Monday, September 13, 2010

While We Were Out

There used to be a television show on TLC that I pilfered the title of this post from. The basic premise of the show was this: A homeowner is coerced into leaving their home for a weekend. While the homeowner is away, renovations and redecorating are completed on the home. The homeowner comes back and cries.

This past weekend, as I mentioned in a previous post, Amanda and I were out of town. Teresa Strasser, host of the now cancelled TLC show, did not show up, but redecorating of another kind was certainly completed. Here's a recap of the events:

Thursday:

Al Medina walked through the house with an inspector. That inspector signed off on the building permits that Al took out, so everything is seemingly approved (aside form the electrical systems). This is good news on the surface, but great news on a deeper level. Or on a more important level. Or something else that has to do with levels.

Because the permit included doing work to make Dan's Guest House unlivable by humans, the City now says that it is unlivable. The kitchen was removed and the electrical and plumbing lines to the House were cut. This was apparently enough to satisfy the City and they have removed the violation from the house. This is fantastic news. Really, it's great. now I don't have to go to court and stand in front of a judge with a tie on. The court date is scheduled for the 29th of this month, but now I don't have to show up. Instead, the Inspector will show up and tell the judge that the violation has been removed and that I shouldn't be fined further. Great.

Friday:

We left on Thursday, but the folks at Venture Windows still showed up on Friday to install a bunch of windows. They did just that. See?













Weekend:

There was nothing scheduled for the weekend as far as work being done on the house. Amanda and I were away and not many folks work on weekends anyways, so I didn't expect any visitors until the folks at Lee's Flooring showed up on Monday morning to refinish the hardwoods. This in mind, we were surprised to find a little bit of work done on the house when we returned on Sunday morning. Not good work mind you, but there was definitely something different about things when we pulled into the driveway. For instance: The door to Dan's Guest House was open when we pulled in.

Peculiar.

Little known fact: In some instances, very rarely, the word "peculiar" is a synonym of the phrase, "mother effword. That stupid effword door is open and that is terrible. All of our stuff is likely burgled. Essword."

This is the rare case when peculiar is synonymous with the above. Dan's Guest house was broken into and a lot of the stuff we were storing was stolen. Hooray.

On Friday, when the new windows were installed, the window installers failed to put up the curtain that was hung to obstruct the view into Dan's Guest House. I postulate that some neighborhood jerks looked in, saw all of our stuff and decided to take it. Here's the scene:

Exterior:













This window was broken. The burglar pushed the screen aside, broke the window reached into the hole in the glass, unlocked the window and climbed into Dan's Guest House. He then opened the door from the inside to make things a little easier and proceeded to rifle through the remaining crap in there and remove it from the premises.













These shelves were filled with tools (including a still in the box, never used table saw):













There used to be a very expensive bicycle over here:













Here's where two snowboard and two skateboards were last seen:













If you look at that second picture (where the bike used to be), you can rule out looking at the local library for the thieves. They likely aren't strong readers, as they left all of our books (some still in the original box we packed them in!). I didn't mention this to the policeman that showed up, but I think he can figure it out for himself...

A few other things were taken (old computer and monitor, video games, etc), but all in all, not too bad. They didn't break into the main house, so our bigger/more important stuff is still in our possession, but it would have been nice to keep that snowboard and bike. Oh, and, you know, since we're renovating a house, all of those tools. Farts.

The good news in all of this? I still don't have insurance. That is not good news.

In the end, it's only stuff. Stuff that we were going to sell soon anyways, so while we're out a few hundred (or maybe thousand) bucks, at least we still have the huge television, video game systems and our bed. And 200 foot extension cord. And primitive plumbing.

To cap things off here, I'd like to give thanks. I generally don't show this side of myself to anyone, especially the internet, but once in awhile it's probably healthy to let those in your life know how thankful you really are and why. So here goes:

I am thankful for the folks who put in my new windows and left all of our stuff on display for anyone who felt like looking in.

I am thankful for desperate people in society who risk physical harm and terms in prison for a three year old computer and two snowboards.

I am thankful for the insurance company underwriters that canceled my policy despite my repeated logical arguments attempting to sway them.

Lastly, I am thankful that my friend Josh got married on the day I was getting new windows installed.

Big news tomorrow. I promise.

1 comment:

Khristen said...

*insert frowny-face here*