Aristo! Aristo! A la lanterne!: Sure, it's a rental house... but.....

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Sure, it's a rental house... but.....

I know a lot of people won't understand this. In fact, quite a few will think its nuts... or worse... stupid. I just spent the last few hours repairing the back deck on this house. Screwing down warped boards, routering edges, running a belt sander over railings and board ends, putting the first coat of stain/sealer on...

I spent a few hours on it yesterday too, and over the past year I've pressure washed it four times, bleaching it twice.

Why? Because it needed doing.

When we moved in, the deck and patio were dark green with algae and slick as a skating rink. I don't think they had been cared for in many years. That.... affronted my sense of 'How It Should Be'. Things should be taken care of, maintained, minded...... just...... someone should care enough to treat them right.

Even if it's a rental property.

Before we left for vacation, I chipped, scraped, sanded, and painted the front porch and pillars.

Because.... it needed done, and it was worth doing.

4 comments:

ZerCool said...: Wait, you mean you take some pride in ownership/caretaking? How dare you!

When we moved out of our last apartment the landlord and I did a final walkthrough. She refunded my security deposit on the spot and told me the apartment looked better than it ever had. It only took a morning or two of work - a little scrubbing, patch a few tiny nail holes, vacuum and shampoo the carpet.

We had to mow the lawn as part of our lease. I bought (and kept when we moved) a trimmer so I could get the edges cleaned up. Just common sense.; July 24, 2011 at 12:53 PM
M*A said...: This brings back memories of a conversation I had with a woman more than 30 years ago. I was out weeding and mowing the lawn of a house where we rented an apartment. The woman asked me if we bought the house. I said no. She looked at me totally confused and asked "well then, why are you doing all this?". My answer then as would be now, "because I live here".

It's a matter of pride..the good kind.; July 24, 2011 at 1:34 PM
suz said...: This should be normal, but sadly it's not. BH and I are NOT neat freaks, by anybody's standards, but our last landlord was sad to see us go. When did routine maintenance become extraordinary?; July 24, 2011 at 6:27 PM
Old NFO said...: Ah yes... responsibility :-) Thank you for doing the RIGHT thing!!!; July 25, 2011 at 7:25 PM

Robert Heinlein

"Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please — this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!
So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)"

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.