her for the carpet cleaning, because, to be honest, most of that dirt wasn’t hers. The only thing I’ll charge her for is the water heater blanket that her cat shredded. That costs $17, and then there is the $100/hr labor I charge. Of course, I don’t charge for partial hours, and I work slow, so that comes to $217, but still, she would get a good chunk of change back if she can get rid of the smell.

The pee ball is in her court.

The only other thing I had to do to the apartment was to touch-up the bathroom floor. The bathroom floors are interesting. The apartments are 1920s and instead of doing tile they just created the floor and baseboards out of lime mortar.

Old Picture with a dirt floor, but you get the idea


Today, if you do tile you screw down cement board and then use thin-set adhesive to adhere the tile to the cement board. Back in the day, they laid down a thick bead of lime mortar and then stuck the tiles in it. In the case of these bathrooms they trowel out the mortar smooth and created a seamless floor with integrated baseboard. It's pretty cool and very durable.

It’s A Banner Day!

A new banner for The Petch House Blog. It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a while but inspiration never struck. I think the new paint job on the house has given me renewed inspiration so I played around with a few things today.

I now have to figure out how to get the new banner to appear on the HouseBlogs web ring. They’re getting so big these days with all the national attention in the press. I’m probably going to have to fill out some form in triplicate and submit it to the HouseBlogs World Headquarters. It will then go through several design review committees until it’s finally approved. No doubt I’ll have to grease a few palms along the way. How else can they afford the palatial corporate campus for HouseBlogs out in Chicago.

I did the new banner instead of cleaning carpets in the apartment over the garage. I just wasn’t in to it. I also forgot to tell the tenant I would be going in to the apartment. I’m supposed to give her 24 hours notice before entering. She has pretty much moved out, so I know she wouldn’t care. Still, this is what I tell myself so I don’t feel lazy.

I didn’t give her notice so I can’t clean the carpets. Really, I want to, but I just can’t. My hands are tied on this one.

My other goal for the day is to do some stripping on the porch trim. We’ll see if I get to it.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I’m not sure this is something I’ve talked about on this blog before. This may be a subject that few of you are familiar with, but I think if we take it slow, I can have everyone up to speed in no time at all. I’m talking about paint stripping. You see, there comes a time when paint build up requires you to remove that paint that is there and start over.

I am talking about the paint build up on the first floor trim. That is the next project and once again Stupid PO Tricks have made the job that much more difficult. When they had the house painted 6 years ago, they painted over the asbestos siding and they also painted the trim. The asbestos siding wasn’t a problem because I removed it. The problem was, they did a lousy job of prepping the trim. There is this new, thick layer of latex paint over an old failing paint job. It’s going to be loads of fun to get it all off.

I finished painting all the siding and second floor trim today. Many, many, many trips up and down the ladder. It's been worth it, though, because I am just really happy with the color scheme. I’ve been getting a lot of complements from neighbors and people passing by. Nothing improves the look of a house more than a fresh coat of paint.

Before I start the joyful paint stripping project I need to deal with the apartment over the garage this weekend. This is the part of land lording I dislike. I wish the tenants would keep their mouths shut, give me money every month, and stay there forever. Is that asking too much? I just ventured up to the apartment a few minutes ago. This is the first time I’ve been up there since I went up two weeks ago and found the place a mess. A mess is putting it mildly. The place was disgusting. I’m happy to report that the exiting tenant has done a pretty good job of cleaning the place up. In fact, she did a great job.

Just from my cursory tour of the apartment it looks like I’m only going to have to replace the water heater blanket and shampoo the carpets. The current tenant used a product called “Natures Miracle” to get rid of the urine smell. There is still a lingering hint of it that I’m hoping to get rid of with the carpet shampoo machine. I should know by tomorrow how well it’s going to work.

Good Morning Starshine

The weather continues to be strangely cooperative for me. We’ve had another morning with sunshine. Our normal summer pattern for July and August is lots and lots overcast skies with afternoon sunshine. The weather for the past 4 days has been absolutely perfect for house painting. My only complaint is that it gets a little cold around 6:00 in the evening. The sun falls behind the house and the wind picks up coming off the bay and it can get very chilly up on that ladder.



I snapped this shot this morning on the way to work. I thought it would be nice to get a shot with the morning sun on the house but I think it’s a little too much sun. The colors look a little washed out. As I said yesterday, I still need to do all the first floor trim around the stained-glass window, along with the corner boards, and the corbels. I also still have the window trim around the window on the porch side of the bay.

I’m really going to have to resist the temptation to do a half-ass job just so I can move on to the next section quickly. I think I’ve got another weeks worth of work on the front of the house, if not more. I want to scrap most of that trim back to bare wood. I have to fix the trim around the stained glass window. I also was to paint the attic gable and that little gable waaaay up on the top of the house. On the south side I was able to paint the gable by hanging out the window. This gable is bigger though, and I won’t be able to reach everything. It’s going to be tricky.

Taking a Backseat

Everything seems to be taking a backseat to the house painting this week. I’ve had 3 days in a row of 6 or 7 hours on a ladder of straight prepping and painting, and this after going in to work for 4 or 5 hours. I was supposed to go through the apartment tonight to see how well the exiting tenant cleaned it. I really don’t want to look, so I blew that off. The new tenant is out of town until the 26th, so I can deal with what ever needs to be dealt with about the apartment this weekend.

I was supposed to go to The Splinter Group meeting tonight, but I totally blew that off. I hadn’t intended to go anyway, but it doesn’t matter because I completely spaced it. There was a message on the machine from a friend asking me if I needed a ride and that’s when it hit me that tonight was the night. The group meets at 7 and I was still on the ladder at 6:30, so even if I wanted to go there was no way I was going to make it.

But it’s all been worth it….

I’ve got one coat on everything except the first floor trim, and it looks pretty damn cool, if I do say so myself. I was too pooped and hungry to get a photo. The first floor trim is going to need some major paint removal. I have 2 big corbels with inset sunbursts, lots of corner trim, some water table, and the trim around the big stained glass window. The stained glass window trim is in really bad shape. The wood can be salvaged but it needs a lot of work.

The trim forms a big arc around the window and is made up of three pieces of wood and it all needs to go back to bare wood. The window itself needs a lot of work. There are 41 pieces of stained glass and the putty looks to be original and is just in horrible shape. Ideally I would redo all the putty but I don’t see that happening this summer. I’m going to do a band-aid fix for now and tackle it next summer.

For now, though, it feels really, really good to have fresh paint on that siding. The house looks so, so, so, so much better.

Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Hey, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad, right? Ok, maybe it’s more like 1 out of 3, but regardless, I have my health back (for the most part) and that’s what’s really important. Nothing improves your outlook on life than to overcome an injury. The air smells sweeter. Food tastes better. Women are prettier. Yes, everything seems to improve – even the weather!

Of course, my own personal comfort in regards to the weather is always of paramount importance, but when you’re painting a house good weather is not just a luxury, it is a necessity. The plan was to start priming today and we’ve had these overcast skies in the morning for the past week or so. Sometimes even a slight drizzle. I can’t put primer on damp wood, and I’m working on the east side, so even if the sun does come out in the afternoon it doesn’t hit that side of the house.

Today I awoke to brilliant blue skies, though. The weather, for painting or otherwise, has moved beyond perfect and reached a state of nirvana. At 12:30 it was….

66 Degrees
6 MPH Wind
78% Humidity
5 Mile Visibility

I think by 2 or 3 that will warm up to a blistering 75 or so. With any luck, by the end of the day the front of the house will be primed and ready for paint. Woo-Hooo!


And to think, on Friday I was considering a Workman's Comp claim for my shoulder!

Strange But True

The bizarre medical condition that is my shoulder continues to confound me. It’s funny that I avoided going to the doctor when it was just a soar shoulder, but now I’m thinking I should go just because it so odd. Wouldn’t it be cool if I ended up in a medical journal or something?

This morning I woke up just as I have for the past three weeks with a very soar shoulder. This time, however, instead of babying it I treated it as if it wasn’t injured at all. The first few hours were difficult but the more I used it the better it got. It wasn’t just a time issue, though. That is to say, I don’t wake up with a soar shoulder and as the day progress it gets better. I have to use it to see improvement, and the more strenuous I use it the better it gets. The less use it sees, it either stays the same or gets worse.

The best it got today was when I was on a ladder sanding shingles by hand with a wadded up piece of 80 grit. I’m writing this as soon as I can because I know that after a few hours of sitting on the couch my shoulder will get progressively worse. I think I’ve discovered a pattern, though.

When I’m at rest my arms drop to the side and it is this downward pull in the same position that irritates my shoulder. (Damn you gravitiy!) When I’m working, especially on prepping the side of the house, my arms are mostly lifted up, and a lot of times are over my head. Today at work when I wasn’t doing much and my arms dangled I would start to feel pain. When this happened I would stick my arm straight up in the air perpendicular with the ground and then reach back and grab the back of my neck. It looks odd. My elbow is pointing skyward while I’m grabbing the back of my neck. It works wonders though. Within in minuets I being to feel normal – I just don’t look normal.

The best part about all of this is, I can work on my house. Today I finished prepping the front. The paint just fell off the house. The front faces east and has seen a lot of morning sunrises. After 80 years the paint just gave up the ability to hold on to the wood. For some reason it adhered to the shingles on the second story better than the horizontal lap siding on the first story. On the first story I could just make two or three passes with my bare hand and be down to bare wood. Tomorrow I should start with the primer. With any luck I will begin the topcoat on Wednesday.

I used a urethane caulk for the first time today. A friend – actually he owns the property next door – is very knowledgeable and I have nothing but the utmost respect for him. He told me about urethane caulk. He says if you put it on bare wood it will never come off. It expands. It’s paintable. And supposedly will out-last any latex acrylic caulk by eons. It does cost about $7.00 a tube so you don’t want to go hog-wild with it, but for certain places it may be the way to go. You also have to clean-up with mineral spirits. I used it around the big stained glass window on the front of the house. I’m never going to be scrapping this house back to bare wood so it’s now or never. I'll give an update on the caulk in a few eons.

Miracle On 9th Street

Ok, this is strange. As many of you know I’ve been going on and on about my poor, poor shoulder. Woe is me, right? The past few weeks have pretty much been a non-stop complaint-fest about how I’m unable paint the house because my shoulder hurts. My life is not worth living unless I can paint the house. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m sure you’re as sick of hearing about it, about as much as I am writing about it.

Well, on Friday I made the decision to start painting the house again this weekend despite my shoulder. I would be just like an NFL player and play through the pain and then heal in the off-season. Off-season for me being winter time. Well, actually, I work just as hard in the winter, so that’s a bad analogy, but you get the point. I can’t paint the house in the winter, so that’s when I will heal. I had accepted the fact that this would be My Summer of Pain.

I woke up Saturday and got out there about noon. I didn’t want to push it too hard and have an 8 hour marathon day of scraping paint off the house. I figured I would use my left arm as much as possible and limit the use of the right arm. Well, that doesn’t really work to well. If you’re a right-handed person you naturally want to use your right hand. It’s one of the laws of nature and sure enough about 20 minutes in to scrapping I was mostly using my right arm.

At first it seemed fine. There was a little discomfort, but nothing like I expected. I consciously went back to my left arm when ever I thought about it, but eventually, and sooner rather than later, the scraper ended back in my right hand. The shoulder didn’t hurt so much as the muscles on the ribcage (not sure what they’re called). I think it was from lack of use more than anything. It sort of felt like I had pulled a muscle or something. In the 4 hours I spent scrapping paint, though, I only iced my shoulder once, and that was more preventative than anything else. I iced it while I ate lunch. The fact was my shoulder didn’t really hurt. I mean, for the first time in weeks my shoulder didn’t hurt.

This morning I woke up with a sore shoulder. It was no worse or better than everyday for the past few weeks. It was the same pain I’ve woken up with every morning. The scrapping really didn’t aggravate it any. I wrote a rather long email to a friend this morning and that really bothered it. Typing at the keyboard as been very difficult for the past few weeks. That is the reason for my relatively few posts on my blog recently and the reason for the e.e. petch post. Sometimes I am reduced to typing with my left hand only. The email I wrote this morning was no different. About half way through I had an ice pack on my shoulder. The last few edits were done solely with my left hand.

Still, I was determined to finished scrapping the front of the house. I went back out there around noon and scrapped away. This time I used what ever arm I wanted to. About 2 hours in, it was as if I had never hurt my shoulder at all! I noticed no pain what so ever. It was the most bizarre thing in the world. The constant motion of scrapping must have knocked, shoved, or pushed something back in place, or took something out of a place it shouldn’t have been.

I’m not going to say I am back to 100% with my shoulder, but the improvement is astounding. Even now, as I write this blog entry, there is only mild discomfort. This morning when I was writing that email I had the icepack on my shoulder after the third paragraph. Now, I’m half way through the 7th paragraph and I only have mild discomfort. If I believed in miracles I would be calling the Vatican right now.

Body heal thyself.

At Least It Wasn’t A Penis-Sippy-Cup

It could always be worse, right? Sometimes you really have to stretch for that silver lining, but somewhere, someplace you hope that somebody’s got it worse off than you. Even if it’s not true that someone has it worse than you, you tell yourself this just so you can still sleep at night. So for me it’s the lack of a penis-sippy-cup in the apartment being vacated by one of my tenants that helps me get through the night.

So what did I get instead of a penis-sippy-cup, you ask? I got piles of garbage, a refrigerator full of rotting food, and the over powering stench of cat urine. My tenant, who was by most accounts a good tenant, abandoned the apartment several months ago and moved in with her boyfriend. She continued to pay rent so what did I care. I considered her the perfect tenant - She paid rent every month and was never home. What more could I ask for. Little did I know she had her utilities cut off, oh, and she never emptied her refrigerator. And then there was the 4 bags of garbage that looked like they had been there for months, the sink full of dirty dishes, and the litter box. I’m not sure where the cat is.

The worst part, if it can get any worse, was that I had no idea how bad the apartment was until I showed it to new prospective tenants last Sunday. I was both shocked and embarrassed by the condition. I had advertised the apartment as “clean and quiet” and this place should be condemned by the health department. Surprisingly three of the people I showed it to still filled out applications and I’ve agreed to rent it to one of them. She said she would rent it on the condition the odor was gone. I assured her it would be even if it meant replacing the carpets.

I think the current tenant, the one who left the mess, was caught off guard that I was showing the apartment so soon. She probably figured, “Oh, I’ve got a month to clean it up, so what’s the hurry”. I rent the apartment for below market value because I don’t like to deal with it. The logic is, when I advertise I get a lot of people who want to live there and I usually get the cream of the crop to chose from. In fact, this is really my first bad experience. I put an ad on CraigsList.com and got about 20 response the first 5 days. I showed it Sunday and it’s rented despite the mess.

I called the tenant Monday morning and left a very unpleasant voice mail for her. When I got home from work that day there was an apologetic letter waiting for me. I’ve seen her cleaning the place up the past few days. The apartment had better be spotless and odor free when she leaves or I will be charging her a lot to clean the place. The new tenant seems nice. Another single female college student who drives a nice car and appears to be from a nice home. I could see that look in her eye when I showed her the place. She was able to look past the garbage and see the potential. It may be her first place by herself and I could tell she was already decorating it in her head. I think she’ll be a good tenant.