It started few months ago with the washer not filling up our washer. Oh and have we ever mentioned that our washer/dryer is outdoor in the backyard? yeah, we won't go there for now. After debugging the washer for a few weeks, kinda like coding, I finally figured out it could be the solenoil. I know, I know, sole-who? I still find that name kinda funny. The $30 part finally came this week and I replaced it immediately thinking we could finally do a load of laundry that wont' take 4 hours. Nope, no luck.
Moving on to this warning light that came on in my car. Took it immediately to the dealer only to get a call few hours later. "Sorry to inform you that rodent damage would not be covered under warranty." I remembered almost having a heart attack, just can't recall if it was from the estimated $680 we would have to drop to repair the cables or the fact we have rats in our detached garage. When I stopped back to the dealer to see under the hood with them, we found a few half eaten figs and lots of rat droppings, looks like they've been having a parteeeee in there for a while now
With car in the shop, the next issue to tackle is what to do with the new pets we now have in the garage. Suggestions came from all directions, from buying a new house to leaving Charlie in the garage from Jean's mom since she is not a big fan of Charlie. We finally decided on fixing the garage once and for all. We knew most likely the rats were living and coming into the garage through this semi storage shed contraption that the previous owners built between the garage and the fence. It's nothing more than pieces of wood acting as a small roof connecting between the garage wall and the fence.
While waiting for handymen to come and give estimates on Sat afternoon with our friend hanging out over at our house, he suggested, "why don't we just do it ourselves?" By now, it's 2PM and we were all just lounging in front of the TV waiting for an evening BBQ with some other friends. But hey, what the heck, I'm an engineer, he's in sales, neither of us handymen (ok, he is more than me), let's do it!
While he went home to get some tools, Jean and I started the demolition work. We'll spare you all the details, but let's say a few rat skeleton showed up while digging up the dirt and rotten wood in that so called storage area. I know, huh? rodent skeleton!!!
We ended up calling another friend up for reinforcement and also to borrow their truck so we can get wood from Home Depot. After a day and half of sawing, (lack of proper) measurements, lots of nails and screws of various sizes and few cans of foam, we were finally done around Sunday evening. Not exactly Extreme Home Makeover or Cribs quality, but a handyman came by later and said it wasn't too bad of a job, Jean and I both think he was just being nice while trying not to laugh his behind off.
Now the finale. With the car fixed, half of the garage rebuild and the washer almost back to full operation, things were almost all back to normal. Then on Tue night, I did something stupid which I won't mention here and broke the build-in microwave/hood combo above the stove. The handyman came by and dropped off an Asian range hood which he'll come back and install next week. On a side note, did you know Googling for "asian hood" and "asian range hood" gives you very different results? Never thought I'd Google for something that sounded gangsta.
So that would conclude our eventful week. On the bright side, we both still have jobs, nice house, nice cars, cute dog, so we're not going to complain :-)
Friend just came by tonight and told us he fixed his leaky toilet, probably our bad luck rubbing off in his house now. Hmm... we think our toilet might be leaking too, maybe we'll try to fix that next weekend?
