I Love My House But I Hate It Too

I love my house but I hate it too. Let me explain.

My actual house is great. We were lucky enough to buy it in the exact neighborhood we wanted to live in, and renovated 75% of it before we officially moved in, so I love my hardwoods and my pretty crown molding and my marble bathroom and my all-white kitchen (#basicbitch). 

BUT. Why didn't any of you tell me owning a house IS THE ACTUAL WORST?

Two stories, beginning with the Great Mold Incident of 2016: 

Our water heater is in the garage. We live in a gated community, park on the street, and primarily use the garage for storage (aka 800 boxes of Rami's comic books and a chandelier I bought two years ago and have yet to hang), so we are rarely in there.

Back in October, we noticed a tiny puddle on the floor outside the door leading to the garage. Literally as I type this I am getting traumatized so I'll cut to the chase. Over the course of a week or so, the water heater S L O W L Y leaked backwards into our house - we only noticed when the WALLS IN THE OFFICE STARTED TURNING GREEN and the floor started to BUCKLE. 

That fucking water heater caused $15,000 worth of damage and we had to redo the entire room. WE DIDN'T HAVE HOT WATER FOR THREE WEEKS. We showered at the neighbors. Yes, that was me marching through Encino in Rami's bathrobe. I was so upset I had to go back to therapy. Oh and did I mention insurance denied the claim? OF COURSE THEY DID.

Deep breaths, Jord. 

More recently, this past weekend, Rami and I came home late on Friday night and when we walked up to the front door, we were greeted by the sight of TWO DOZEN DEAD BEES just chillin on our doormat. UH. Rami immediately said "This is how horror movies begin, we need to leave now" and we should just abandon our house forever but I insisted we go in and rescue Truff :) We cleaned up the bees and went to sleep - but then in the morning, when Rami went to go get me a coffee, there were two dozen NEW DEAD BEES. 

So we called the bee man. His company was called Queen Bee Removal. I announced on the phone "There is only allowed to be one queen in this house and it's me," but he was not amused. When he arrived to suss out the situation, I walked out of the house to greet him. Before I could even say hello he said "I can already see your hive" and it was off to the goddamn races. Apparently a hive had set up camp in our roof, above our front door. Long story short, he spent hours - over the course of 2 days! - crawling around the roof and the attic and insulation until he finally figured out what wall it was attached to. 

How did he remove it, you ask? OH, BY CUTTING A HOLE IN MY GODDAMN HOUSE. The cost of several pairs of shoes later, the bees were gone and FOUR honeycombs were in his truck, ready to be carted off to a bee farm (yes, we hired an ethical bee remover. No, that was not on purpose - more of a perk.)  And no, I did not keep any of the honey. I did not want any ROOF HONEY. 

I will say that this time around I was much calmer than the last time. No therapy and no Xanax was needed. Instead I just ate sushi three meals in a row and did some deep breathing. 

To sum it all up - I love my house. I love shopping for furniture and cooking in the kitchen I designed from scratch and I love hosting friends over and snuggling on the couch. 

But I still wish I had a landlord to deal with this shit sometimes.