Easy Solutions to Common Home Maintenance Problems

By Jacob Marrinson on May 9, 2017

If you are a student, chances are that homeownership lies beyond your reach in the current economic climate. Still, if you are fortunate enough to be able to attain this coveted milestone, or even if you are considering it as a hazy possibility sometime in the distant future, you will need to be aware of the many issues with which you, as a homeowner, may be beset.

It’s easy to think of a home as a static structure, changeless and inviolate, but the real truth of the matter is that your home is decaying around you constantly, and it is only through a ceaseless uphill battle with time and the elements that you may keep it in livable condition.

While home maintenance is a subject about which many hefty books can and have been written, the scope of this article is such that I can only cover a few of the most common issues here. I urge you to seek out more thorough literature on the subject as soon as humanly possible … it may already be too late to save your home from total collapse

1. Leaky Pipes

Pipes are notoriously fickle creatures that will not hesitate to betray you if they sense any weakness on your part. Whether they’re being used as murder weapons in Victorian novels or contaminating the local water supply with increasingly substantial quantities of lead, pipes have been one of humanity’s most untrustworthy technologies for millennia.

As unlikely as it is that the pipes in your home will spontaneously begin to produce toxic chemicals or find their way into the hands of one of six conveniently color-coded killers, there is a high probability that they will choose to rebel in an altogether more mundane way: by leaking. Dealing with a leaky pipe depends in part on whether or not the offending pipe is exposed. If so, a bucket can be placed underneath it to catch stray water and effluent, but if not, creative measures may be necessary. Most walls can be breached with relative ease using a heavy implement such as a sledgehammer or gallon jug of water. Beware, however, that repairing large holes in plaster is not one of the topics covered in this piece.

Once you achieve access to the leaky pipe, you will have to demonstrate your strength in order to restore its respect and obedience. Don’t pull any punches here. Really show it who’s boss. I recommend wrestling a large and vicious animal within full view of the pipe, but a large and vicious acquaintance will do in a pinch. Don’t forget to compensate your acquaintance for their trouble.

2. Disembodied Groaning

Everyone is familiar with the distant, muffled groaning and creaking that old buildings sometimes produce. These noises are frequently misidentified as being the sound of the building “settling.” This could not be further from the truth.

A noisy building is a restless building, and a restless building is a dangerous and unpredictable creature. When a structure starts to get on in years, it experiences a phenomenon very much like a mid-life crisis, reevaluating its place in the world and its accomplishments over the years. Most buildings understandably come out of this experience feeling somewhat feeble and inadequate, and the ominous noises that residents experience are a manifestation of this condition. A restless building may do any number of things, nearly all of which are undesirable for the occupants. These actions range from having themselves renovated in increasingly tacky ways to uprooting themselves and moving somewhere more glamorous.

If you feel that your home may be getting restless, it’s imperative that you take action without delay. You’ll need to contact an architectural psychologist — a simple web search should lead you to a number of reputable professionals — and arrange for a treatment of architectural therapy. The treatment can last anywhere from weeks to months to years, but it’s important to remain committed. Your relationship with your home is a two-way street; if you want it to keep you happy, you need to do the same for it.

3. Faulty Bear-Proofing

Whether you live in the bear-haunted forests of Mount Bearwood, Massachusetts, the wind-swept desert of Bear Creek, Arizona, or the rolling plains of Bear County, Utah, chances are that your home is well-guarded against the constant menace of roving bears.

Standard bear-proofing was more or less perfected in the late-1800s, and protection from bears has been one of the main perks of homeownership ever since. Unfortunately, many homeowners become complacent in their safety from bears, overestimating the security of their homes against ursine incursion. The truth is that the bear-detection technology used in standard home bear-proofing, while sophisticated, will never be fail-proof. Bear experts estimate that as much as 15 percent of all home bear-proofing solutions fail every year, but as only 2 percent of those failures lead to attacks, the rest go unnoticed. Therefore, it is vital not only to ensure that your bear deterrents remain active and effective but also to check that your bear-detection systems are still in good working order.

Bear experts recommend yearly checkups. The simplest way to do this is to rent out an actual bear for the afternoon. Tame bears are usually very safe and can be accessed at quite reasonable rates, but accidents have been known to happen. It has become increasingly common in recent years to use convincing bear suits to test bear security systems, but bear experts warn that a bear detection system can only be said to work with absolute certainty if it has been shown to consistently detect actual bears. If your bear detection system test should fail, you should immediately retreat to the safety of the nearest bear-secure home and phone bear control services. They should be around to repair your bear security system shortly. On no account should you ever attempt to repair your own bear security system. Some things are best left to the professionals.

Once again, these are just a few of the problems that you may encounter in your time as a homeowner. Many fine books have been written on the subject of home maintenance, and it behooves all responsible homeowners to apprise themselves of the information therein. If you treat your home right, you will enjoy many years of security and comfort. If you fail to attend to your duties, you may find yourself doomed to a lifetime of unaccountable puddles, strange noises, and bears.

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