Bin Lazen

Okay, okay, things got a little tough there. It's been a couple of months (really!) since I last put claw to keyboard.
But between work, work, work and the house falling down around our ears, it's been unbearable. First we noticed the musty smell in the living room. Must be the books, we thought. We have so many of them. No, really so many. Four floor to ceiling bookshelves in the LR, with books crammed and packed in stacks in 'em. We really need more shelves. Course, we haven't any room for them, but.
After forcing the spousal unit to get rid of quite a few books, we managed to move some of the mess in the corner, only to notice that the floor near the fireplace was ... wet. Icky eugh. Blackish and rotting, even. Water seeping up under it, and mold on the wall. So we tried to find someone to come in and look at it and tell us what to do.
They came, all right. In droves. With ridiculous quotes. I mean, we'd have to sell the children into lifelong slavery to afford what most of these people were quoting us. (The children, having tails, long hair, and fleas, ain't worth much in the slavery market, but that's another story.)
So we refi'd the house. Always good for a few weeks of stomach-churning tension, as we root through the files to find the financial statements we must append to our application, entertain the appraiser, the loan company, the title company, the insurance guy (who came to look at the damage), all interspersed with interviewing contractors, soliciting names and recommendations, finding engineers, researching city policies as best we could online and sweating buckets at the thought of having the house rehabbed while we continue to live in it with five cats ranging from totally psycho to mildly neurotic to somewhat, uh, Speshul.
More to follow as the tragedy unfolds, no doubt. At least we found a guy who'd do it for a reasonable amount, seems to know what he's doing, seems to be trustworthy, and specializes in (i) old houses; (ii) hydraulic engineering; (iii) foundation work. Oh, yeah, plus he's both an engineer and a contractor. And did I mention, he seems nice?
Course, he could always turn out to be a total fucking psychopath, like the guy who took down the trees on the hill, but a person has a right to hope. And all that yaya.

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