Septic 

2 creative works found

• Everything
• Images
• T-Shirts
• Writing
• Journals

• 

  septic
  by burningark

  US$3.56

• Fleas in the Basement
  by Julie Miles

  And Other Renters’ Horrors Before I begin my piece, I want everyone to understand that out of the three dogs my family has owned in …

  And Other Renters’ Horrors Before I begin my piece, I want everyone to understand that out of the three dogs my family has owned in 26 years, not one of them has ever had fleas. Or ticks. Or worms. Or any other parasites. However, this really isn’t about dogs at all. That may be in another bit of writing. First, dearest reader, you need a bit of background. My family is renting a house for the summer while we are having a house built. We were fortunate that a co-worker (of sorts) of my mother’s decided that she wanted us to be tenants as she and her family were moving to Alabama. Her husband has not been terrifically pleased with the situation, because in the meantime they have been attempting to sell their house. To really get a good picture, the asking price $450,000 US. At the time I’m writing this that converts to: 49,313,249.59 Japanese yen, 494, 831.68 Australian dollars, 230,895.01 British pounds, 291,800.26 Euros, or 471,015 Canadian dollars, according to Yahoo’s currency converter. Personally, I think they are charging for the piece of property itself, because this two-decade house could never sell for that amount. Ok, ok the house itself isn’t really a bad house. I take that back. We’ll start with a tour from the basement up. As you may have gleaned, the basement has fleas. It is the only floor in the place with carpeting, so fortunately, they stay down there. Unfortunately, the main computer was “required” to be placed down there. I’m not entirely sure why; something about the cable network or whatnot. The basement also smells a bit and has really bad lighting. Obviously, the homeowners allowed their dogs to run rampant down there and judging by the stains on the carpet, well… Let’s move on to the kitchen. We had to scrub most of the cabinets and drawers when we moved in because no one had ever done it in the past. Actually, no one had ever cleaned anywhere in the past. You know what? Skip the pretenses of this being a “house tour,” it is time for a rant. The appliances are almost all the originals – we have to wash the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. There are stains in the microwave that are never coming out. Heck, there are stains on the fairly new hard wood floors that are never coming out (we tried, trust me). The refrigerator was making odd noises and running constantly, so my father pulled it out to shop-vac behind it. The dust bunnies were more like the man-eating rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And don’t even get me started on the water and plumbing. Too late! I have had well water that is actually very good, where I couldn’t even tell the difference between that and city water. Actually, that was during an Environmental Studies class where our teacher was having us taste-test water. We don’t even let our dog drink the tap water here. Coming out of the “filtered” fridge, it still tastes sulfuric. My bathroom smells like sulfur and rotting tobacco. After taking a shower, we can here the water in the pipes for a good 20 minutes or more. And the pipes and drains – we have had at least two drain back-ups from hair (not ours) and food (again, not ours). I don’t really know if Drain-O is septic tank friendly, but if it wasn’t, it is now. It really wouldn’t surprise me to walk outside one day and find the septic overflowed and busted. So what is my point? I just can’t imagine how people live like this especially when the price tag on the house is $450K! I admit to being an extremely messy person, but messy is one thing, filthy is quite another. It’s almost like the sort of thing you see on Cops. One thing is for certain: if the house is sold, these people have my family to thank for it.